Power poses – where do we stand?

Jonas, Kai J.; Cesario, Joseph; Alger, Madeliene; Bailey, April H.; Bombari, Dario; Carney, Dana R.; Dovidio, John F.; Duffy, Sean; Harder, Jenna A.; Huistee, Dian van; Jackson, Benita; Johnson, David J.; Keller, Victor N.; Klaschinski, Lukas; LaBelle, Onawa; LaFrance, Marianne; Latu, Ioana M.; Morssinkhoff, Margot; Nault, Kelly; Pardal, Vaani; Pulfrey, Caroline; Rohleder, Nicolas; Ronay, Richard; Richman, Laura Smart; Mast, Marianne Schmid; Schnabel, Konrad; Schröder-Abé, Michaela; Tybur, J.M.

doi:10.1080/23743603.2017.1342447

Cited by 32 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 13 publications

(11 reference statements)

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“…Longitudinal studies find that individual differences in explicit measures are more stable over time than implicit measures are (Gawronski et al 2017). Research casts doubt on social priming (Gerber et al 2017;Pashler et al 2012) or the reality of power posing (Jonas et al 2017). And research questions the degree to which intelligence mindsets (Bahník and Vranka 2017) or stereotype threat (Finnigan and Corker 2016;Flore and Wicherts 2015) explain performance outcomes.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implicit attitudes and the ability argument

Buckwalter¹

2018

Philos Stud

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According to one picture of the mind, decisions and actions are largely the result of automatic cognitive processing beyond our ability to control. This picture is in tension with a foundational principle in ethics that moral responsibility for behavior requires the ability to control it. The discovery of implicit attitudes contributes to this tension. According to the ability argument against moral responsibility, if we cannot control implicit attitudes, and implicit attitudes cause behavior, then we cannot be morally responsible for that behavior. The purpose of this paper is to refute the ability argument. Drawing on both scientific evidence in cognitive science and philosophical arguments in ethics and action theory, I argue that it is invalid and unsound because current evidence is insufficient to establish the premises that (1) implicit attitudes are uncontrollable, (2) that they significantly cause behavior, (3) that responsibility always requires ability, and (4) that even if uncontrollable attitudes did fully cause behavior, this entails that the behavior they cause is uncontrollable. The rejection of the ability argument questions the priority of the unconscious over the conscious mind in cognitive science, deprioritizes ability in theories of moral responsibility in ethics, and provides a strong reason to uphold moral responsibility for implicitly biased behavior.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implicit attitudes and the ability argument

Buckwalter¹

2018

Philos Stud

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“…Additionally, the present study attempted to overcome some of the methodological limitations of previous studies on postural feedback effects. Past experiments that yielded significant effects tested small samples, whereas studies with large samples mostly reported null-effects Jonas et al, 2017). Moreover, only three out of about 60 studies in total (Carney et al, 2015;Cuddy et al, 2018;Jonas et al, 2017) used within-subject designs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Past experiments that yielded significant effects tested small samples, whereas studies with large samples mostly reported null-effects Jonas et al, 2017). Moreover, only three out of about 60 studies in total (Carney et al, 2015;Cuddy et al, 2018;Jonas et al, 2017) used within-subject designs. These three studies observed either a change only after expansive postures (Bohns & Wiltermuth, 2012;Lee & Schnall, 2014) or no significant effect (Jamnik & Zvelc, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although the replicability of most studies exploring the impact of expansive and constrictive postures is subject to an on-going debate Smith & Apicella, 2017), there seems to be conclusive evidence for a small effect of adopting expansive or constrictive postures on explicit feelings of power (Gronau et al, 2017). Yet, feelings as well as many other investigated behaviours were assessed using explicit self-reports, which are susceptible to demand effects (Gronau et al, 2017;Jonas et al, 2017). Past research on other behaviours typically focused on non-social but powerrelated behaviour such as risky gambling (Carney et al, 2010;Cesario & McDonald, 2013;Huang et al, 2011) or cognitively complex social behaviour, such as cheating, revenge, or sales negotiations Strelan et al, 2014;Yap et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Power posture effects on approach and avoidance decisions in response to social threat

Metzler¹,

Vilarem²,

Petschen³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Individuals’ opportunities for action in threatening social contexts largely depend on their social power. While powerful individuals can afford to confront aggressors and dangers, powerless individuals need others’ support and better avoid direct challenges. Here, we investigated if adopting expansive or constrictive postures, which function as social signals of power, impacts individuals’ approach and avoidance decisions in response to social threat signals using a within-subject design. Overall, participants more often chose to avoid rather than to approach angry individuals, but showed no clear approach or avoidance preference for fearful individuals. Crucially, constrictive posture considerably increased the tendency to avoid angry individuals, whereas expansive postures induced no substantial changes. This suggests that adopting power-related postures can impact action decisions in response to social threat signals. The present results emphasize the social function of power postures and are discussed in the context of the debate on the replicability of power posture effects.

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“…There are precedents in mainstream psychology for a widely believed phenomenon to be shown to probably be based on false positives. One example is 'power posing', apparently supported by more than 50 papers showing positive results that has ultimately been found to be baseless (Section §7a, (Jonas et al 2017)). Power posing is an interesting and attractive idea which has been publicised in a TED talk viewed more than 50 million times: if our confidence is displayed by our physical posture, could our posture affect our behaviour and physiology?…”

Section: (B)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Reproducible research into human semiochemical cues and pheromones: learning from psychology’s renaissance

Wyatt

2019

Preprint

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As with other mammals, smell in the form of semiochemicals is likely to influence the behaviour of humans, as olfactory cues to emotions, health, and mate choice. A subset of semiochemicals, pheromones, chemical signals within a species, have been identified in many mammal species. As mammals, we may have pheromones too. Sadly, the story of molecules claimed to be ‘putative human pheromones’ is a classic example of bad science carried out by good scientists. Much of human semiochemicals research including work on ‘human pheromones’ and olfactory cues comes within the field of psychology. Thus, the research is highly likely to be affected by the ‘reproducibility crisis’ in psychology and other life sciences. Psychology researchers have responded with proposals to enable better, more reliable science, with an emphasis on enhancing reproducibility. A key change is the adoption of study pre-registration which will also reduce publication bias. Human semiochemicals research would benefit from adopting these proposals.

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Power poses – where do we stand?

Cited by 32 publications

References 13 publications

Implicit attitudes and the ability argument

Implicit attitudes and the ability argument

Power posture effects on approach and avoidance decisions in response to social threat

Reproducible research into human semiochemical cues and pheromones: learning from psychology’s renaissance

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