The power distance reduction hypothesis on a level of reality

An experiment and a replication were conducted, testing the hypothesis that the smaller the actual power distance between a subject and a more powerful other, the stronger the tendency to reduce the power distance between them. Power distance was created by placing the subject in a group of three people plus a supervisor. In the condition of large power distance, the three workers had identical functions. Small power distance was induced by placing the subject at an intermediary power level, above the two workers, but below the supervisor. Two other conditions of small power distance were manipulated in order to assess the effects of the timing of power promotion and the perception of the promotion as caused by the subject's task competence. During the course of the experiment, the supervisor left unexpectedly and the subject had the option of taking over the supervisory role or letting one of his co-workers assume it. In the first experiment, subjects who were at a large power distance chose to replace the supervisor significantly less frequently than subjects in the three small power-distance conditions. The small power-distance conditions did not differ from each other. The replication with two small power-distances conditions produced the same results. Both experiments took place in a natural setting.     

On becoming a leader: Effects of gender and cultural differences on power distance reduction

The present research focused on power processes in a simulated organizational structure consisting of three hierarchical levels occupied by different numbers of mules and females. Subjects were presented with a chart showing the organizational hierarchy of which they were a member placed at the lowest level, and asked to nominate any person for the leader position vacated by the current incumbent. The results of Experiment I (n = 88 Dutch male and female university students) showed that male subjects strongly overnominated themselves, whereas a majority of the female subjects nominated either self or another female. Of the others that were nominated by both males and females, almost all were occupants of positions immediately below the leader position, indicating the normative influence of a bureaucratic rule of leader succession. Experiment 2 was a replicational study carried out in a different culture (n = lOl Polish male and female university students). Polish subjects adhered to the bureaucratic rule more strongly than their Dutch counterparts, and both females and males nominated mostly males. Results are discussed with reference to gender self-stereotypes and cultural differences.     

Interpersonal distance regulates functional grouping tendencies of agents in team sports

The authors examined whether, similar to collective agent behaviors in complex, biological systems (e.g., schools of fish and colonies of ants), performers in team sports displayed functional coordination tendencies, based on local interaction rules during performance. To investigate this issue, they used videogrammetry and digitizing procedures to observe interpersonal interactions in common 4 versus 2 + 2 subphases of the team sport of rugby union, involving 16 participants aged between 16 and 17 years of age. They observed pattern-forming dynamics in attacking subunits (n = 4 players) attempting to penetrate 2 defensive lines (n = 2 players in each). Data showed that within each attacking subunit, the 4 players displayed emergent functional grouping tendencies that differed between the 2 defensive lines. Results confirmed that grouping tendencies in attacking subunits of team games are sensitive to different task constraints, such as relative positioning to nearest defenders. It was concluded that running correlations were particularly useful for measuring the level of interpersonal coordination in functional grouping tendencies within attacking subunits.     

The experience of power: examining the effects of power on approach and inhibition tendencies

Two studies of task-focused dyads tested the approach/inhibition theory of power (D. Keltner, D. H. Gruenfeld, & C. Anderson, in press), which posits that having power increases the tendency to approach and decreases the tendency to inhibit. Results provided preliminary support for the theory: Participants higher in personality dominance or assigned control over resources expressed their true attitudes, experienced more positive and less negative emotion, were more likely to perceive rewards (i.e., that their partner liked them), and were less likely to perceive threats (e.g., that their partner felt anger toward them). Most of these effects were mediated by the sense of power, suggesting that subjective feelings of power are an important component in the effects of power.     

Structural aspects of visual similarity

The hypothesis that visual representations for lines and/or points are independent structural units was tested using similarity judgment and speeded discrimination for pairs of six-segment letter-like figures. The stimuli were constructed such that each of two comparison figures had five segments in common with a standard figure. One figure was similar to the standard in its higher order structure (connectedness and closedness properties), whereas the other differed. The results show that the figures with similar higher order structure were systematically judged more similar to the standard than the figures with different structure. The former were also more difficult to discriminate from standards than the latter, as indicated by both time and error measurements. These effects were less pronounced in sequential than in simultaneous comparisons.     

