Social power modulates individuals' neural responses to monetary and social rewards

Although previous research has shown that social power modulates individuals' sensitivity to rewards, it is currently unclear whether social power increases or decreases individuals' sensitivity to rewards. This study employed event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the effects of social power on individuals' neural responses to monetary and social rewards. Specifically, participants underwent an episodic priming task to manipulate social power (high-power vs. low-power) and then completed monetary and social delayed incentive tasks while their behavioral responses and electroencephalograms (EEG) were recorded. According to ERP analysis, during the anticipatory stage, low-power individuals exhibited a greater cue-P3 amplitude than high-power individuals in both monetary and social tasks. In the consummatory stage, though no impact of social power on the reward positivity (RewP) was found, low-power individuals showed a higher feedback-P3 (FB-P3) amplitude than high-power individuals, regardless of task types (the MID and SID tasks). In conclusion, these results provide evidence that social power might decrease one's sensitivity to monetary and social rewards in both the anticipatory and consummatory stages.

Power and Gambling: Dispositional Power Predicts Persistence on a Computerized Scratchcard Task

In gambling contexts, near-misses tend to be perceived as more aversive yet elicit greater motivation to continue playing than clear losses. The current research aimed to examine these effects in the context of situational and dispositional social power. In a pre-registered online study, Hong Kong Chinese undergraduate students (N = 238) with varying levels of gambling involvement completed a measure assessing their general beliefs about their ability to influence others and were then randomly assigned to imagine themselves in a position of high or low power. Participants subsequently played a computerized scratchcard task that delivered wins, near-misses, and clear losses and took trial-by-trial ratings of valence, arousal, and motivation. Following a mandatory phase, persistence was measured via the number of additional scratchcards participants chose to purchase. The results generally corroborated previous findings of different subjective appraisals to near-misses vs. clear losses, but surprisingly found that near-misses were considered to be more pleasant than clear losses. Situational power did not differentially modify these responses. Nevertheless, a main effect of dispositional power emerged in that participants who felt chronically high in power were twice as likely to purchase additional scratchcards compared to their low dispositional power counterparts. This study suggests that a generalized sense of power but not situational power triggers approach motivation in the form of prolonged gambling play.

Are many sex/gender differences really power differences?

This research addresses the long-standing debate about the determinants of sex/gender differences. Evolutionary theorists trace many sex/gender differences back to natural selection and sex-specific adaptations. Sociocultural and biosocial theorists, in contrast, emphasize how societal roles and social power contribute to sex/gender differences beyond any biological distinctions. By connecting two empirical advances over the past two decades-6-fold increases in sex/gender difference meta-analyses and in experiments conducted on the psychological effects of power-the current research offers a novel empirical examination of whether power differences play an explanatory role in sex/gender differences. Our analyses assessed whether experimental manipulations of power and sex/gender differences produce similar psychological and behavioral effects. We first identified 59 findings from published experiments on power. We then conducted a P-curve of the experimental power literature and established that it contained evidential value. We next subsumed these effects of power into 11 broad categories and compared them to 102 similar meta-analytic sex/gender differences. We found that high-power individuals and men generally display higher agency, lower communion, more positive self-evaluations, and similar cognitive processes. Overall, 71% (72/102) of the sex/gender differences were consistent with the effects of experimental power differences, whereas only 8% (8/102) were opposite, representing a 9:1 ratio of consistent-to-inconsistent effects. We also tested for discriminant validity by analyzing whether power corresponds more strongly to sex/gender differences than extraversion: although extraversion correlates with power, it has different relationships with sex/gender differences. These results offer novel evidence that many sex/gender differences may be explained, in part, by power differences.

The construction and preliminary validation of a new Pictorial Materialism Test for 4-6-year-old children

Materialistic tendencies may originate in early childhood, and previous research shows that even preschoolers differ in the degree of their materialism. The goal of this project was to develop and validate a new instrument that reliably measures materialism in preschool children (4-6 years old). A simple and universal Pictorial Materialism Test (PMT) was created and its psychometric properties were evaluated. The PMT consists of 32 items reflecting two dimensions: acquisition as the pursuit of happiness and success defined by possessions. To evaluate the psychometric properties of the PMT, a total of 204 Polish children aged 4-6 years were recruited for the study using an opportunity sampling method. To examine the reliability of the PMT, we calculated the internal consistency, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and test-retest intra-class correlation. To determine the convergent validity of the PMT, correlations with another measure of materialism in children (Happiness Collage) and with age were examined. The results confirmed that materialism can be reliably reported by preschool children and that the PMT has satisfactory (albeit moderate) psychometric properties. The instrument developed in this project is promising for further research because it has the potential to be used in research on materialism in preschool children around the world. In conclusion, we propose a preliminarily validated new Pictorial Materialism Test to measure general materialistic tendencies and their dimensions (possession-driven happiness and materially defined success) in 4-6-year-old children.

