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.     

A quantitative model-based approach to examining aging effects on information-integration category learning

Information-integration category learning was examined in older and younger adults. Accuracy results indicated that older participants learned less well than younger participants in both linear and nonlinear conditions. Model-based analyses indicated that both groups in the linear condition tended to use information integration but that later in training younger participants were more likely to do so. In contrast, the 2 groups in the nonlinear condition were equally likely to use information integration. Further analysis indicated that younger adults were more accurate than older adults when an information-integration approach was adopted, whereas fewer age-related differences were observed when a rule-based approach was used, suggesting that age can have a negative impact on information-integration category learning processes but less impact on rule-based learning.     

Dissociative tendencies and right-hemisphere processing load: effects on vigilance performance

The present study was designed to explore the relationship between self-reported dissociative experiences and performance in tasks eliciting right-hemisphere processing load. Thirty-four participants (10 men and 24 women) performed a vigilance task in two conditions: with task-irrelevant negative-arousing pictures and task-irrelevant neutral pictures. Dissociation was assessed with the Dissociative Experience Scale. Consistent with theories positing right-hemisphere deregulation in high non-clinical dissociators, dissociative experiences correlated with greater vigilance decrement only in the negative picture condition. As both the vigilance task and negative picture processing are right lateralized, this result provides support for a right-hemisphere dysfunction in high dissociators, at least in negative conditions.     

Structural and nonstructural aspects of power distance reduction tendencies

Re-examines Mulder's Power Distance Reduction Theory (P.D.R.) and the related experiments using a model which distinguishes between structural and nonstructural parameters of a power system. The former defines the Vertical and Horizontal nature of the power relations between people in the system, while the latter specifies the power differential between two immediate ranks, and together they provide a more adequate and precise conception of the links between the power parameters and the tendencies of subordinate group members to seize super-ordinate power. Several theoretical statements were generated on the bases of the P.D.R. literature and theories of social comparison and bureaucracy to hypothesize the individual effects of the three parameters on power distance reduction (p.d.r.) tendencies. Two experiments using 48 and 40 male college students respectively were conducted to test the hypotheses by systematically varying one parameter and holding constant the other two. The results indicate an inverse relationship between the p.d.r. tendencies and the size of the parameters, as predicted. The strength of the relationship increases from the nonstructural to the Vertical to the Horizontal parameter. An argument was developed which combined the three power parameters to form two ideal power conditions for further research.     

A behavioral route to dysfunctional representations: The effects of training approach or avoidance tendencies towards novel animals in children

We examined the effects of training to approach or avoid novel animals on fear-related responses in children. Ninety-five primary school children (9-13 years old) were instructed to repeatedly push away or pull closer pictures of novel animals. We tested whether this manipulation would lead to changes in self-reported attitudes, implicit attitudes, fear beliefs, and avoidance behaviors towards these animals.The training produced more positive self-reported attitudes towards the pulled animal and more negative attitudes towards the pushed animal. After the training, girls reported more fear and avoidance of the pushed animal than of the pulled animal, while such training effects were absent in boys. No significant training effects were observed on implicit attitudes. Interestingly, the level of anxiety disorder symptoms prior to training was related to some of the training effects: Stronger prior fear was related to stronger changes in self-reported attitudes, and in boys, also to fear beliefs.The finding that a simple approach-avoidance training influences children's fear-related responses lends support to general theories of fear acquisition in children as well as to models that try to explain the intergenerational transmission of anxiety. [184 words]     

Social power and emotional experience: Actor and partner effects within dyadic interactions

A dyadic methodological and statistical approach to social power is used to test the notion that an individual’s power and a partner’s power have distinct effects on the individual’s emotional experience. Two studies examined actor and partner effects of social power on emotion within dyadic interactions. Across interpersonal contexts and measures of social power, the individual’s own social power, theorized to activate behavioral approach, was associated with positive emotion (an actor effect). In contrast, being subject to a partner’s elevated social power, theorized to activate behavioral inhibition, was associated with increased negative emotion (a partner effect). The discussion focuses on how dyadic methodological and statistical approaches point to new lines of inquiry in the study of social power.     

