Posted by I wrote a post a while ago about the non verbal messages you send your team and players and how important they are. This led to a spirited discussion in the comments section about how or if your actions affected others, and if by ‘faking’ particular actions (acting) you could influence others. Oliver maintained that players would be able to see through any attempts at acting on the part of the coach and therefore any attempts to influence the team would be a waste of time.
In the discussion a point I was trying to make was that there is research that shows that consciously making certain actions or poses actually changes YOUR OWN mood. Studies show that faking a smile or faking a ‘power pose’ (strong body language) changes your hormone balance so that your mood ends up mirroring your physical pose. So it turns out that if you try to fake some emotion you end up changing yourself. The acting that coaches do, not only influences others, but also themselves.
Acting works.
One article on the topic can be found here.
And this is TED Talk on the topic. It is especially good if you are about to go to a job interview.
At Home On The Court 
Thanks for posting this research, Mark. I didn’t thought that acting could have any good outcome for me or others. The two links seem to prove me wrong. I’m always cautious if a research shows that something is happening but can not show what is happening. What is discussed, especially in the first link considering the author’s background, here has a smell of manipulation. I was thinking of the old German word (or is it international?): Who heals is right.
But that is wrong. My discomfort with the concept of acting is not gone. But the linked research convinced me that it works in some way.
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