Expansive posture (power pose) → Testosterone
Two minutes in a stance does not identify an androgen change. The larger RCT is a null. The TED talk is not a protocol.
Randomized trial · High confidence · N=200
The association does not survive the backdoor. Usually SES, outdoor time, 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. The folk mechanism — pose changes endocrine state, endocrine state changes rank — 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. This edge is the hormone claim.
Effect
qualitative. Carney 2010 reported a T rise. Ranehill 2015 (N=200) found none.
Nodes
Named confounders
Cite this page
What Causes What. “Expansive posture (power pose) → Testosterone.” https://whatcauseswhat.org/edges/e-pose-testosterone (atlas updated 2026-08-31).
Papers
- Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance
D. R. Carney, A. J. C. Cuddy, A. J. Yap · 2010 · Psychological Science
- Assessing the Robustness of Power Posing: No Effect on Hormones and Risk Tolerance in a Large Sample of Men and Women
E. Ranehill, A. Dreber, M. Johannesson, S. Leiberg, S. Sul, R. A. Weber · 2015 · Psychological Science
- Power Posing: P-Curving the Evidence
J. P. Simmons, U. Simonsohn · 2017 · Psychological Science