Deborah H. Gruenfeld

From Power to Action

Three experiments investigated the hypothesis that power increases an action orientation in the power holder, even in contexts where power is not directly experienced. In Experiment 1, participants who possessed structural power in a group task were more likely to take a card in a simulated game of blackjack than those who lacked power. In Experiment 2, participants primed with high power were more likely to act against an annoying stimulus (a fan) in the environment, suggesting that the experience of power leads to the performance of goal-directed behavior. In Experiment 3, priming high power led to action in a social dilemma regardless of whether that action had prosocial or antisocial consequences. The effects of priming power are discussed in relation to the broader literature on conceptual and mind-set priming.

Power Reduces the Press of the Situation: Implications for Creativity, Conformity, and Dissonance

Although power is often conceptualized as the capacity to influence others, the current research explores whether power psychologically protects people from influence. In contrast to classic social psychological research demonstrating the strength of the situation in directing attitudes, expressions, and intentions, 5 experiments (using experiential primes, semantic primes, and role manipulations of power) demonstrate that the powerful (a) generate creative ideas that are less influenced by salient examples, (b) express attitudes that conform less to the expressed opinions of others, (c) are more influenced by their own social value orientation relative to the reputation of a negotiating opponent, and (d) perceive greater choice in making counterattitudinal statements. This last experiment illustrates that power is not always psychologically liberating; it can create internal conflict, arousing dissonance, and thereby lead to attitude change. Across the experiments, high-power participants were immune to the typical press of situations, with intrapsychic processes having greater sway than situational or interpersonal ones on their creative and attitudinal expressions.

Power and the objectification of social targets.

Objectification has been defined historically as a process of subjugation whereby people, like objects, are treated as means to an end. The authors hypothesized that objectification is a response to social power that involves approaching useful social targets regardless of the value of their other human qualities. Six studies found that under conditions of power, approach toward a social target was driven more by the targets usefulness, defined in terms of the perceivers goals, than in low-power and baseline conditions. This instrumental response to power, which was linked to the presence of an active goal, was observed using multiple instantiations of power, different measures of approach, a variety of goals, and several types of instrumental and noninstrumental target attributes. Implications for research on the psychology of power, automatic goal pursuit, and self-objectification theory are discussed.

Power, Propensity to Negotiate, and Moving First in Competitive Interactions

Five experiments investigated how the possession and experience of power affects the initiation of competitive interaction. In Experiments 1a and 1b, high-power individuals displayed a greater propensity to initiate a negotiation than did low-power individuals. Three additional experiments showed that power increased the likelihood of making the first move in a variety of competitive interactions. In Experiment 2, participants who were semantically primed with power were nearly 4 times as likely as participants in a control condition to choose to make the opening arguments in a debate competition scenario. In Experiment 3, negotiators with strong alternatives to a negotiation were more than 3 times as likely to spontaneously express an intention to make the first offer compared to participants who lacked any alternatives. Experiment 4 showed that high-power negotiators were more likely than low-power negotiators to actually make the first offer and that making the first offer produced a bargaining advantage.

Illusory Control A Generative Force Behind Power's Far-Reaching Effects

Three experiments demonstrated that the experience of power leads to an illusion of personal control. Regardless of whether power was experientially primed (Experiments 1 and 3) or manipulated through roles (manager vs. subordinate; Experiment 2), it led to perceived control over outcomes that were beyond the reach of the power holder. Furthermore, this illusory control mediated the influence of power on several self-enhancement and approach-related outcomes reported in the power literature, including optimism (Experiment 2), self-esteem (Experiment 3), and action orientation (Experiment 3). These results demonstrate the theoretical importance of perceived control as a generative cause of and driving force behind many of powers far-reaching effects. A fourth experiment ruled out an alternative explanation: that positive mood, rather than illusory control, is at the root of powers effects. The discussion considers implications for existing and future research on the psychology of power, perceived control, and positive illusions.

