A person seen from behind standing with hands on hips at the end of an empty, sunlit meeting room before a talk
AI-generated image, not a photograph of a real person or place.
doodleposer

WHAT THE REPLICATIONS SAY

Stand tall,
feel taller?

FELT POWER yes; hormones, no

  • Feelings replicated
  • Hormones did not
  • Slumping may matter more
  • A smaller effect than first claimed

In 2010, a small study made a big claim about posture.

It reported that holding two expansive poses for one minute each raised testosterone, lowered cortisol and made people more willing to take risks. Bigger studies since then tell a narrower story: people say they feel more powerful, and not much else holds up.

Updated

Check a claim

THE SHORT ANSWER

The feeling stayed,
the hormones went.

Psychologists retested the 2010 claims many times.
The results split by what was measured.

FEELINGS

People feel more powerful

A 2015 Zurich study of 200 people again found that power poses raised self-reported feelings of power, as in the original.

Check a claim

HORMONES

No change in saliva tests

The same study found no effect on testosterone, cortisol or risk-taking. A 2017 set of pre-registered studies pointed to virtually zero effect.

See the numbers

SLUMPING

The slump may be the story

A 2020 review found effects were driven more by avoiding a hunched, closed posture than by striking an expansive one.

Read the twist

A QUICK CLAIM CHECK

Which claims
held up?

Pick an outcome from the original 2010 study or a later question. The bar shows how strongly the later, larger evidence supports it.

Claim check

Choose an outcome
Feeling more powerfulHeld up

The Zurich replication found it, and a 2017 analysis of 1,071 people across pre-registered studies found a clear effect on felt power.

Testosterone up, cortisol downNot found

The 200-person Zurich study found no hormone effect, and the 2017 special issue described virtually zero effect on hormonal measures.

Taking more risksNot found

Power posing did not change choices between safe and risky money options in the Zurich study, and behavioural effects were virtually zero in 2017.

A hunched, closed posturePreliminary

A 2020 meta-analysis found contractive postures compared with neutral ones had an effect, which its authors called preliminary evidence.

Expansive versus simply neutralNot significant

In the same 2020 meta-analysis, expansive poses did not differ significantly from a neutral posture.

Sources: The Psychologist (BPS), 'A decade of power posing: where do we stand?' (2021); University of Zurich press release (2015).

Based on the British Psychological Society's 2021 review in The Psychologist and the University of Zurich's 2015 replication. General information, not medical or psychological advice.

TWO NUMBERS WORTH KNOWING

Bigger samples,
smaller claims.

One figure from the first large replication,
one from the broadest review so far.

200 people

People in the first large retest, against 42 in the 2010 study

102 men and 98 women. Felt power rose again, but hormones and risk-taking did not change.

REPLICATION · ZURICH 2015

73 studies

Randomised studies of expansive and contractive postures identified

With 7,038 participants. Expansive poses did not differ significantly from neutral; contractive poses did.

META-ANALYSIS · 2020

Sources: University of Zurich press release (2015); The Psychologist (BPS, 2021), summarising Elkjær and colleagues (2020).

WHAT THE SAGA SHOWS

Three lessons
from one pose.

A rack of small sample tubes in a laboratory with a gloved hand lifting one tube into the light
AI-generated image, not a photograph of a real person or place.

Power posing became a textbook case of the replication crisis. The lessons apply to any headline about a quick psychological fix.

  1. Check the sample size

    The 2010 study had 42 participants; the first big retest had 200. Larger samples make chance results less likely, as the Zurich team pointed out.

  2. Separate feelings from effects

    Saying you feel more powerful is not the same as changed hormones or behaviour. The evidence split exactly along that line.

  3. Look for a neutral comparison

    Many studies only compared open with hunched poses. Without a neutral posture, you cannot tell which one caused the difference.

THE TWIST

Maybe it is
the slump.

A person seen from the side sitting hunched in a chair in a waiting area, shoulders curled and face turned away
AI-generated image, not a photograph of a real person or place.

In 2019 a researcher noted that most power posing studies had no neutral pose to compare against. In the four that did, the effects came mostly from the hunched, closed posture making things worse.

A 2020 systematic review of 73 studies reached a similar view: effects were driven more by the absence of contractive postures than by the presence of expansive ones. The authors called this preliminary and asked for more studies with neutral controls.

Questions

Questions people ask

What is a power pose?

An open, expansive posture, such as leaning back with arms behind the head. The 2010 study contrasted these with closed, contractive poses such as sitting tensely with hands clasped in the lap.

Does power posing raise testosterone?

The original 2010 study reported that, but a 2015 replication with 200 people found no effect on testosterone or cortisol, and a 2017 set of pre-registered studies found virtually zero effect on hormones.

Does power posing do anything at all?

Studies keep finding that people report feeling more powerful afterwards. Whether that changes how they act is not supported by the larger studies so far.

Is slouching bad for confidence?

A 2020 meta-analysis found preliminary evidence that contractive, hunched postures affect feelings and behaviour compared with neutral ones. Its authors asked for more research before firm conclusions.

Did the original researchers change their minds?

One of the three original authors said in 2016 that she did not believe power pose effects are real. Another argued in 2018 that the evidence for effects on feelings remains strong.

Sources

Where the facts come from

  1. The Psychologist (British Psychological Society): A decade of power posing, where do we stand? (2021)
  2. University of Zurich press release: Power posing does not affect hormones or financial risk taking (2015)
  3. Carney, Cuddy and Yap (2010) Power posing: brief nonverbal displays affect neuroendocrine levels and risk tolerance, Psychological Science
  4. Ranehill et al. (2015) Assessing the robustness of power posing, Psychological Science

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