Low-power Participants Research Articles

When the going gets tough: Power affects the process of making tough decisions

ABSTRACT Powerful roles often require individuals to cope with impactful, complicated decisions. The present article reports two experiments investigating the effect of manipulated power mindset on the process of decision-making under different conditions: high vs. low choice conflict (Exp. 1) or high vs. no cognitive load (Exp. 2). Results showed that under the high-choice conflict and high-cognitive load conditions, high-power participants were more likely than low-power participants to take less time, adopt an alternative-based (rather than attribute-based) strategy, rate the tasks as easier, and report higher confidence in and satisfaction with their decisions. Power had no effect on the decision-making process under the low-choice conflict and no-cognitive load conditions. These results suggest that power interacts with choice difficulty to affect the decision-making process.

Psychological power alters cognitive efficiency.

Power is known to promote cognitive processing in a goal-directed way. However, it is unknown whether powerful individuals invest more resources when pursuing their goals or whether they invest their resources more efficiently. We examined how experiencing high versus low power affects the efficient investment of cognitive resources using electroencephalography (EEG). Specifically, event-related desynchronization (ERD) in the upper alpha band (10.5-12.75Hz) was used to quantify the use of cognitive resources during task completion. Results showed that high-power participants used fewer neural resources compared to low-power participants across the whole brain but task performance did not differ between groups. These findings demonstrate that, instead of investing more resources, high-power participants performed the task with greater cognitive efficiency compared to low-power participants. Performing tasks efficiently could help powerholders deal with their demanding jobs and responsibilities.

Power reduces the goal gradient effect

How does the experience of power affect individuals' motivations to pursue goals at different stages of goal pursuit? We hypothesized that experienced power affects individuals' motivation as a function of perceived goal proximity (i.e., whether they are close or far away from goal attainment). As expected, results showed that low-power participants were less motivated when goal attainment seemed far away rather than close (in line with the goal gradient hypothesis). High-power participants' motivation was less affected by goal proximity. Results further showed that when experiencing greater power, individuals set lower goals and were more likely to attain them. They also performed better when the goal was far (vs. near) while individuals experiencing low power showed an opposite trend. Our research identifies boundary conditions to the goal gradient hypothesis by showing that the effect reduces/disappears when people experience high power. Moreover, findings advance the theoretical understanding of how power affects goal pursuit by demonstrating power differences in motivation. Finally, findings suggest that high power does not always increase performance, as previously thought; it depends on how close people are to goal attainment.

Powerful Individuals Behave Less Cooperatively in Common Resource Dilemmas When Treated Unfairly.

Previous research has suggested that power undermines cooperation in social dilemmas. However, the story may not be so simple. Guided by recent findings that power heightens sensitivity to unfairness, we examined the moderating effect of distributive justice on the association between power and cooperation. Across two experiments, when treated unfairly, high-power (vs. low-power) participants perceived greater unfairness. Moreover, high-power (vs. low-power) participants behaved less cooperatively not only when they interacted with the offender who treated them unfairly (Experiment 1), but also when they interacted with innocent third parties (Experiment 2). However, high-power and low-power participants showed no difference in perceived fairness and cooperation when treated fairly. These findings shed light on the association between power and cooperation by suggesting the modulating role of distributive justice, and they remind us that researchers should take participants' personal sense of power into account when manipulating fairness.

Power effects on instrumental learning: Evidence from the brain and behavior.

We investigated whether high power facilitates instrumental learning relative to low power—an effect that would support power effects on goal-pursuit and decision-making. Because power is known to increase instrumentality in action, we expected that high power would enhance instrumental learning involving both approach and avoidance responses, relative to low power. Studies 1 and 2 revealed that manipulated power modulated instrumental learning, such that relative to low power, high power facilitated the learning of approach and avoidance responses through reinforcement. Furthermore, Study 2 revealed stronger neural processing of valid versus invalid feedback, indexed by the feedback-related negativity (FRN) component of the event-related potential (ERP), among high-power participants, but not low-power or control participants. These results suggest higher power engaged more strategic processing of goal-relevant feedback—a finding that illuminates the links between power, goal pursuit, and social behavior.

Power Moderates the Effects of Social Dominance Orientation on Punishment: An Experimental Analysis.

