Episode 99: Power posing
From Science Fictions by Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie
March 31, 2026 · 1h 13m
About this episode
This episode explores the phenomenon of power posing and its impact on psychology, reflecting on its popularity and the research behind it.
For a while in the early-to-mid 2010s, the most prominent psychology research in the world was on power posing. Harvard’s Amy Cuddy did a TED talk that reached tens of millions; her exhortation to “fake it til you make it” struck a chord and produced endless book sales from readers fascinated to hear how, just by adopting an expansive posture, you could revolutionise your own psychology and succeed at life. In this episode, with the benefit of hindsight, we ask: what was that all about? This podcast is sponsored by Works in Progress magazine. In today’s episode we mentioned “ The Perks of Being a Mole Rat ”, Aria Shrecker’s entertaining new piece on what makes some animals live for an inordinately long time. Find it and endless other fascinating pieces on human progress at worksinprogress.co . Show notes * Dana Carney (not Carvey)’s 2016 letter on changing her mind about power posing * The 1996 study about walking more slowly down the hallway after reading words to do with old people * Tom’s first and second pieces in Nature * Daryl Bem’s piece on “ Writing the Empirical Journal Article ” * Amy Cuddy’s TED talk (the third most-watched ever) * Two studies we mentioned on the…
People in this episode
Hosts: Tom Chivers, Stuart Ritchie
Topics covered
- power posing
- psychology
- TED talks
- human behavior
- research analysis
Keywords
- power posing
- Amy Cuddy
- psychology research
- TED talk
- human behavior
Sponsors
Works in Progress
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Nature, Psychological Science, New York Times
Books & works: Presence, The Perks of Being a Mole Rat
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