Between Interior and Exterior — Which Comes First, Inner Confidence or Outer Bearing?

"Isn't it a lie to act as though I have confidence when I don't?" — many have felt this. Conversely, perhaps you have spent a long time waiting for the interior to be in order before moving, and ended up unable to move at all. Interior and exterior — inner confidence and outer bearing — which comes first, which comes second? What this volume presses is the proposition that dismantles that binary. Interior and exterior are not in a relation of cause and effect; they exist within a circulating structure that makes each other in parallel. From William James's body-first hypothesis, through Jung's theory of the persona, Goffman's self-presentation, Amy Cuddy's power posing, Bem's self-perception theory, and Zeami's riken no ken ("the seeing of detached perception") — six traditions have depicted this circulation in different words.

01Is "Putting on a Show" a Lie or a Strategy? — Dissolving the Binary

When we speak of confidence we often struggle between two poles. One is purism — "to put on a face of confidence when the interior is not in order is a lie." The other is pragmatism — "just behave with poise, the interior follows later." Both have a point, but both see only one face.

The hypothesis put forward in this volume is that interior and exterior are not in a temporally separated relation of cause and effect; they exist in a circulating relation that makes each other in parallel. The interior makes the exterior; the exterior makes the interior. Neither can be fixed as the starting point. Rather, how one designs that circulation becomes the practice for cultivating confidence. This is not philosophical speculation but a fact that psychology since the nineteenth century has confirmed by experiment.

02William James's Body-First Hypothesis — Behaviour Makes Feeling

The father of American psychology, William James (1842–1910), put forward in his 1884 and 1890 writings a proposition that overturned the common sense of the time. Feeling arises "after" the bodily reaction — this is the core of the James-Lange theory.

"Common sense says we meet the bear, become afraid, tremble, and run. But the truth is the reverse. We meet the bear, tremble and run, and then become afraid. The body's reaction makes the feeling." — paraphrase of William James, "What Is an Emotion?" Mind (1884)

James's claim provoked fierce dispute at the time, but contemporary emotion research has confirmed the core of his intuition. Feeling and bodily reaction cannot be separated, and the body often precedes feeling. This can be applied to confidence as well — it is not that one feels confidence and then squares the shoulders; squaring the shoulders is what makes confidence rise.

James said something similar in another paper — "If you want to be cheerful, behave cheerfully. If you want to be brave, behave bravely." This was not exhortation but a practical proposition derived from his psychology. The techniques of voice, expression, atmosphere, and gaze, treated from Vol. 4 onward in this series, are contemporary developments of James's intuition.

03Jung's Persona and Shadow — An Ethics of the Mask

Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961), already cited in Vol. 1, observed the problem of exterior and interior through the framework of persona and shadow. Persona, from the Greek for "mask," refers to the self-image one presents in social situations.

"The persona is not a necessary evil. It is a mask required for social life. The problem arises when one identifies one's persona with oneself entirely, or, conversely, when one rejects the persona altogether and tries to live only from the 'true self.'" — paraphrase of C. G. Jung, The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious (1928)

What Jung shows is that to "act as though one has confidence" is in itself healthy. The problem lies in the two temptations beyond — (1) the temptation to identify the persona with oneself entirely, denying the inner fragility and shadow; (2) the temptation to reject the persona as a "lie" and lose the capacity to act appropriately in social situations.

Healthy confidence lies on a third path. To handle the persona consciously, while not denying the shadow (the anxiety and fragility) behind it, and to keep one's connection with the Self (Selbst) that integrates both. This is the Jungian regulation of interior and exterior.

04Goffman, "Everyday Life as Theatre" — The Sociology of Self-Presentation

The Canadian-American sociologist Erving Goffman (1922–1982) set out, in his 1959 The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, a new perspective in which human social behaviour is observed as theatre.

"Everyday life is a stage. Each of us is an actor and audience in turn, playing roles for the situation. We hold a private self in the 'backstage,' and we perform for others in the 'front stage.' This is not deceit. It is the structure of the human being as a social existence." — paraphrase of Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959)

Goffman's implication is deep. To "play oneself" is not a lie but the very structure of social life. The self facing a requester as a reviewer, the self at the dinner table with family, the self at night before sleep — all are playing different "roles." All are genuinely oneself; none is the complete self.

From this perspective, "acting as though one has confidence" is not deceit but performance appropriate to a social situation. The problem is not the performance itself but whether one can remain connected to oneself even in the backstage (when one is alone). Goffman took the healthy functioning of both front stage and backstage as an indicator of psychological health.

05Amy Cuddy's Power Posing — The Body Changes the Mind

Entering the twenty-first century, the social psychologist at Harvard Business School Amy Cuddy (1972–) pursued James's intuition empirically. Her 2010 paper (Carney, Cuddy, Yap) and her 2012 TED Talk "Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are" reverberated around the world.