Presenting the direct intercultural effectiveness simulation: an implicit trait policy on intercultural competence

Background

An implicit trait policy (ITP) represents the interaction between a personal disposition and general domain knowledge on how to effectively handle a specific (intercultural) situation. Such an ITP is a proven construct to create instruments that can predict future effective behavior. Moreover, such a simulation can provide valuable proxies for actual (future) behavior, as measures of (future) real life intercultural interactions are not always available.

Methods

In a series of three studies (N₁ = 224, N₂ = 291, N₃ = 478), the present research introduces a "Direct Intercultural Effectiveness Simulation" or DIES, an instrument that simulates intercultural effectiveness by directly tapping into an ITP on intercultural competence.

Results

First and foremost, the present research demonstrates that the DIES instrument generates reliable and construct-valid measures of intercultural effectiveness. Second, the DIES instrument also shows expected converging and diverging patterns when correlated with a nomological network on intercultural effectiveness. And third, the DIES measure is further validated by integration into an ITP framework of intercultural effectiveness based on theoretical and empirical accounts from literature.

Conclusion

The DIES instrument generates a reliable and valid measure of intercultural effectiveness by tapping into an ITP on intercultural competence. Theoretically, the present research integrates the instrument into literature by empirically verifying an ITP framework of intercultural effectiveness. In practice, the DIES instrument can be used as an awareness or training proxy for actual behavior to tackle important problems like ethnic prejudice and discrimination.

The value of banknotes: relevance of size, colour and design

In the current study, we evaluate the relevance of three physical features when people retrieve the monetary value of banknotes. To this end, three monetary comparison tasks were designed in which in each trial a pair of banknotes were presented and participants selected the one with higher monetary value. In each task, a different banknote feature (size, colour and design) was examined and a congruent and an incongruent condition (the value of the physical feature corresponded or not to its actual value, respectively) were compared to a neutral condition (no information about the physical feature was provided). We found a pattern of facilitation and interference effects which suggests that size is the most relevant physical feature for accessing the monetary value of banknotes followed by colour. However, the availability of a variety of designs across banknotes seemed not to facilitate the performance of the task, but rather the opposite, hindering the monetary comparison task.

The "Fat Face" illusion: A robust adaptation for processing pairs of faces

Converging evidence has demonstrated our remarkable capacities to process individual faces. However, in real-life contexts, we rarely see faces in isolation. It is largely unknown how our visual system processes a multitude of faces. The current study explored this question by using the "Fat Face" illusion: when two identical faces are vertically aligned, the bottom face appears bigger. In Experiment 1, we tested the robustness of this illusion by using faces varied by gender and race, by recruiting participants from different countries (Canadian, Chinese, and French), and by implementing different task requirements. We found that the illusion was stable and immune to variations in face gender or face race, perceptual familiarity, and task requirements. Experiment 2 further indicated that binocular vision was essential for this visual illusion. When participants performed the task with one eye covered, the previously robust illusion completely disappeared. Together, these findings revealed a visual adaptation for processing multiple faces in the environment: the face at the top is perceived as more distant from the viewer and appears smaller in size than the face at the bottom. More broadly, overestimating the size of the bottom face may represent a fundamental mechanism for social interactions, ensuring the deployment of attention to those closest to self.

Shape-Trait Consistency: The Matching Effect of Consumer Power State and Shape Preference

Angular and rounded shapes are two important visual elements widely used in the design of product shapes and brand logos. By introducing the power state, a psychological variable that is inherently relevant to consumers' product choices, brand preferences, and decision-making, we propose that consumers' power state influences their shape preference. Specifically, compared to low-power consumers, high-power consumers respond more positively to angular as opposed to rounded shapes, because the angular shape facilitates the expression of competence (as opposed to warmth). Through four studies, we provide consistent support for our main predictions as well as the underlying processes. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that consumers experiencing higher power are more likely to prefer an angular shape over a rounded shape than those experiencing lower power through different research methods, research objects, and experimental materials. On this basis, studies 3 and 4 further explore the mechanisms underlying the observed effects. These findings contribute to sensory marketing and power research and provide important implications for visual design and advertisement development.

