Research shows that people adopting a dominant pose have reduced levels of stress and feel more powerful than those adopting a submissive pose. Furthermore, it is known that if people feel more control over a situation, they have a higher tolerance for pain. Putting these ideas together, a recent study, introduced in Exercise C.6 on page 445, investigates how posture might influence the perception of pain. In the experiment, participants were told that they were participating in a study to examine the health benefits of doing yoga poses at work. All participants had their pain threshold measured both before and after holding a yoga pose for 20 seconds. The pain threshold was measured by inflating a blood pressure cuff until participants said stop: the threshold was measured in mmHg and the difference in before and after thresholds was recorded for each participant. The participants were randomly divided into three groups: one group (n = 30) was randomly assigned to strike a dominant pose (moving limbs away from the body), another group (n = 30) was assigned to strike a submissive pose (curling the torso inward), and a control group (n = 29) struck a neutral pose. The summary statistics for each of the three groups are shown in Table 8.7. Do the data provide evidence of a difference in mean pain tolerance based on the type of pose? Show all details of the test.

Table 8.7

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Mean Std.Dev. Sample Size 30 29 Pose Dominant Neutral Submissive 34.8 14.3 -4.4 31.9 30 -6.1 35.4 Overall 89 1.33 35.0