Work, Design and Team process: Power, approach and inhibition

The relation between power, approach and inhibition

Power is a basic force in social relationships, the press of situations, and the dynamics and structure of personality.

Is there an integrative account of the effects of power on human behavior? We think so and present such a theory in this article. Elevated power, we propose, involve reward-rich environments and freedom, and, as a consequence, triggers approach-related positive affect, attention to rewards, automatic cognition, and disinhibited behavior. In contrast, reduced power is associated with increased threat, punishment, and social constraint and thereby activated inhibition-related negative affect, vigilant systematic cognition, and situationally constrained behavior.

Defining power and related constructs

Power is an individual’s capacity to influence others by providing or withholding social or material resources. This capacity is the product of the actual resources and punishments the individual can deliver to others. Resources and punishments can be material (food, money, economic opportunity, physical harm, or job termination) and social ( knowledge, affection, friendship, decision-making opportunities, verbal abuse, or ostracism). The higher the value of resources or punishments the higher the other individual’s dependence on those resources. Power deals with the capacity to change others’ states for several reasons. People frequently feel powerful or powerless in the absence of observable behavior. In almost all contexts, power is present: from parent-child dynamics to international disputes.

Status are differences in respect and prominence. Status in part determines the allocation of resources within groups and, by implication, each individual’s power. However, it is possible to have status without power, so it is not necessarily correlated.

Authority is power gained from institutionalized roles or arrangements, but power can exist in the absence of formal roles.

Dominance is behavior that has the acquisition of power as its end, yet power can be attained without forming acts of dominance. In conclusion, status, authority, and dominance are all potential determinants of power.

Power, approach and inhibition (Determinants of power)

In informal interactions, individuals provide resources such as affection, information, attention, or humor and administer punishments as a function of their roles and positions within groups. Four levels are distinguished:

1. At the individual level of analysis, elevated power is associated with certain traits such as: extroversion, dominance, increased social skills, and in some cases, Machiavellianism. Certain physical characteristics include height and muscle mass for men, physical attractiveness, and even facial characteristics such as the prominent jaw are also associated with elevated power.

2. At the dyadic level, the aforementioned attributes determine the individual’s power in conjunction with other factors, such as others’ interest, investment, and commitment to the relationship.

3. Within groups, power is determined by a number of processes in addition to a number of those already discussed. Specific roles govern the extent to which group members can provide resources to others.

4. Finally, factors that distinguish groups from one another, including SES and class, majority and minority, group affiliation, and ethnicity provide certain individuals with greater control over resources and punishments.

Together, these factors determine the individual’s power.

Power influences the relative balance of the tendencies to approach and inhibit. There are two reasons why elevated power activates approach-related processes:

- power and increased resources are correlated. Powerful individuals live in environments with abundant rewards, including financial resources, food, physical comforts, beauty, and health, as well as social resources, such as flattery, esteem, attraction and praise.

- the experience of power involves the awareness that one can act at will without interference or serious social consequences.

Lack of power is related to increased inhibition. Less powerful people have less access to material, social and cultural resources and are more subject to social threats and punishments. Thus, they are more sensitive to the evaluations and potential constraints of others. Acting in environments with increased punishment, threat and the lack of resources and being aware of social constraints, people with reduced power should be disposed to elevated levels of inhibition-related affect, cognition, and behavior.

The preceding arguments suggest that more powerful individuals should show elevated activity of processes that are part of the approach system. In contrast, the absence of power, is associated with heightened activity of inhibition-related processes.

Power and affect

Proposition 1: elevated power increased the experience and expression of positive affect.

Hypothesis 1: elevated power will be associated with increased positive mood.

Hypothesis 2: elevated power will increase the likelihood of positive emotion.

Proposition 2: reduced power increases the experience and expression of negative affect.

Hypothesis 3: reduced power will be associated with the experience and expression of negative mood.

Power and social behavior

Predicted patterns of behavior of high- and low-power individuals

Moderators of the effect of power on affect, cognition, and behavior

Power is not static but will interact with contextual factors, culture, and individual differences variables. Individual’s power depends on the resources and punishments one can deliver to others, in combination with the freedom to take such action. Sometimes, however, there are constraints on the actions of those with access to resources and the capacity to deliver punishment. Factors that reduce the freedom with which the powerful can act to dampen approach-related tendencies.

Three processes – stability of power relations, accountability, and social values embodied in cultural and individual differences – act as constraints, thus the moderating effects of power on affect, cognition, and behavior.

Stability of power relations

The threat to social hierarchies and social instability reduce the freedom with which the powerful can act, thereby activating the behavioral inhibition system in powerful individuals. This should lead to more negative feelings, careful attention to others, systematic cognition, and inhibited behavior on the part of the powerful.

Accountability

Accountability = the sense that one’s actions are personally identifiable and subject to the evaluation of others.

Accountability can be constraining on unchecked power. Individuals in power who know they will be held accountable are more likely to acknowledges social consequences and take others’ interests into account.

Low-power individuals carefully consider how their actions will be evaluated by and influence others. To the extent that high power individuals are accountable, their affect, cognition, and behavior will shift toward a pattern of increased inhibition. Furthermore, accountability would lead to less approach-related emotion, more attention to others, and more careful cognition in higher-power individuals.

Individual and cultural differences

In terms of individual differences, it is predicted that individuals who are predisposed to approach- related behavior will especially conform to the pattern of power-related affect, cognition, and behavior on gaining power. Persons who are extraverted, and dominant are more likely to gain power, and by implication act in disinhibited fashion. Cultures defined by high power distance to facilitate disinhibition in the powerful as well as inhibition in the powerless. Cultures defined by low power distance, in contrast, should moderate these effects by placing constraints on the behavior of high-power individuals and introducing incentives for low-power individuals to challenge power-related expectations.

Summary

People feeling powerful experience approach-related moods and emotions; are more attentive to social rewards; construe others in terms of how they satisfy their own goals and needs; and cognize their social environment in more automatic, simplistic ways. they also act in a more disinhibited and at times counternormative fashion. People feeling powerless are more likely to feel negative moods and emotions; to attend to punishment and threat; to make more careful, controlled judgments about others’ intentions, attitudes, and actions, and to inhibit their own behaviors and act contingently on others.