In this study, it was hypothesized that experimentally manipulated levels of power would moderate the association of dispositional social dominance orientation (SDO) with preferences for harsh punishment. In particular, we expected to detect a stronger effect for dispositional SDO in the low-power condition, relying on the notion that low power enhances sensitivity to threats to the status quo, and that high SDO individuals are particularly motivated to enforce hierarchy-enhancing measures as punishment. SDO scores were measured two months prior to the experiment, and then immediately after the experimental session. As expected, preexperimental SDO interacted with the power manipulation. We found stronger preexperimental SDO effects on punishment among low-power participants. We also anticipated and found that individuals high in SDO increased further their postexperimental SDO scores if assigned to a high-power condition. The discussion focuses on the importance of SDO effects among low-status groups and on how situational roles shape dispositional self-descriptions.

Magnitude estimation is influenced by social power

The action-specific perception account suggests that how people perceive the environment depends on their ability to act on it, assuming that estimation is influenced by inter-individual traits, but also by situated states. Moreover, several studies revealed that social power affects basic cognitive processes and even influences the way we perceive the physical environment. In the present study, we examined whether social power also influences estimation performance of spatial magnitudes (i.e., line estimation). Participants estimated the line length of a given number in an increase and a decrease condition, after (low versus high) social power had been manipulated between participants via role assignment. In the increase condition, low-power participants overestimated line lengths, whereas such a bias was not observed for high-power participants. In contrast, the power manipulation did not affect performance in the decrease condition, suggesting that proportion-judgement strategies might have been applied here, thereby reducing the overall bias in line estimations. Our findings support the notion that social power has an impact on the perception of the physical environment and that perception can depend on personal as well as situational factors. Moreover, the present research suggests that high (compared to low) social power may help people to overcome biases in overestimating magnitudes.

Mating Goals Moderate Power's Effect on Conspicuous Consumption Among Women.

This study aimed to use evolutionary psychology to explain conspicuous consumption's relationship with mating goals among women. We used experiments to show that power moderates conspicuous consumption's relationship with mating goals among women through an underlying relationship with women's social comparison tendencies. In Study 1, the participants read a passage describing a young woman wearing a coat made by a conspicuous brand (vs. an ordinary brand) who aimed to attract a desired man (vs. aiming to guard against potential competitors' attempts to disrupt her established intimate relationship). Participants in the conspicuous-brand condition were more confident that the young woman would succeed in mate attraction and guarding than participants in the ordinary-brand condition, suggesting the participants believed the conspicuous brands facilitated mate attraction and mate guarding more than ordinary brands. Study 2 manipulated the participants' power states and mating goals and measured participants' social comparison tendencies and conspicuous consumption index values. In the mate-guarding condition, high-power participants showed more inclination toward conspicuous consumption than low-power participants. In the mate-attraction condition, low-power participants showed a greater inclination toward conspicuous consumption than did high-power participants. Comparison orientation also mediated power's effect on conspicuous consumption inclination. The evolutionary psychological basis for the above findings is discussed, and suggestions are offered regarding product marketing.

The Malleability of Stereotype Effects on Spontaneous Trait Inferences

Abstract. Past research has demonstrated that perceivers are more likely to draw spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) from stereotype-consistent behaviors than from stereotype-inconsistent behaviors. Four studies were conducted to examine the moderating role of power in stereotype effects on STIs. Priming power using the scrambled sentence task, Study 1 found that high-power participants drew STIs from elderly stereotype-consistent but not from elderly stereotype-inconsistent sentences, while low-power participants did not draw STIs from elderly stereotype-consistent or stereotype-inconsistent behaviors. Study 2 replicated the findings of Study 1 by exploring the moderating role of power in gender stereotype effects on STIs. Measuring participants’ dispositional power via the Personal Sense of Power, Study 3 found that dispositional power also moderated the effects of gender stereotype on STIs. Study 4 found that compared with the baseline condition (no-power manipulation), the low-power condition inhibited STIs from stereotype-consistent behaviors, but the high-power condition did not facilitate STI formation from stereotype-consistent behaviors. The current study is the first to show that power influences the reliance on stereotypes when spontaneously inferring traits from behaviors.

Power and Categorization

Across three experiments, participants formed a larger number of categories when in a state of high, compared to low, psychological power. Moreover, in contrast to prior categorization research, which suggests forming more categories is tantamount to reduced breadth of categorization, high-power participants also formed a larger number of superordinate (i.e., more abstract) categories than low-power participants. The present findings enhance the understanding of power in relation to categorization and simultaneously highlight the distinction between number and abstraction as fundamental aspects of categorization.

Power modulates over-reliance on false cardiac arousal when judging target attractiveness: the powerful are more centered on their own false arousal than the powerless.

