Study Shows Speaking Up More Makes You Seem More Competent... Even if You're Not

we use social signaling to communicate in ways we aren't aware of. In tests researchers found they could successfully predict outcomes of conversations based entirely on body language. The fact that most people are unconscious of these signals means you can hack them. This is largely what the "pick-up" community is about.

Uh-huh. The next study will reveal that the sky is blue and the water is wet.<p>This should be obvious for anyone who has spent a number of years in the corporate world - have you never seen that staple of the corp environment, the moron with no skills but a loud mouth and no scruples?

This doesn't just apply to the corporate world. As a blogger, each time I blog in an authoritative manner I find more people bending over backwards to hear what I've got to say (even when I'm talking total rubbish.)

I wonder how this relates to how we view karma on HN. Is higher karma meant to imply higher competence? The average karma per comment experiment from a few days ago seemed designed around that concept. Is karma just another way of making us feel more important or capable?

80% of management is emotional. Just like 80% of statistics are made up.