This is Scientific American's 60 Second Science.

I'm Christopher Intagiyata.

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.

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 Cutty. Her talk is the second most watched on the TED site,

37 million views. The 2010 study by Cuddy 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 till you make it, she said,

strike a pose and...

It could significantly change the way your life unfolds.

Problem is, that memorable advice looks suspect.

Because several studies studies with many more

participants have tried to replicate the original results and failed. The most

recent attempt involved 247 male college students that's 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

either.

The evidence is piling up that this might not be the most fruitful research track.

Christopher Smith, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania.

These power pose effects aren't very reliable and might not even be there.

...