Individuals attempting to label their emotions look for a plausible source of their physiological arousal. Co-occurrence of plausible sources can lead to the misattribution of real (or bogus) physiological arousal, resulting in physically attractive individuals being perceived as more attractive than they actually are. In two experiments, female participants heard bogus heart rate feedback while viewing photos of attractive male models. Compared with low-power and control participants, high-power participants rated reinforced photos (increased heart rate) more attractive than non-reinforced photos (stable heart rate) to a greater extent when they heard their own bogus heart rate feedback (Experiments 1 and 2) and to a lesser extent when they heard a recording of another participant's heart rate (Experiment 2). These findings, which suggest that power increases the tendency to misattribute one's physiological arousal to physically attractive individuals, are discussed with reference to theories linking power and social perception.

Power changes how the brain responds to others.

Power dynamics are a ubiquitous feature of human social life, yet little is known about how power is implemented in the brain. Motor resonance is the activation of similar brain networks when acting and when watching someone else act, and is thought to be implemented, in part, by the human mirror system. We investigated the effects of power on motor resonance during an action observation task. Separate groups of participants underwent a high-, neutral, or low-power induction priming procedure, prior to observing the actions of another person. During observation, motor resonance was determined with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) via measures of motor cortical output. High-power participants demonstrated lower levels of resonance than low-power participants, suggesting reduced mirroring of other people in those with power. These differences suggest that decreased motor resonance to others' actions might be one of the neural mechanisms underlying power-induced asymmetries in processing our social interaction partners.

How Power Influences Moral Judgement: The Effect of Situational Involvement

Previous studies found that when subjects were given a moral dilemma to resolve, high-power participants prefer Rule-based Judgment, while low-power participants prefer Outcome-based Judgement. Lammers and Stapel(2009)attributed this to the benefits attained or retained from the type of judgment, but they did not conduct further research to explain why power-holders felt their benefits were threatened. According to the Evolution of Moral Mechanisms(Krebs 2005), situational involvement connects the power-holders with the moral dilemma story, and compels them to choose the moral judgment that would be advantageous for themselves. Four studies were conducted to explore the relationship between a power-holders' moral dilemma judgment and situational involvement. Experiment 1 used a disorder sentence task to prime power feelings, and the results showed that the factor of protagonist was not significant as a main effect(F(1,107)=0.38, p=0.54), nor did it interact significantly with the factor of power(F(1,107)=2.27, p=0.14), and no main effect of power(F(1,107)=0.07, p=0.79). In light of moral evolutionary perspectives, we speculate that participants may need more situational priming to elicit their feeling of power, so this paper strengthened the relationship between the moral event and self-experience, and made the priming task more situationalized in experiment 2. Therefore, the differences of moral judgment styles between high and low-power participants disappeared(t(58)=0.56, p=0.58). Furthermore, in experiment 3 and 4, the different situation exposure to moral events can bring different moral judgments among high power participants(t(60)= 4.30, p0.001), even in natural power conditions without artificial power priming task before presenting moral events. In brief, situational involvement considerably influences the power holders' moral judgments. When the power holders were presented with a moral dilemma event in which they had personally experienced it, they would shift their moral judgment style from rule-based to outcome-based, which demonstrates that moral judgment is a biological adaptive strategy to a person's environment.

Less power = less human? Effects of power differentials on dehumanization

Two experiments demonstrated that power leads to dehumanizing others, adding to our understanding of how power affects interpersonal perception. Undergraduate participants in dyads were assigned to unequal power roles before interacting cooperatively in a mock hiring-task for Experiment 1 and competitively in a game for Experiment 2. After interacting, participants rated each other on personality traits that vary in how much they are a uniquely human trait (UH; e.g. a trait that typically distinguishes humans from animals). In both experiments, high-power participants attributed fewer uniquely human traits to low-power participants than vice versa, meaning they animalistically dehumanized a fellow student from the same university. This dehumanization occurred even while high-power participants did not evaluatively derogate low-power participants. We argue that power differences can result in perceived disparities in humanity, perhaps because UH can both express and justify power.

Does Power Magnify the Expression of Dispositions?

Conventional wisdom holds that power holders act more in line with their dispositions than do people who lack power. Drawing on principles of construct accessibility, we propose that this is the case only when no alternative constructs are activated. In three experiments, we assessed participants’ chronic dispositions and subsequently manipulated participants’ degree of power. Participants then either were or were not primed with alternative (i.e., inaccessible or counterdispositional) constructs. When no alternatives were activated, the responses of power holders—perceptions of other people (Experiment 1), preferences for charitable donations (Experiment 2), and strategies in an economic game (Experiment 3)—were more in line with their chronically accessible constructs than were the responses of low-power participants. However, when alternatives had been activated, power holders’ responses were no longer more congruent with their dispositions than were the responses of low-power participants. We propose a single mechanism according to which power increases reliance on accessible constructs—that is, constructs that easily come to mind—regardless of whether these constructs are chronically or temporarily accessible.