Upward power tendencies in a hierarchy: Power Distance Theory versus bureaucratic rule

Two contrasting notions concerning upward power tendencies within hierarchically structured groups are investigated. Power Distance Theory assumes that people have a desire for power that results in a tendency to reduce the power distance towards a more powerful other, and this tendency is assumed to be stronger the smaller the power distance. The bureaucratic rule implies that a vacant position may only be taken over by someone from the level immediately below the vacant position. In Experiment 1, power distance from the top position of a hierarchy was manipulated by assigning 120 subjects to a higher or a lower position in a power hierarchy. Results showed that only the motivation derived from the bureaucratic rule (i.e. entitlement) mediated the relationship between power distance and upward tendencies. In Experiment 2, a more pertinent test of the two theoretical notions was performed by assigning 139 subjects to one of three positions. The main results were consistent with the bureaucratic rule: (1) subjects immediately below the top position showed a stronger upward tendency towards this position than subjects in the two lower positions, whereas no differences were found between subjects in these two lower positions; (2) again only entitlement mediated the relationship between power distance and upward tendencies.     

Self-destructiveness and manic-depressive tendencies

In a sample of 72 undergraduates, scores on Thalbourne, et al.'s measure of manic and depressive tendencies were associated with those on one of general self-destructive tendencies.     

Structural aspects of face recognition and the other-race effect

The other-race effect was examined in a series of experiments and simulations that looked at the relationships among observer ratings of typicality, familiarity, attractiveness, memorability, and the performance variables ofd’ and criterion. Experiment 1 replicated the other-race effect with our Caucasian and Japanese stimuli for both Caucasian and Asian observers. In Experiment 2, we collected ratings from Caucasian observers on the faces used in the recognition task. A Varimax-rotated principal components analysis on the rating and performance data for the Caucasian faces replicated Vokey and Read’s (1992) finding that typicality is composed of two orthogonal components, dissociable via their independent relationships to: (1) attractiveness and familiarity ratings and (2) memorahility ratings. For Japanese faces, however, we fond that typicality was related only to memorahility. Where performance measures were concerned, two additional principal components dominated by criterion and byd’ emerged for Caucasian faces. For the Japanese faces, however, the performance measures ofd’ and criterion merged into a single component that represented a second component of typicality, one orthogonal to thememorability-dominated component. A measure offace representation quality extracted from an autoassociative neural network trained with a majority of Caucasian faces and a minority of Japanese faces was incorporated into the principal components analysis. For both Caucasian and Japanese faces, the neural network measure related both to memorability ratings and to human accuracy measures. Combined, the human data and simulation results indicate that the memorahility component of typicality may be related to small, local, distinctive features, whereas the attractiveness/familiarity component may be more related to the global, shape-based properties of the face.     

Computing aspects of power for multiple regression

Rules of thumb for power in multiple regression research abound. Most such rules dictate the necessary sample size, but they are based only upon the number of predictor variables, usually ignoring other critical factors necessary to compute power accurately. Other guides to power in multiple regression typically use approximate rather than precise equations for the underlying distribution; entail complex preparatory computations; require interpolation with tabular presentation formats; run only under software such as Mathmatica or SAS that may not be immediately available to the user; or are sold to the user as parts of power computation packages. In contrast, the program we offer herein is immediately downloadable at no charge, runs under Windows, is interactive, self-explanatory, flexible to fit the user’s own regression problems, and is as accurate as single precision computation ordinarily permits.     

Computing aspects of power for multiple regression.

Rules of thumb for power in multiple regression research abound. Most such rules dictate the necessary sample size, but they are based only upon the number of predictor variables, usually ignoring other critical factors necessary to compute power accurately. Other guides to power in multiple regression typically use approximate rather than precise equations for the underlying distribution; entail complex preparatory computations; require interpolation with tabular presentation formats; run only under software such as Mathmatica or SAS that may not be immediately available to the user; or are sold to the user as parts of power computation packages. In contrast, the program we offer herein is immediately downloadable at no charge, runs under Windows, is interactive, self-explanatory, flexible to fit the user's own regression problems, and is as accurate as single precision computation ordinarily permits.     

