It hurts when I do this (or you do that): Posture and pain tolerance

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. ► 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.