“Power Poses” Don’t Stand Up

“力量姿势”站不住脚

A 2010 study claimed that striking certain poses could alter hormone levels and risk-taking behavior. But subsequent studies can’t replicate that finding. Christopher Intagliata reports.

2010年一项研究表明，摆出特定的姿势可以改变荷尔蒙水平和激发冒险行为。但是随后的一些研究并无法证实上述结论。克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔报道。

撰文/播音：克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔(Christopher Intagliata)

翻译：郭鑫鹏

审校：丁可含

Perhaps you’ve seen the famous TED talk about so-called power poses. It encouraged viewers to change the course of their lives by assuming what are thought of as dominant postures.

可能你在著名的TED讲座中听过“充满能量的姿势”。它可以鼓舞观众，使他们站在更为主导地位，改变人生的进程。

“So you make yourself big, you stretch out you take up space. You’re basically opening up. It’s about opening up. “That’s Harvard researcher Amy Cuddy. Her talk is the second most-watched on the TED site: 37 million views. The 2010 study by Cubby and colleagues that inspired the talk stated that striking power poses can affect your hormone levels, and in turn, your appetite for risk. Fake it til you make it, she said. Strike a pose, and “it could significantly change the way your life unfolds.”

“所以舒展身体吧，张开你的手臂。根本上来说，你只是表现地更开放。关键就是开放。”哈佛大学研究者埃米·卡迪说。她的演讲在TED网站观看排名第二，有3700万观众。演讲中谈到，卡迪和她的同事们在2010年的研究表明做出充满力量的姿势可以影响你的荷尔蒙水平，激发你冒险的欲望。即使你只是刻意地做出来，这样的行为也可以使生命焕发活力。

Problem is: that memorable advice looks suspect.

问题是，这样让人印象深刻的建议看起来很可疑。

Because several studies, with many more participant, have tried to replicate the original results, and failed. The most recent attempt involved 247 male college students-nearly six times more volunteers than were in the original study. And the new study found that holding poses-dominant or otherwise-had no significant effect on testosterone and cortisol levels, or on risk-taking.

因为随后多次有更多被试者的研究，希望能够重现原始的研究结果，但是都失败了。最近的一次实验找了247名男大学生，志愿者数量大约为原始研究的6倍。新的研究发现，做出一些类似充满力量的姿势，对睾酮、皮质醇水平以及冒险欲望并没有明显的影响。

“The evidence is piling up that this might not be the most fruitful research track.” Kristopher Smith, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania. “These power pose effects aren’t very reliable-and might not even be there.” The analysis is in the journal Hormones and Behavior. [Kristopher M Smith, Coren L Apicella: Winners, losers, and posers: The effect of power poses on testosterone and risk-taking following competition]

“证据表明，这并不是什么卓有成效的研究。”宾夕法尼亚大学进化心理学家克里斯托弗·史密斯说。“这些充满力量姿势的效果不太可信，也可能根本就不存在。”研究分析发表在《荷尔蒙与行为》上。

Despite these replication failures, Amy Cuddy, of the TED talk, stands by her finding. She still says that, even if holding a pose doesn’t affect your hormone levels, it still makes you feel more powerful. But this new follow-up study failed to find even that effect. And its authors aren’t alone in their skepticism. One of the authors on the original 2010 power pose study, Berkeley researcher Dana Carney, announced a few months ago that she no longer believes power pose effects are real. She doesn’t teach them. She even discourages studying them. So this could be the rare case where more research is not needed.

尽管该实验有不可重复性，TED演讲者埃米·卡迪依然坚持她的发现。她说，即使这样的姿势不能影响你的荷尔蒙水平，它依旧使你感到充满力量。但是新的跟进实验连这样的影响（让人充满力量）都不能发现。并不仅仅只有这一部分论文作者们持有怀疑。伯克利研究者达纳·卡尔纳，也是2010年“充满力量姿势”研究作者之一，宣称她也不再相信这样的姿势会产生什么实在的影响。她并不用这个教导别人，也不愿意继续研究它。所以这可能是个个例，没有继续研究的价值。

-Christopher Intagliata