Taste,traits, and tendencies

Philosophical Studies - Many experiential properties are naturally understood as dispositions such that e.g. a cake tastes good to you iff you are disposed to get gustatory pleasure when you eat...     

Dissociative tendencies and facilitated emotional processing

Dissociation is a process linked to lapses of attention, history of abuse or trauma, compromised emotional memory, and a disintegrated sense of self. It is theorized that dissociation stems from avoiding emotional information, especially negative emotion, to protect a fragile psyche. The present study tested whether or not dissociaters do actually avoid processing emotion by asking groups scoring high or low on the Dissociative Experiences Scale to judge the affective valence of several types of emotional stimuli. Manipulations of valence, modality (pictures or words), task complexity, and personal relevance lead to results suggesting that dissociation is linked to facilitated rather than deficient emotional processing. Our results are consistent with a theory that sensitivity to emotional material may be a contributing factor in subsequent dissociation to avoid further elaboration of upsetting emotion in these individuals. The findings for dissociation further exemplify the influence of individual differences in the link between cognition and emotion.     

Action tendencies and characteristics of environmental risks

It is assumed that the mental representation of the causal structure of environmental risks, i.e., the type of cause and the type of potential consequence, determines which sort of action tendencies are formed. We propose a model of risk evaluation that includes consequentialist and deontological judgments as well as specific emotions as mediators of action tendencies. Four hundred participants took part in an experiment which presented scenario information about environmental risks. The scenarios differed with respect to (a) causation (human vs. natural cause; single vs. aggregate causation), (b) consequence (harm to self vs. harm to other people vs. harm to nature), and (c) geographical distance (proximate vs. distant). Participants indicated how much they preferred each of 31 prospective behaviors. Factor analyses yielded five types of action tendencies: help, aggression, escape, political action, and self-focus. The causal structure of the risks was systematically related to action tendencies, e.g., environmental risks that are caused by humans, and in particular those caused by a single human agent, elicit aggressive action tendencies. The findings conform that the perceived causal structure of a specific risk determines whether the focus is upon consequentialist or deontological judgments, which, in turn, elicit specific types of action tendency, mediated by emotions.     

Procedural justice climate and group power distance: an examination of cross-level interaction effects

In this article, the authors extend research on the cross-level effects of procedural justice climate by theorizing and testing its interaction with group power distance. The results indicated that group power distance moderated the relationships between procedural justice climate and individual-level outcomes (organizational commitment and organization-directed citizenship behavior). More specifically, a larger group power distance was found to attenuate the positive cross-level effects of procedural justice climate. Implications for procedural justice climate research are discussed.     

Suicidal tendencies and ego identity in adolescence

Studies distinguishing between adolescent suicide attempters and others usually deal with demographic, physiological, or familial contributing factors. The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between ego identity development and suicidal inclinations at adolescence. The main hypothesis was that ego identity formation at adolescence may serve as a "buffering" force by providing stability, continuity, meaningfulness, social recognition, commitment, and inner strength against suicidal attempts. Two groups of adolescents, a suicidal group (n = 10) recruited from mental health clinics and a normative group (n = 30), were matched for intelligence, demographic variables, and socioeconomic status. The Adolescent Ego Identity Scale (AEIS; Tzuriel, 1984) and the Israeli Index of Potential Suicide (IIPS) based on Zung's (1974) scale were administered to both groups. The results indicated that the normative group scored significantly higher than did the suicidal group on all but one of the AEIS factors and lower on the IIPS. A MANOVA carried out on ego identity factors revealed a significant overall difference between the two groups. Univariate analyses indicated that most of the ego identity factors differentiated between the two groups. Negative correlations between AEIS and IIPS were found in both groups, especially between total AEIS score and IIPS in the normative group (r = -.89, p less than .001). The findings in general confirm the "buffering" force hypothesis. These preliminary results are discussed in regard to theoretical and preventive aspects.