Powerful postures versus powerful roles: which is the proximate correlate of thought and behavior?

Three experiments explored whether hierarchical role and body posture have independent or interactive effects on the main outcomes associated with power: action in behavior and abstraction in thought. Although past research has found that being in a powerful role and adopting an expansive body posture can each enhance a sense of power, two experiments showed that when individuals were placed in high- or low-power roles while adopting an expansive or constricted posture, only posture affected the implicit activation of power, the taking of action, and abstraction. However, even though role had a smaller effect on the downstream consequences of power, it had a stronger effect than posture on self-reported sense of power. A final experiment found that posture also had a larger effect on action than recalling an experience of high or low power. We discuss body postures as one of the most proximate correlates of the manifestations of power.

Upending the Status Quo: Cognitive Complexity in U.S. Supreme Court Justices Who Overturn Legal Precedent

Studies of reasoning by majority and minority members show that group members in the majority think more about the trade-offs associated with alternative decision outcomes than do group members in the minority, who are more single-minded in support of their own position. However, prior work has not examined whether this holds when decision makers change the status quo. The authors compared the integrative complexity of U.S. Supreme Court justices writing on behalf of either a majority or a minority in decisions to either uphold or overturn legal precedent. As predicted, justices writing on behalf of decisions to uphold precedent exhibited greater integrative complexity than did justices writing on behalf of decisions to overturn precedent, but this effect was stronger for the authors of majority than minority opinions.

The Social Psychology of Inter- and Intragroup Conflict in Governmental Politics

Conflict within and between groups is a pervasive part of bureaucratic political life. Bureaucratic structures divide individuals into groups such as agencies, departments, bureaus, and committees. These structures are optimal for accomplishing complex tasks with broad implications. The interests, however, of such groups and their individual members are rarely perfectly aligned, so the same interdependence that facilitates productivity in bureaucratic settings also makes conflict inevitable.

Social Psychological Perspectives on Power in Organizations

Organizations are characterized by limited resources, conflicting interests, and task interdependencies, which make them rife with political activity. To understand organizational behavior, then, one must understand power, which inevitably shapes how people make decisions, allocate resources, and judge their colleagues. Power is germane to organizational behavior, in the sense that changes in power affect the functioning of any social structure, especially those marked by hierarchical differences. To be effective leaders, managers must be able to diagnose who has power, how it is obtained, and when it can be wielded effectively in order to advance their political goals and, in turn, benefit their constituents. In the past, researchers who study power in organizations have typically focused their attention on identifying important antecedents and consequences—what serves as a source of power and what happens when power is used? More recently, a firestorm of research in psychology has investigated a different question that is of great interest to micro-organizational behavior scholars: What is it like to have power? More specifically, how does power affect the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of its possessors and their peers? The psychology of power, once the subject of mere conjecture and speculation, now serves as the target of direct empirical investigation. The results of empirical research on the social psychology of power have tended to appear in the pages of disciplinary journals (e.g., sociology and psychology journals) rather than management journals. The primary goal of this special issue is to advance this research domain while connecting it to an audience of organizational scholars. This connection needs to be strengthened because the psychological experience of power is central to the study of organizations. By fostering this connection, we aim to help generate sound theory around the social psychology of power in the workplace. We further hope to inspire young scholars interested in organizational behavior to study power, using state-of-the-art methods and techniques of manipulation and measurement. In general, we need to understand the key psychological factors that

Whither the Study of Governmental Politics in Foreign Policymaking

Editors Note: Unlike previous essay reviews in this journal, this review is a symposium with a number of different experts reflecting on governmental politics from a variety of perspectives. Eric Stern and Bertjan Verbeek both organized and have served as editors of the symposium. They wrote the introduction and conclusion to the piece. The various authors represent three different disciplines—political science, psychology, and public administration—and come from four countries. Several are involved in the application of this knowledge in collaboration with a government agency. All are concerned with where research on governmental politics has been and where it can and should go in the future.