What is power? - Chapter 2

What is power? - Chapter 2

Human relationships are built on who has power, who is affected by it and how power is gained. To get an clear understanding of the dynamics, it is important to take a good look at power when inspecting an organization.

Power can be defined as 'asymmetric control over valued resources in social relations'.

Power has immense psychological effects, which can endure after the situation in which the power is experienced. The Power-Approach-Theory says that power sets the behavioural approach system into motion. The sensitivity to rewards, achievement, sex, and social bonding gets a boost. When there is a lack of power, the behavioural inhibition system is activated. This system increases behaviour related to anxiety, avoidance, and response inhibition. When taking a closer look at these systems, you can understand why power, or lack of power, has a huge influence on behaviour and cognition. These effects are discussed below.

Social attentiveness is affected by power

People who employ a high level of power are less interdependent and are better in satisfying their needs without help. This causes powerful people to be less attentive to the internal experiences of others.

Power reduces the habit of viewing the world from the others' perspective. Also, power surges the instrumental attention to others, so the people with power tend to see their social partners through a lens of self-interest.

There is more and more research which shows the powerful are not the best perspective takers. It is hard for the powerful to see the world through the eyes of others. A task researchers provided their participants with, was writing the letter 'E' on their forehead. This could done two ways:

Writing the 'E' backwards to the self, so the other can be read the letter just fine: other-focused.

Writing the 'E' backwards to the other: self-focused.

People with more power where three times more likely to draw a self-focused 'E'.

Another study worked with phrases that could be perceived two ways: literal of sarcastic. The participants were presented with a sentence that looked sincere (e.g. 'that dress looks nice'), but got background information that showed the sentence could be meant in a sarcastic manner. When this background information was only provided to a few participants, only powerful participants assumed that all people (also the people that did not received the background information) perceived the sentence as sarcastic.

Research also showed that powerful people did not tend to activate metastereotypes (stereotypical thoughts about how the out-group perceives the in-group) in intergroup contexts. Using metastereotypes is very useful to understand the behaviour and intentions of others.

Other research implies that the emotional identification and social connections are less developed in powerful people. Power builds a psychological gap between the powerful and the powerless.

The research findings above appear to indicate power has mainly negative outcomes. Luckily for the powerful, this is not true. For example, power is very handy for negotiators. They are immune to the emotions of their competitor. Also, power protects the individual from influences of others and it also protects them from peer pressure to conform with the group.

To achieve their own goals, powerful people tend to see others more in an instrumental manner. Research shows that when individuals with power have to complete people-centered goals, they are paying more attention to unique information about others. When they have to complete product-centered goals on the other hand, powerful people cannot name as much unique information. This proves the social attention of powerful people is directed by their goal.

Other studies show that power increases the likelihood to instrumentalise the relationship with others. The powerful pay attention to those aspects of the other person, that could help to achieve an intended goal. This can be both positive and negative for the organisation and others. For example, it can increase the efficiency of the organisation. Also, people with more power are more capable of ignoring existing individual idiosyncrasies to diverge from existing rules and make exceptions.

Power makes the person

Research shows individuals change because of power. Power has foreseen effects on their behaviour and thoughts. People with power seem to be optimistic and action-oriented. Also, they have a clean view of the future. Unfortunately, people with power also tend to take too much risk and have the illusion of control.

Studies show that having power increases the likelihood to take assertive action. For example, in one study people had to remember a situation in which they were powerful, or a situation in which they were powerless. After, they were brought into another room to complete more tests. In this room, there was a fan blowing directly at the participant (an annoying factor). The people who just recalled a powerful experience were more likely to turn the fan off (i.e. assertive action).

In another study, people with power in a negotiating setting, initiated the negotiation and made a first offer in more cases then people with less power. The increased likelihood to take assertive action when having power, contributes to others and the community. When seeing someone having an emergency, people with power tend to help sooner than people without power.

Power boosts optimism and risk taking behaviour

People with power tend to think their future holds more positive and less negative experiences. This does not only apply to things in their control, but also to things outside of their control, like getting ill. Also, powerful people perceive the world as less dangerous and less risky. Besides this, powerful people tend to be attracted to risks. When a risk presents itself, people with power tend to only see the benefits, and not the losses, they could have.