"Subjects who held a 'power pose' for two minutes (chest open, hands on hips or spread wide) showed reduced cortisol (the stress hormone), elevated testosterone, and increased risk-taking behaviour. 'Putting on the bearing' was changing them physiologically." — paraphrase of Carney, Cuddy & Yap, "Power Posing," Psychological Science (2010)

* Note: regarding the hormonal effects of the 2010 paper, subsequent replications have reported smaller effect sizes (Ranehill et al. 2015; Cuddy et al. 2018). What Cuddy herself emphasises in later work is that the rise in subjective sense of confidence is the more robust effect, more so than the hormonal variation.

After the replication debate, Cuddy's message has become more refined. Bodily posture immediately changes subjective confidence. This means James's nineteenth-century intuition has been partially confirmed by twenty-first-century experiments. Cuddy's famous formulation — "Fake it till you make it. Fake it till you become it." — is the philosophical pillar of the bodily techniques to be treated in Vols. 4–7 of this series.

06Bem's Self-Perception Theory — Knowing Oneself from Behaviour

The American social psychologist Daryl Bem (1938–) put forward, in 1972, self-perception theory. This is a theory that reverses our common sense.

"Individuals do not observe their internal states directly; they infer their internal states (attitudes, feelings, confidence) by observing their own outward behaviour and the situation in which that behaviour arose. We see ourselves by the same method we see others." — paraphrase of Daryl Bem, "Self-Perception Theory," Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (1972)

Bem's implication resonates with James. We are judging our interior by observing our own behaviour. When one observes oneself "acting as though one has confidence," the inference rises inwardly that "I seem to have confidence." Conversely, when one observes oneself "behaving timidly," the inference rises that "I seem to lack confidence."

This has a strong implication. Not only "the interior makes the exterior," but the circuit "the exterior makes the interior" is psychologically established. The bodily techniques this series proposes are the conscious deployment of that circuit.

07Zeami's Riken no Ken — Noh's Wisdom of Seeing Oneself

From the Eastern lineage, the classical wisdom that integrates interior and exterior. The master of Muromachi Noh, Zeami (c. 1363 – c. 1443), called the perspective the Noh actor must hold on stage riken no ken (離見の見, "the seeing of detached perception") in Kakyō (1424).

"Speak of mokuzen shingo (eyes forward, heart behind): there are two kinds of seeing, the seeing of one's own perception and the seeing of detached perception. The actor's own seeing is what the actor sees of himself; detached perception is what one sees of oneself through the eyes of the audience. By detached perception, one must be able to see even one's own back." — paraphrase of Zeami, Kakyō (1424)

The riken no ken Zeami sets out is the Noh-theatrical formulation of contemporary psychology's metacognition. To see oneself also through the eyes of the audience from outside. An actor who can do this remains conscious of how his figure appears to others while still preserving the truth of expression from within.

The implication reaches the theme of this volume directly. The ethics of "putting on a show" depend on whether one can preserve riken no ken. Those who can objectively observe their own exterior do not let the show become a lie. The moment one can see only the exterior and loses the connection with the interior, the show becomes the pathology of the persona. Zeami's riken no ken points, in East and West, to the same place as Jung's integration of the persona.

08The Circulating Structure of Interior and Exterior — A Spiral View

Integrating the six traditions, the structure of confidence may be drawn as follows.

From Vol. 4 onward, this series treats the concrete techniques of Circuit B (Outside → Inside) — voice, expression, atmosphere, gaze. This is not "ignoring the interior," but the view that the body is used as one powerful pathway for composing the interior. To put it in Zeami's terms, it is the technique of turning the circuit consciously while preserving riken no ken.

09In the Pharmaceutical Workplace — Turning the Circulation of Inside and Outside

Let us bring the abstract down to the field. Scenes in the reviewer's daily work in which the circulation of inside and outside can be consciously deployed.

10Four Practices for Circulating Interior and Exterior

To bring the same place to which the six traditions pointed down into daily practice, four practices are set here.

Interior and exterior are not in a relation of cause and effect but in a circulating relation that makes each other. William James's body-first hypothesis, Jung's persona integration, Goffman's self-presentation, Amy Cuddy's power posing, Bem's self-perception theory, and Zeami's riken no ken — the six traditions have pointed, in different words, to the same place. "Compose the interior first, then move" and "act first, the interior follows" each see only one face. The one who can turn both circuits consciously cultivates genuine confidence.

If you feel "isn't it a lie to act as though I have confidence when I don't?" — ask again. "Am I preserving riken no ken? Behind the show, am I denying the shadow? Can I still feel connected to myself in the backstage?" The moment of asking transforms the show from a lie into a technique.