Overestimation of eye size: People see themselves with bigger eyes in a holistic approach

A face contains crucial information for identification; moreover, face recognition is superior to other types of recognition. Notably, one's own face is recognized better than other familiar faces. However, it is unclear whether one's own face, especially one's own internal facial features, is represented more accurately than other faces. Here, we investigated how one's own internal facial features were represented. We conducted a psychological experiment in which the participants were required to adjust eye size to the real size in photos of their own or well-known celebrities' faces. To investigate why individuals' own and celebrity facial representations were different, two types of photos were prepared, with and without external features. It was found that the accuracy of eye size for one's own face was better than that for celebrities' faces in the condition without external features, in which holistic processing was less involved than in the condition with external features. This implies that the eye size of one's own face was represented more accurately than that of other familiar faces when external features were removed. Moreover, the accuracy of the eye size of one's own face in the condition with external features was worse than that in the condition without external features; the adjusted eye size in the condition with external features was larger than that in the condition without external features. In contrast, for celebrities' faces, there was no significant difference between the conditions with and without external features. The adjusted eye sizes in all conditions were overestimated compared to real eye sizes. Previous research indicated that eye size was adjusted to a larger size when evaluating as more attractive, in which the evaluation is related to holistic processing. Based on this perspective, it could be that one's own face was represented as more attractive in the condition with external features in the current study. Taken together, the results indicated that the representation of own eye size, which is an internal facial feature, was affected by the visibility of the external features.

My own face looks larger than yours: A self-induced illusory size perception

Size perception of visual objects is highly context dependent. Here we report a novel perceptual size illusion that the self-face, being a unique and distinctive self-referential stimulus, can enlarge its perceived size. By using a size discrimination paradigm, we found that the self-face was perceived as significantly larger than the other-face of the same size. This size overestimation effect was not due to the familiarity of the self-face, since it could be still observed when the self-face was directly compared with a famous face. More crucially, such illusion effect could be extended to a new cartoon face that was transiently associated with one's own face and could also exert further contextual influences on visual size perception of other objects. These findings together highlight the role of self-awareness in visual size perception and point to a special mechanism of size perception tuned to self-referential information.

Effects of high and low power on the visual encoding of faces

The experience of power is typically associated with social disengagement, yet power has also been shown to facilitate configural visual encoding - a process that supports the initial perception of a human face. To investigate this apparent contradiction, we directly tested whether power influences the visual encoding of faces. Two experiments, using neural and psychophysical assessments, revealed that low power impeded both first-order configural processing (the encoding of a stimulus as a face, assessed by the N170 event-related potential) and second-order configural processing (the encoding of feature distances within configuration, assessed using the face inversion paradigm), relative to high-power and control conditions. Power did not significantly affect facial feature encoding. Results reveal an early and automatic effect of low power on face perception, characterized primarily by diminished face processing. These findings suggest a novel interplay between visual and cognitive processes in power's influence on social behavior.

When the going gets tough: Power affects the process of making tough decisions

Powerful roles often require individuals to cope with impactful, complicated decisions. The present article reports two experiments investigating the effect of manipulated power mindset on the process of decision-making under different conditions: high vs. low choice conflict (Exp. 1) or high vs. no cognitive load (Exp. 2). Results showed that under the high-choice conflict and high-cognitive load conditions, high-power participants were more likely than low-power participants to take less time, adopt an alternative-based (rather than attribute-based) strategy, rate the tasks as easier, and report higher confidence in and satisfaction with their decisions. Power had no effect on the decision-making process under the low-choice conflict and no-cognitive load conditions. These results suggest that power interacts with choice difficulty to affect the decision-making process.

Psychological power alters cognitive efficiency

Power is known to promote cognitive processing in a goal-directed way. However, it is unknown whether powerful individuals invest more resources when pursuing their goals or whether they invest their resources more efficiently. We examined how experiencing high versus low power affects the efficient investment of cognitive resources using electroencephalography (EEG). Specifically, event-related desynchronization (ERD) in the upper alpha band (10.5-12.75 Hz) was used to quantify the use of cognitive resources during task completion. Results showed that high-power participants used fewer neural resources compared to low-power participants across the whole brain but task performance did not differ between groups. These findings demonstrate that, instead of investing more resources, high-power participants performed the task with greater cognitive efficiency compared to low-power participants. Performing tasks efficiently could help powerholders deal with their demanding jobs and responsibilities.

Social rank: implications for consumers as actors and observers

This review provides an introduction to the relationship between consumers' social rank and their behavior as actors and observers. As actors, people's experience of occupying a position of lower or higher social rank-whether actual or imagined-influences consumer behavior outcomes such as gift giving and luxury consumption. As observers, people exhibit both positive and negative responses to others' signals of social rank. Finally, research opportunities related to power versus status hierarchies, how observers categorize luxury consumption, and observers' ability to correctly assess an actor's social rank are discussed. In total, this review provides a primer on past, present, and future research on the role of social rank in consumer behavior.

Power leads to action because it releases the psychological brakes on action

Why does power lead to action? Theories of power suggest it leads to action because it presses the psychological gas pedal. A review of two decades of research finds, instead, that power releases the psychological brakes on action. