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Contents
- Abstract
- Defining Power and Related Constructs
- Empirical Traditions in the Study of Power
- Consequences of Power
- Power, Approach, and Inhibition
- Power and Affect
- Proposition 1: Elevated Power Increases the Experience and Expression of Positive Affect
- Proposition 2: Reduced Power Increases the Experience and Expression of Negative Affect
- Power and Social Attention
- Proposition 3: Elevated Power Increases the Sensitivity to Rewards
- Proposition 4: Reduced Power Increases the Sensitivity to Threat and Punishment
- Proposition 5: Elevated Power Increases the Tendency to Construe Others as a Means to One's Own Ends
- Proposition 6: Reduced Power Increases the Tendency to View the Self as a Means to Others' Ends
- Power and Social Cognition
- Proposition 7: Elevated Power Increases the Automaticity of Social Cognition
- Proposition 8: Reduced Power Increases Controlled Social Cognition
- Power and Social Behavior
- Proposition 9: Elevated Power Increases the Likelihood of Approach-Related Behavior
- Proposition 10: Reduced Power Increases Behavioral Inhibition
- Proposition 11: Elevated Power Increases the Consistency and Coherence of Social Behavior
- Proposition 12: Elevated Power Increases the Likelihood of Socially Inappropriate Behavior
- Moderators of the Effects of Power on Affect, Cognition, and Behavior
- Stability of Power Relations and Perceived Threat
- Accountability
- Individual and Cultural Differences
- Summary, Speculations, and Conclusions
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Abstract
This article examines how power influences behavior. Elevated power is associated with increased rewards and freedom and thereby activates approach-related tendencies. Reduced power is associated with increased threat, punishment, and social constraint and thereby activates inhibition-related tendencies. The authors derive predictions from recent theorizing about approach and inhibition and review relevant evidence. Specifically, power is associated with (a) positive affect, (b) attention to rewards, (c) automatic information processing, and (d) disinhibited behavior. In contrast, reduced power is associated with (a) negative affect; (b) attention to threat, punishment, others' interests, and those features of the self that are relevant to others' goals; (c) controlled information processing; and (d) inhibited social behavior. The potential moderators and consequences of these power-related behavioral patterns are discussed.
The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense that Energy is the fundamental concept in physics...