The effect of feeling stereotyped on social power and inhibition

An experience sampling study examined the degree to which feeling stereotyped predicts feelings of low power and inhibition among stigmatized and nonstigmatized individuals. For 7 days, participants with a concealable (gay and lesbian), a visible (African American), or no identifiable stigma recorded feelings of being stereotyped, of powerlessness, and of inhibition immediately following social interactions. For members of all three groups, feeling stereotyped was associated with more inhibition, and this relation was partially mediated by feeling low in power. Although stigmatized participants reported feeling stereotyped more often than nonstigmatized participants, they reacted less strongly to the experience, consistent with the presence of buffering mechanisms developed by those living with stigma. African Americans appeared to buffer the impact of feeling stereotyped more effectively than gay and lesbian participants, an effect that was partly attributable to African Americans' higher identity centrality.     

Bringing life into the group experience: The power of immediacy

One of the great advantages of group treatment is the potential for immediacy. It is possible to charge interpersonal exchanges with a therapeutic power rarely achieved in other modalities. Members responses to one another occur in front of the group as a whole, which makes the dynamics more available and comprehensive than if such interchanges were merely reported. The art of group treatment may be said to consist of fostering this immediacy. It calls for systematically removing blocks to the living moment. This paper presents four techniques for resolving impediments to immediacy: 1. Translating the remote past into the living present; 2. Resolving tendencies of members to fixate rather than to engage in progressive interchanges; 3. Converting oblique communications into their true interpersonal messages; 4. Resolving any tendency to construe oneself as a victim, in order to ward off meaningful and immediate give- and-take.     

The effects of action video game experience on the time course of inhibition of return and the efficiency of visual search

The ability to efficiently search the visual environment is a critical function of the visual system, and recent research has shown that experience playing action video games can influence visual selective attention. The present research examined the similarities and differences between video game players (VGPs) and non-video game players (NVGPs) in terms of the ability to inhibit attention from returning to previously attended locations, and the efficiency of visual search in easy and more demanding search environments. Both groups were equally good at inhibiting the return of attention to previously cued locations, although VGPs displayed overall faster reaction times to detect targets. VGPs also showed overall faster response time for easy and difficult visual search tasks compared to NVGPs, largely attributed to faster stimulus-response mapping. The findings suggest that relative to NVGPs, VGPs rely on similar types of visual processing strategies but possess faster stimulus-response mappings in visual attention tasks.     

Social comparison 2.0: examining the effects of online profiles on social-networking sites

Through their features--such as profile photographs or the personal vita--online profiles on social-networking sites offer a perfect basis for social comparison processes. By looking at the profile photograph, the user gains an impression of a person's physical attractiveness, and the user's vita shows which career path the person is pursuing. Against the background of Festinger's Social Comparison Theory, the focus of this research is on the effects of online profiles on their recipients. Therefore, qualitative interviews (N?=?12) and two online experiments were conducted in which virtual online profiles of either physically attractive or unattractive persons (N?=?93) and profiles of users with either high or low occupational attainment (N?=?103) were presented to the participants. Although qualitative interviews did not initially give reason to expect online profiles to constitute a basis for comparison processes, results of the experiments proved otherwise. The first study indicates that recipients have a more negative body image after looking at beautiful users than persons who were shown the less attractive profile pictures. Male participants of the second study, who were confronted with profiles of successful males, showed a higher perceived discrepancy between their current career status and an ideal vita than male participants who looked at profiles of less successful persons.     

The effects of post-encoding stress on recognition memory: examining the impact of skydiving in young men and women

Prior studies have indicated that post-encoding stress can protect memories from the effects of forgetting, and this has been taken as evidence that stress facilitates memory consolidation. However, it is not known whether stress acts by directly influencing the strength of the underlying memories or whether it influences the generation process that plays a critical role in tests such as free recall. To address this issue, we examined the effects of stress produced by skydiving on recognition memory for negative and neutral pictures. Relative to a non-stress control condition, post-encoding stress in males was found to increase recognition memory for neutral pictures. However, stress was not found to improve recognition for emotional pictures, nor was it found to influence recognition memory in female participants. Additional analysis of recognition performance suggested that stress increased familiarity-based recognition rather than recollection. This study indicates that stress can improve familiarity-based recognition, thus showing that stress directly increases the strength of the underlying memories.     

The effects of alignments: examining group faultlines, organizational cultures, and performance

By integrating literature on group faultlines, organizational cultures, and value congruence, this research presents a framework that explains how cultural alignment across organizational levels may influence the relationship between faultlines and performance. The hypotheses were tested using representatively sampled multisource qualitative and quantitative data on 138 teams from a Fortune 500 company. The present findings demonstrate that although informational faultlines were detrimental for group performance, the negative relationship between faultlines and performance was reversed when cultures with a strong emphasis on results were aligned, was lessened when cultures with a weak emphasis on results were aligned, and remained negative when cultures were misaligned with respect to their results orientation. These findings show the importance of recognizing alignments not only within groups (group faultlines) but also outside groups (cultural alignments between the group and departments) when considering their implications for group performance.     

Power becomes you: The effects of implicit and explicit power on the self

Some power cues are explicit, obvious and salient, while others are implicit, subtle and harder to detect. Drawing from research demonstrating that people assimilate to implicit cues and contrast from explicit ones, we suggest that implicit and explicit power cues have different effects on people. Two laboratory experiments found that when power cues were implicit, people in high power conditions assimilated to stereotypes of power; they had relatively higher independent self construals, and they were more likely to see themselves as autonomous from, rather than connected to, others. The opposite effect emerged when power cues were explicit. These effects were replicated in a third study, where working adults rated their own power at work and the explicitness of power cues in their workplaces. We also found that power and cue explicitness predicted co-worker support, and that this effect was mediated by self construals. These results suggest that the way power is conveyed and expressed can influence important outcomes in organizations.     

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.     

Employing automatic approach and avoidance tendencies for the assessment of implicit personality self-concept: The implicit association procedure (IAP)

A new chronometric procedure, the Implicit Association Procedure (IAP), was adapted to assess the implicit personality self-concept of shyness. A sample of 300 participants completed a shyness-inducing role play and, before or after the role play, a shyness IAP, a shyness Implicit Association Test (IAT), and direct self-ratings. The experimental group was instructed to fake nonshyness. The control group did not receive this instruction. IAT and IAP were unaffected by position effects, and were less susceptible to faking than direct self-ratings with regard to mean levels and correlates. Under faking, correlations between direct and indirect measures decreased, and direct but not indirect measures showed higher correlations with social desirability and lower correlations with observed shyness. Despite many similarities, the true correlation between IAT and IAP was estimated only .61, indicating high method-specific variance in both procedures. The findings suggest that indirect measures are more robust against faking than traditional self-ratings but do not yet meet psychometric criteria for practical assessment purposes.     

The effects of expectancy on inhibition of return

This research examined the influence of cue temporal predictability on inhibition of return (IOR). In exogenous attention experiments, the cue that summons attention is non-informative as to where the target will appear. However, it is predictive as to when it will appear. Because in most experiments there are equal numbers of trials for each cue-target interval (SOA--stimulus onset asynchrony), as time passes from the appearance of the cue, the probability of target presentation increases. Predictability was manipulated by using three SOA distributions: non-aging, aging and accelerated-aging. A robust IOR was found that was not modulated by temporal information within a trial. These results show that reflexive effects are relatively protected against modulation by higher volitional processes.     

Differential age effects on attention-based inhibition: inhibitory tagging and inhibition of return

The purpose of this study was to determine whether 2 forms of attentional inhibition, inhibition of return (IOR) and inhibitory tagging, are differentially affected by the aging process. The authors tested 24 younger adults (mean age = 22 years) and 24 older adults (mean age = 69 years) on a combined IOR and Stroop task (Vivas & Fuentes, 2001). As predicted, younger adults' performance was consistent with inhibitory tagging of objects at inhibited locations. Although older adults demonstrated intact IOR, there was no evidence of inhibitory tagging. The results suggest that age deficits in inhibition are selective.     

权力感对个体的影响:调节定向的视角

采用4个研究探究了权力感对调节定向的影响。研究1通过测量被试的特质性权力感和特质性调节定向初步探索权力感水平与调节定向的关系。研究2和研究3分别通过外显角色扮演和故事回忆法来探究状态性权力感对调节定向目标表征和策略选择的影响。研究4采用身体姿势法启动权力感,进一步探究在内隐层面权力感对调节定向的影响。结果发现,高权力感个体更倾向于促进定向;而低权力感个体更倾向于预防定向,并且排除了其中可能的无关变量(情绪)的影响。本研究有助于更好地理解和整合现有的权力感研究结果,并能预测更多未知的权力感效应。