Humans and other animals express power through open, expansive postures, and they express powerlessness through closed, contractive postures. But can these postures actually cause power? The results of this study confirmed our prediction that posing in high-power nonverbal displays (as opposed to low-power nonverbal displays) would cause neuroendocrine and behavioral changes for both male and female participants: High-power posers experienced elevations in testosterone, decreases in cortisol, and increased feelings of power and tolerance for risk; low-power posers exhibited the opposite pattern. In short, posing in displays of power caused advantaged and adaptive psychological, physiological, and behavioral changes, and these findings suggest that embodiment extends beyond mere thinking and feeling, to physiology and subsequent behavioral choices. That a person can, by assuming two simple 1-min poses, embody power and instantly become more powerful has real-world, actionable implications.
High-power posers experienced elevations in testosterone, decreases in cortisol, and increased feelings of power and tolerance for risk
randomized lab results align directionally, but N=42 and outlier exclusions materially limit certainty
posing in high-power (vs. low-power) nonverbal displays caused neuroendocrine and behavioral changes for both male and female participants
causal identification is within-study only, with limited power and no robust replication of hormonal effects
embodiment extends beyond mere thinking and feeling, to physiology and subsequent behavioral choices
theoretical inference rests on one brief experiment with immediate hormone and gambling outcomes
a simple 2-minute power pose manipulation was enough to significantly alter the physiological, mental, and feeling states of our participants
reported results support an immediate lab effect, but precision is limited by small sample and exclusions
embody power and instantly become more powerful has real-world, actionable implications
real-world performance, health, and durable actionability were not measured
Derived from the full evaluation — not a separate score.
Strengths
The study tests whether high- versus low-power poses can generate changes associated with power, rather than only serving as expressions of power. This creates a clear conceptual extension of embodied cognition into hormone and risk-taking outcomes.
↳ Introduction, p. 5
The selected poses were pretested for perceived power and checked for comfort, difficulty, and pain. This helps separate the intended power-related contrast from obvious discomfort or task-difficulty confounds.
↳ Method, Power Poses, pp. 6–7
The Methods specify sampling times, diurnal control, sample handling, shipment to Salimetrics, duplicate enzyme immunoassay, and assay coefficients of variation. These details make the biological measurement procedure comparatively assessable.
↳ Method, Saliva Collection and Analysis, pp. 7–8
Limitations
The primary study includes 42 participants, with effective hormone analyses reduced further by outlier exclusions. That scale is thin for estimating brief-manipulation effects on testosterone and cortisol, which the paper reports with sizable effects.
↳ Method, p. 5; Results, pp. 8–9; Notes, p. 18
The Discussion moves from immediate laboratory hormone, self-report, and gambling outcomes to claims about interviews, public speaking, performance, health, and wellbeing. Those outcomes were not directly measured in the study.
↳ Discussion, p. 10
The Discussion cites an additional N=49 study to address whether the effect is pose-specific, but reports only powerful feelings and risk-taking. Hormonal outcomes are not reported for that additional study, even though hormones are central to the article’s headline claim.
↳ Discussion, p. 10
The article’s strongest feature is the clear experimental question linking power-related postures to hormone change, self-reported power, and a simple risk-taking outcome. The Methods provide enough procedural detail to understand the manipulation and hormone assays, including pretesting of poses and afternoon saliva collection. The score is pulled down by the small N=42 sample, outlier exclusions for hormone analyses, and the coarse single-choice gambling measure. The Abstract and Discussion also extend the findings to real-world actionability, performance, health, and wellbeing more strongly than the measured outcomes support.
Nabu’s assessment, alongside the field’s view.
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Limited2.9
Confidence highThe paper posed a novel question for its time: whether expansive versus constrictive postures could produce changes associated with power rather than merely express it. The contribution is limited by claims that move from a single short laboratory study to real-world actionability and performance implications.
no research has tested whether expansive versus constrictive power poses cause mental, physiological, and behavioral change
The design uses random assignment, a cover story, pose pretesting, baseline hormone measures, and a named external assay laboratory. Execution is limited by N=42, outlier exclusions disclosed in notes, a single binary gambling measure, and limited detail on randomisation, blinding, and analytic contingencies.
Forty-two (26 female) participants were randomly assigned
The article is organized clearly from theory to hypotheses, method, results, and discussion, with figures showing the hormone changes. Its precision is reduced by strong causal and actionable language that is not adequately qualified by the small sample and immediate laboratory design.
embody power and instantly become more powerful has real-world, actionable implications
The introduction situates the work in literatures on power, nonverbal display, embodied cognition, testosterone, cortisol, and risk-taking. The contextual treatment is less balanced in the Discussion, where limitations such as sample size, single-trial risk measurement, demand characteristics, and field generalisability are not substantively addressed.
no research has asked whether these displays generate power
Lower confidence on Reporting, Positioning — domain match limited.
Caveats4 of 4 checks
The primary experiment’s reported directions and statistics are internally coherent, but the Discussion uses an additional N=49 study as support while reporting only powerful feelings and risk-taking outcomes, not hormonal outcomes. This creates a selective-reporting watch-out rather than a demonstrated contradiction.
The study involved human participants and biological sample collection, but the supplied text does not report ethics approval or consent procedures. No suspicious data-availability claim or conflict signal is present in the text.
Flags: 0 declared / 5 total
33 of 33 checkable references verified
35 references in manuscript 2 have no canonical index record — counted, but not index-checkable 3 references confirmed by manual review
References not verified automatically are resolved manually within 24 hours.
No retraction or expression of concern found in Crossref (includes Retraction Watch).
Sources: Crossref (incl. Retraction Watch) ✓
Where this paper’s evidence sits on the path from initial observation to real-world use.
The intervention is described simply enough to reproduce in a laboratory or pilot setting: participants held two poses for one minute each. Readiness is constrained because the evidence consists of immediate laboratory outcomes rather than field implementation or durable behavioral change.
Each participant held two poses for 1-minute each
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