Ernestine Gordijn

Illegitimacy Moderates the Effects of Power on Approach

A wealth of research has found that power leads to behavioral approach and action. Four experiments demonstrate that this link between power and approach is broken when the power relationship is illegitimate. When power was primed to be legitimate or when power positions were assigned legitimately, the powerful demonstrated more approach than the powerless. However, when power was experienced as illegitimate, the powerless displayed as much approach as, or even more approach than, the powerful. This moderating effect of legitimacy occurred regardless of whether power and legitimacy were manipulated through experiential primes, semantic primes, or role manipulations. It held true for behavioral approach (Experiment 1) and two effects associated with it: the propensity to negotiate (Experiment 2) and risk preferences (Experiments 3 and 4). These findings demonstrate that how power is conceptualized, acquired, and wielded determines its psychological consequences and add insight into not only when but also why power leads to approach.

Social Categorization and Fear Reactions to the September 11th Terrorist Attacks

Two experiments were run in The Netherlands and Belgium 1 week after the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. The aim was to investigate whether social categorization affected emotional reactions, behavioral tendencies, and actual behaviors. Results showed that focusing participants’ attention on an identity that included American victims into a common ingroup led them to report more fear and stronger fear-related behavioral tendencies and to engage more often in fear-related behaviors than when victims were categorized as outgroup members. Results are discussed with respect to appraisal theories of emotion and E. R. Smith’s model of group-based emotions.

Power Increases Social Distance

Five experiments investigated the effect of power on social distance. Although increased social distance has been suggested to be an underlying mechanism for a number of the effects of power, there is little empirical evidence directly supporting this claim. Our first three experiments found that power increases social distance toward others. In addition, these studies demonstrated that this effect is (a) mediated by self-sufficiency and (b) moderated by the perceived legitimacy of power—only when power is seen as legitimate, does it increase social distance. The final two studies build off research showing that social distance is linked to decreased altruism and find an interaction between power and legitimacy on willingness to help others. The authors propose that the concept of social distance offers a synthesizing lens that integrates seemingly disparate findings in the power literature and explains how power can both corrupt and elevate.

Emotional consequences of categorizing victims of negative outgroup behavior as ingroup or outgroup.

This research examined whether people experience anger after perceiving intentional and unfair behavior of an outgroup which has negative consequences for others, but not for themselves. It was predicted that such outgroup behavior causes anger in the observer, dependent on the categorization of the victims as part of its own group or as part of another group. Participants were primed with information that made either differences or similarities between them and the victims salient, after which they were confronted with negative behavior of an outgroup. Results confirmed the prediction that the same information concerning unfair and intentional behavior of an outgroup harming others led to more anger in the observer when the victims were perceived as ingroup rather than outgroup. Moreover, anxiety was not affected by perception of victims as part of the ingroup or outgroup, suggesting that specific emotions rather than just negative affect were influenced.

Reaction in Action: Intergroup Contrast in Automatic Behavior

Whereas previous research has shown automatic behavior conforming to outgroup stereotypes, the authors demonstrate automatic behavioral contrast away from a stereotype/trait associated with an outgroup (Study 1 and 2) and point to the importance of an “us-them” intergroup comparison in this process. In Study 1, participants colored pictures more messily when neatness was associated with an outgroup rather than the ingroup. In Study 2, using a different behavior, participants primed with busy business people reacted faster than controls (assimilation) but became slower when their student ingroup identity was activated (contrast). Subliminally priming an “us-them” intergroup comparison set undermined the accessibility of outgroup stereotypic words (Study 3), especially for those higher in prejudice (Study 4). This suggests that people automatically distance themselves from outgroup attributes when intergroup antagonism is cued or chronic. Implications for the role of self and comparison processes in automatic behavior are discussed.

Power and threat in intergroup conflict: How emotional and behavioral responses depend on amount and content of threat

We propose that in intergroup conflict threat content is important in understanding the reactions of those who experience threats the most: the powerless. Studies 1 and 2 show that powerless groups experience more threat than powerful groups, resulting in the experience of both more anger and fear. Threat content determines which emotions elicit behavior that adequately deals with the situation. When confronted with a physically threatening outgroup, fear elicits an avoidance reaction in powerless groups (Study 1). When valuable resources are threatened, anger makes powerless group members want to confront the outgroup, at least when they strongly identify with their group (Study 2). Study 3 replicates the finding that threat content determines which emotions are functional in directing behavior.