The power to be me: Power elevates self-concept consistency and authenticity

Consistency in the self-concept across social contexts has been linked to various positive outcomes, including felt authenticity and well-being. Based on theories of social power (e.g., Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003), we predicted that high-power individuals, disposed to greater control of their environments and freedom of self-expression, would exhibit greater self-concept consistency relative to their low-power counterparts. Across three studies, measured and manipulated high-power participants showed elevated self-concept consistency in terms of greater coherence and consistency in their spontaneous self-descriptions (Studies 1 and 2), and less variability in trait ratings of themselves across different contexts (Study 3), relative to low-power participants. Moreover, high-power participants' tendency to be more consistent in their self-concept explained their higher reports of authenticity relative to low-power participants (Study 3). Discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for health and well-being, and for power differences in other cultural contexts.

Power Increases Hypocrisy

In five studies, we explored whether power increases moral hypocrisy (i.e., imposing strict moral standards on other people but practicing less strict moral behavior oneself). In Experiment 1, compared with the powerless, the powerful condemned other people’s cheating more, but also cheated more themselves. In Experiments 2 through 4, the powerful were more strict in judging other people’s moral transgressions than in judging their own transgressions. A final study found that the effect of power on moral hypocrisy depends on the legitimacy of the power: When power was illegitimate, the moral-hypocrisy effect was reversed, with the illegitimately powerful becoming stricter in judging their own behavior than in judging other people’s behavior. This pattern, which might be dubbed hypercrisy, was also found among low-power participants in Experiments 3 and 4. We discuss how patterns of hypocrisy and hypercrisy among the powerful and powerless can help perpetuate social inequality.

Analysis and Improvement on a Contributory Group Key Exchange Protocol Based on the Diffie–Hellman Technique

In 2008, based on the two-party Diffie-Hellman technique, Biswas proposed a contributory group key exchange protocol called the Group-DH protocol. This contributory property is an important one of group key agreement. Unfortunately, in this paper we show that the proposed Group-DH protocol is not a contributory group key exchange protocol. Therefore, we propose an improved group key exchange protocol with verifiably contributory property based on the same Diffie-Hellman technique. When an identical group key is constructed, each participant can confirm that his/her contribution is actually included in the group key. We show that the improved protocol is provably secure against passive attacks under the decisional Diffie-Hellman assumption. As compared to the previously proposed group key exchange protocols, our protocol provides contributiveness and the required computational cost is suitable for low-power participants in a network environment.

When dispositional and role power fit: Implications for self-expression and self–other congruence.

Integrating and extending the literatures on social power and person-environment fit, 4 studies tested the hypothesis that when people's dispositional beliefs about their capacity to influence others fit their assigned role power, they are more likely to engage in self-expression-that is, behave in line with their states and traits-thereby increasing their likelihood of being perceived by others in a manner congruent with their own self-judgments (i.e., self-other congruence). In Studies 1-3, dispositionally high- and low-power participants were randomly assigned to play a high- or low-power role in an interaction with a confederate. When participants' dispositional and role power fit (vs. conflicted), they reported greater self-expression (Study 1). Furthermore, under dispositional-role power fit conditions, the confederate's ratings of participants' emotional experiences (Study 2) and personality traits (Study 3) were more congruent with participants' self-reported emotions and traits. Study 4's results replicated Study 3's results using an implicit manipulation of power and outside observers' (rather than a confederate's) ratings of participants. Implications for research on power and person perception are discussed.

Exploring the motivational brain: effects of implicit power motivation on brain activation in response to facial expressions of emotion

This study tested the hypothesis that implicit power motivation (nPower), in interaction with power incentives, influences activation of brain systems mediating motivation. Twelve individuals low (lowest quartile) and 12 individuals high (highest quartile) in nPower, as assessed per content coding of picture stories, were selected from a larger initial participant pool and participated in a functional magnetic resonance imaging study during which they viewed high-dominance (angry faces), low-dominance (surprised faces) and control stimuli (neutral faces, gray squares) under oddball-task conditions. Consistent with hypotheses, high-power participants showed stronger activation in response to emotional faces in brain structures involved in emotion and motivation (insula, dorsal striatum, orbitofrontal cortex) than low-power participants.