Neural correlates of power-related postures and their behavioural consequences: a preliminary electrophysiological...

Social dominance is conveyed by expansive and contractive body postures, which also have feedback effects on individuals' own mood and behaviour. These feedback effects are the subject of the 'power posing' paradigm, which has grown in popularity in psychology; however, the neural mechanisms of feedback from expansive and contractive postures have never been investigated. We report here for the first time an exploratory neuroimaging study using electroencephalography during a 'power posing' design to investigate the neural correlates of this effect. We find that right-lateralized frontal asymmetry in neural activity was increased as a result of taking an expansive posture and that this asymmetry was correlated with the effects the posture exerted on participants' mood. We interpret this finding in the context of recent theories of frontal alpha asymmetry and motivational conflict.