Latest news with #IanRobertson
The Guardian
8 hours ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Is it true that … power poses boost your confidence?
You may have noticed it before: someone standing feet apart, hands on hips, chest out. Or maybe you've done it yourself before a job interview or big presentation. This is 'power posing' – the idea that striking a bold posture can make you feel more confident and improve performance. But does it work? The concept took off in the early 2010s. 'A few studies seemed to show if you expanded your body position, it would change your psychological state,' says Professor Ian Robertson of Trinity College Dublin and author of How Confidence Works. 'Other studies showed that it could alter testosterone levels, boosting motivation.' But science has since cooled on the claims. 'Subsequent meta-analyses haven't confirmed this as a reliable effect,' Robertson explains. Still, something interesting has emerged from more robust studies. While there's limited evidence that making yourself bigger directly boosts confidence, there is strong evidence that making yourself smaller can have the opposite effect. Slumping in your seat, hunching shoulders or folding into yourself can make you feel less bold. 'If you sit at a meeting in a crouched or huddled position, making yourself small, it affects both your emotion and your performance. You're less likely to persist through difficult problems. Your mood is lower and you feel less confident.' Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion This taps into a broader field of psychology called embodiment, which explores how physical postures and movements are closely linked to emotional states. When we're angry, we expand. When we're fearful, we shrink. These physical responses are not just outward signs of emotion – they may also feed back into our brains, reinforcing the feelings themselves. Our emotional circuits and our physical expression circuits are tightly wired together, says Robertson. So if you fake the posture of an emotion, you may actually start to feel it. 'There's a reason that 'holding your head high' has long been emphasised in military training and finishing schools.'
RTÉ News
25-04-2025
- Science
- RTÉ News
Watch: 'Excited, terrified' - Prof Ian Robertson on our AI future
The emergence of generative artificial intelligence is changing lives, livelihoods and everyday tasks. It is also posing challenges for policymakers, regulators and politicians. But beyond that, it raises ethical and philosophical questions for the experts of today about human values, their perception of knowledge, and how societies function. Neuroscientist and Professor of Psychology at Trinity College Dublin Ian Robertson spoke to Prime Time about his views on the topic. "AI makes me feel excited and terrified... It makes me feel excited because of the problems it can solve in the world, the way it can enhance your productivity and your creativity," Professor Robertson told Prime Time producer Aaron Heffernan. "The ideas for solving the climate crisis, the ideas for more energy efficiency, for designing better batteries," Prof Robertson says. "That's all so exciting. And as a scientist and a researcher, that excites me." However, alongside that hope is a profound unease. "How do you keep these things in control? How do you stop them having quite sinister effects on human beings? And how do you stop them seeing human beings as inferior pieces of biological material that are less intelligent, prone to erratic animal instincts, vulnerable to viruses? Why should we care about them?" "If human beings can examine their values and choose to change them, which we've done ever since the Enlightenment, an intelligent machine is going to be able to do the same." "There are teams of people all over the world, ethicists, philosophers, trying to work out, how do we keep this, the genie in the bottle?" he adds. "I worry so much about my grandchildren. I worry about their jobs. I worry about the concentration of the hugely skewed inequalities that are going to become worse and worse because a smaller group of people will have vast wealth because they control the intelligence."
The Guardian
24-03-2025
- The Guardian
Former Melbourne gymnastics coach charged with seven child sex offences
A high-profile gymnastics coach, trainer of multiple Olympians and long-time owner of one of Melbourne's largest gym providers has been charged with seven child sex offences. Ross Bouskill, former owner of Jets Gymnastics, appeared via video link at Heidelberg Magistrates' Court in Melbourne on Monday. His lawyer Ian Robertson said he plans to defend the seven charges, which include allegedly exposing his penis to a child and allegedly having a child remove her top so he could take photographs. Bouskill was a mentor to hundreds of Victorian gymnasts over three decades, including some who progressed to the highest levels of the sport. In 2020 he handed over control of Jets Gymnastics, which includes seven locations in Victoria, after almost 30 years of ownership. He now runs a business consulting agency. Victorian police allege he caressed a child's leg and moved his hand upwards towards her vagina in 1995, one of seven charges stretching over 15 years. Three charges date from between 2001 and 2005, including allegedly exposing his penis to a child, allegedly massaging a child's pubic bone area with his hands and allegedly getting a child to remove her top so he could take photographs of her. Three more charges of allegedly touching the outside of child's vagina with his finger relate to a period between 2010 and 2011. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail. Sign up to Australia Sport Get a daily roundup of the latest sports news, features and comment from our Australian sports desk after newsletter promotion The matter is set down for a contest mention in June.
