It hurts when I do this (or you do that): Posture and pain tolerance ☆
- a J. L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, 105 St. George St., Toronto, ON, Canada, M5S 3E6
- b Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, 3670 Trousdale Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA
- Received 15 November 2010. Revised 25 May 2011. Available online 7 June 2011.
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Abstract
Recent research (Carney, Cuddy, & Yap, 2010) has shown that adopting a powerful pose changes people’s hormonal levels and increases their propensity to take risks in the same ways that possessing actual power does. In the current research, we explore whether adopting physical postures associated with power, or simply interacting with others who adopt these postures, can similarly influence sensitivity to pain. We conducted two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants who adopted dominant poses displayed higher pain thresholds than those who adopted submissive or neutral poses. These findings were not explained by semantic priming. In Experiment 2, we manipulated power poses via an interpersonal interaction and found that power posing engendered a complementary (Tiedens & Fragale, 2003) embodied power experience in interaction partners. Participants who interacted with a submissive confederate displayed higher pain thresholds and greater handgrip strength than participants who interacted with a dominant confederate.
Highlights
► We examined the effect of power posing on pain tolerance. ► Dominant postures led to higher pain thresholds than submissive postures. ► We also examined the effect of interpersonal complementarity on embodied power and pain tolerance. ► Interacting with a dominant confederate led to lower pain thresholds than interacting with a submissive confederate.
Keywords
- Complementarity;
- Dominance;
- Embodiment;
- Interpersonal relations;
- Power;
- Pain
Figures and tables from this article:
- Fig. 1. Stimuli used in Experiment 1. Participants were shown and asked to adopt one of these three yoga poses (conditions from left to right: dominant, submissive, and control).
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- Fig. 2. Change in pain threshold (depicted as difference scores; statistical analysis examined time 2 controlling for time 1; error bars are SEs).
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- Fig. 3. Postures exhibited by confederate in Experiment 2.
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- Fig. 4. Change in pain threshold (depicted as difference scores; statistical analysis examined time 2 controlling for time 1; error bars are SEs).
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- Fig. 5. Change in grip force (depicted as difference scores; statistical analysis examined time 2 controlling for time 1; error bars are SEs).
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- The authors contributed equally and are listed alphabetically. We would like to thank Justin Fan and Kristin Jung for their considerable help in administering the experiments. We note that Justin illustrated the postures in Figure 3.
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