I often get asked about cultural differences in communications around the world, especially in terms of body language. What’s interesting is that the research of the last couple of decades has highlighted the similarities among peoples around the world more than it has found differences. So, for example, basic facial gestures turn out to be universal – even, as I always tell audiences when the question comes up, among primates. So your wide-open eyes will attract the interest of a chimpanzee just as well as another human.

That doesn’t seem to help people much. We are so fixated in this tumultuous era on the differences among cultures that we have a hard time accepting the similarities.

And of course there are differences. I got into a fascinating discussion of posture recently with some women executives from Asia. As I explained the science behind a confident posture, one of the women said, “If I stood that way in (Asia) I would be considered arrogant and pushy. Culturally, I just can’t do it.”

What’s interesting about that exchange is that we agree on the meaning of the body language – confidence is the same all around the world. It’s just the treatment of women in that society that makes the behavior ‘pushy.” I wanted to say to her, “We struggle with the same issue in the West too,” but she spoke from such a deep place of a business lifetime of being held back that anything I could say would have sounded glib. So I just went Bill Clinton on her – I told her I felt her pain, more or less, as well as I could. She said that the business culture was slowly changing in her part of the world, and that her younger female colleagues will one day be able to stand confidently without criticism.

Now along comes a study that finds another set of similarities. It turns out that introverts and extroverts are pretty much the same globally. If you talk more, are more adventurous, and have a higher energy level, you’re extroverted everywhere.

But the interesting twist the study found was that if you act that way, like an extrovert, that will make you happier – anywhere in the world. Even in group-oriented cultures such as Asian ones.  Acting like an extrovert gives you all the benefits of being one.

I love this study, published in the Journal of Research in Personality, which included people from the US, Venezuela, the Philippines, China and Japan, because it shows public speakers and other communicators a way to make the public speaking experience a happier one.

Increase your energy, take more chances, and talk more – that sounds like a recipe for a successful speech. Certainly the opposite sounds like a recipe for boredom and unhappiness. So regardless of your rating on the introvert-extrovert scale – but especially if you’re an introvert – the study offers a way forward to a happier, more successful speech.

I’ve worked with many an introvert and they certainly can be successful speakers. But the act of speaking in public is an extroverted act, and you’ll be happier if you imitate the extroverts at least while you’re on stage.