How powerful is a power pose?

 What the heck is a power pose? Can one really change their hormones?

How powerful is your power pose and how long does your superhuman feeling last? A listener recently asked that question after listening to my podcast How Power Poses Can Build Confidence. Research by Harvard professor Dr. Amy Cuddy shows that certain power poses affect people's hormones, making them feel more powerful and take more risks. During an interview with Inc. Magazine, Dr. Cuddy directly answered the question about how long the effects of Power Pose lasted. Inc. How long does the effect of power poses last? Can it help you get through a sales meeting? One morning, one whole day

Cuddy That is an empirical question that we will try to unravel. At this point we can fairly comfortably say that the initial effects seem to last 15-30 minutes. I think the more interesting question is whether or how it reinforces itself. You pose powerfully, you perform better, you feel more confident and powerful, then you perform even better. At the same time, people respond to that confidence and performance boost and give you feedback that further elevates your feelings of confidence and power.

In answering this question from listeners, I did a quick Google search to find this article that I had read before. Interestingly, a new result appeared on Google that caught my attention.

In May 2015, Psychological Science featured an article by a group of researchers who attempted to replicate the work of Amy Cuddy's Power Pose. What was interesting to me is that participants in the new study reported feeling more powerful, but when the researchers tested their hormones and assessed their willingness to take risks, played a gambling game, and played a math task, those feelings had no impact. in assessed behavior or body chemistry

I wonder how this will affect Amy Cuddy's work. Ars Technica weighed the differences between the two Power Pose studies and suggested reasons why the results were different and why the good feelings didn't translate into braver actions or higher hormones. Although the population tested was larger, and the second study took pains to compensate for investigator bias, they also limited human interaction between investigators and participants. Did this affect the result? Did telling participants what the study was about subtly biased responses? It is also worth noting that the studies were conducted in different countries. Could there be a cultural context in response to power poses?

These are all valuable questions that need investigation. However, the conclusion is that in both cases the participants felt more powerful. As Dr. Cuddy says, such feelings are self-reinforcing. When you feel more powerful and more confident, you will present yourself better and people will perceive you more positively, further strengthening your self-esteem. And this is always a good thing.