In one study, people were asked to predict the outcome of a dice roll. When predicted correctly, they got a reward. After the predictions were made, people were asked if they wanted to throw the dice themselves (illusion of being in control) or let the test leader roll the dice. People with power wanted to roll the dice themselves in all cases. Just over half the people with low power wanted to roll themselves and about two-third of the control group participants wanted to throw the dice themselves.

Other research suggests there is not only a correlation between power and action, but also between power and optimism because of the sense of control powerful people perceive. This sense of control can have both positive and negative outcomes: it can protect the individual from falling into depression or to foster superstitions, but it can also lead the individual and surrounding others to committing too much and feeling entrapped.

In another study (and also in a replication study) a relation was found between power and abstract thinking. It seems to be that people with power process information differently than people with less or without power. Seeing things in a more abstract way can lead to communication problems when discussing the issue with less powerful people.

As we have seen, power can be increased by taking risks and seeing the big picture, but it can also be decreased when the risky choices do not turn out in a positive way.

Power reveals the person

Power seems to boost the interaction between individual traits and behaviour. Because of power, normative behaviour tends to fade so the true nature of the person emerges. It can be said that the behaviour of powerful people can be better predicted by their personalities, compared to powerless people. The consequences of being powerful vary with cultures.

One study found people with power in a communally oriented culture were more selfless and people with power in an exchange oriented culture were more selfish.

In another study, the way people with power build a relationship with their negotiating partner could be best predicted by their social value orientations. The way people in the control group build a relationship with their negotiating partner could be best predicted by their partner's reputation.

There is a difference in how cultures perceive power and how they perceive the self. In Western cultures, having power means you're free from the control of others and you can fulfill your wishes at any time. Having power, means you're reward-directed. In Eastern cultures, powerful people are the responsible people. Having power means you're responsibility-directed.

The self can be described as an 'unique entity with an individual repertoire of internal attributes such as feelings, cognitions, and motivations' (de Cremer, van Dick, & Murnighan, 2011) in Western cultures. The self is individual and autonomous. In the Eastern cultures, the self is described as interdependent. It is important to be socially connected to others and being part of a larger group. The keyword in the Eastern cultures is cooperation.

Embrace power to lead

It is important to consider the following question: how can we lessen the negative effects power can have and how do we expand the positive effects of power? Unfortunately, this question is not studied much. Another question; how can we use power to contribute to leadership, is studied more. Having power does not make a person a leader, and leaders do not always have or need power. Leadership can be explained as directing group members' ideas into common goals, by using influence and motivation. This partly has an overlay with power: both use influence to reach goals. They also differ from each other: the origin, purposes and consequences of the influence:

The combination of being a leader and having power can result in transferring grand vision about the future. This can motivate others to achieve a team goal. Also, others could get inspired to show more goal-directed behaviour.

On the other hand, the temptation powerful leaders have to achieve personal goals, has to be eased. It is important for powerful leaders to keep seeing people as people and not as tools towards a certain goal.

It is important for organisations to choose the people who fill in the powerful positions wisely. Organisations needs to identify the true self of a person, before granting them power (as we have read earlier, power reveals ones true self).

Perspective taking (being able to see things from the other persons view) is a key concept to convert power into successful leadership. Perspective taking can be linked to social functioning in a smooth manner. This has numerous benefits: being helpful and cooperative in an organisation will be positively influenced, people will be better in correctly interpreting other persons interests, people will be more altruisticly motivated, stereotypes will be diminished as well as egocentric biases during decision making.

It is commonly known that groups can have trouble discussing information when only one member holds that information. Sometimes the information never comes up in the group discussion. A powerful leader could contribute to this, so the quality of the decisions made will be better. Some research suggest that this is indeed the case, but more research is necessary to confirm such conclusions.

Other studies claim that powerful leaders who can see through the eye of the group members can contribute into sharing not-commonly known information. To enhance the perspective taking of the powerful leader, a study shows that it is important to hold the leader responsible. Also, having procedural justice systems within the organisation, can help enhancing the ability to stand in other people’s shoes. This means the decision making process should be more democratic, and the people without power have to have a voice in decisions regarding them.

Questions Chapter 2: Power

How does power relate to human relationships?

Explain the Power-Approach-Theory.

Why are powerful people less attentive to others?

Why can being powerful have negative consequences?

What is the effect of experiencing power on the human behavior?

How does having power differ from cultures?

How can powerful leaders be successful?