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What Causes What
SMOKE0 NULL

Expansive posture (power pose) → Testosterone

A rise in Expansive posture (power pose) does not identify a change in Testosterone.

Two minutes in a stance does not identify an androgen change. The larger RCTs are nulls. The TED talk is not a protocol.

Randomized trial · High confidence · N=200

The association disappears when you account for other factors, like socioeconomic status or healthy-user bias.

Mechanism

Carney, Cuddy, and Yap (2010) assigned expansive versus contractive poses and reported higher T, lower cortisol, and more risk-taking. Ranehill et al. (2015) used the same logic in a larger sample and saw no hormone movement. Simmons and Simonsohn (2017) p-curved the supportive set and found it consistent with selective reporting. Barel, Shahrabani, Mahagna and colleagues (2024; PMID 39633430) randomly assigned 92 young adults to high- or low-power poses. Testosterone did not move. Felt power did not move. The folk mechanism is that a pose changes endocrine state and endocrine state changes rank. It never clears the first step.

Caveats

Cuddy, Schultz, and Fosse (2018) p-curved a wider postural-feedback set and disagreed on subjective feelings. That debate is about self-report, not about T as a leadership stack. Barel's 92 adults were 30 men, 32 women on oral contraceptives, and 30 midluteal women. They report a cortisol drop tied to a gambling choice among high-power posers, and an estradiol rise in the contraceptive group. Those are other hormones and another outcome. This edge is the testosterone claim.

Effect

qualitative. Carney 2010 reported a T rise. Ranehill 2015 (N=200) and Barel 2024 (N=92) found none.

Nodes

Lifestyle & environmentExpansive posture (power pose)Biology & endocrinologyTestosterone

Named confounders

Cite this page

What Causes What. “Expansive posture (power pose) → Testosterone.” https://whatcauseswhat.org/edges/e-pose-testosterone (atlas updated 2026-09-02).

https://whatcauseswhat.org/edges/e-pose-testosterone

Papers