Minority Influence on Focal and Related Attitudes: Change in Size, Attributions, and Information Processing

Three experiments examined how change in minority size influenced information processing and attitude change. Experiment 1 showed that when strong rather than weak arguments were presented, a message attributed to an expanding rather than shrinking minority elicited more issue-relevant thoughts and more related attitude change in the argued direction. Experiment 2 showed more related attitude change in the argued direction when it was unlikely that expanding size was due to the shifting majority members’ self-interest. Experiment 3 replicated these findings. In addition, results indicated that change in size interacted differently with the majority than with minority status of the source: related issues remained largely unaffected in the case of majority support, whereas expanding minorities elicited more related attitude change in the argued direction.

Social comparison and group-based emotions

informational: people like to know where they stand in terms of what they think, feel, or do. Are they simply normal or do they happen to be outrageously below orabove widely popularstandards?Often,people alsorely on social comparison to motivate themselves. If getting a kick out of the comparison is the main goal of the comparison then the comparison target is likely to be some person or some group that fares slightly better. Finally, there could also be an explicit attempt at self-enhancement. By finding comparison others who are sufficiently similar yet also somewhat less knowledgeable, strong or likeable than themselves, people make sure that they will come out of the comparison with a feeling of psychological comfort. In short, people’s self-knowledge, motivation, and self-esteem crucially hang on the outcome of dozens of daily comparison operations. Although initially used in interpersonal theory contexts, the social comparison process also comes across as a major player in an impressive series of social psychology theories that focus on intergroup relations. Prominent contributions are for instance relative deprivation theory (Crosby, 1976, 1982; Guimond and Dube´-Simard, 1983; Gurr, 1970; Runciman,1966;VannemanandPettigrew,1972;WalkerandPettigrew, 1984; for a collection, see Walker and Smith, 2002), social identity theory (Tajfel, 1981; Tajfel and Turner, 1979; Turner, 1975), and selfcategorization theory (Hogg and Abrams, 1988; Oakes, Haslam and Turner, 1994; Turner et al., 1987). In all these theoretical perspectives, the selection of a particular social comparison target has been shown to exertamajorinfluenceonpeople’sbeliefs,feelings,and,indeed,behaviors. This analysis holds particularly in the case of self-categorization theory (SCT). SCT is often presented as the direct offspring of social identity

When controversial leaders with charisma are effective: the influence of terror on the need for vision and impact of mixed attitudinal messages

We investigated the idea that a charismatic leader with a controversial message is most likely to persuade people in times of terror, because in those times people have a high need for vision, and vision is what a charismatic leader provides. In addition, we argued that the leaders message should contain a pro-attitudinal position as well, as this makes the counter-attitudinal message more palatable. In line with our hypotheses, we found in Experiment I that thinking about terrorism increases peoples need for vision. Experiment 2 revealed that only when people have a high need for vision they will be influenced by a controversial charismatic leader Experiment 3 showed that existential threats also directly increase the influence of a controversial charismatic leader Further, this was especially so when the charismatic leader was both attractive and communicated his message in a charismatic way. Finally, Experiment 4 revealed that after thinking about their own death or about terrorist attacks, people were most likely to be persuaded by a controversial charismatic leader whose counter-attitudinal message also contained pro-attitudinal statements. Together, this research suggests that in times of terror peoples need for vision increases, which opens them up to a counter-attitudinal message of a charismatic leader as long as this message also includes some pro-attitudinal statements. Copyright (C) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Resounding Silences : Subtle Norm Regulation in Everyday Interactions

In this article we suggest a mechanism for norm regulation that does not rely on explicit information exchange or costly reinforcement, but rather on the sensitivity of group members to social cues in their environment. We examine whether brief conversational silences can (a) signal a threat to one’s inclusionary status in the group and (b) motivate people to shift their attitudes to be in line with group norms. In two experiments—using videotaped and actual conversations, respectively—we manipulated the presence of a brief silence after group members expressed a certain attitude. As predicted, attitudes changed relative to the norm after such a brief silence. Those highly motivated to belong changed their attitude to become more normative, whereas those less motivated to belong shifted away from the group norm. The results suggest that social regulation may occur through very subtle means.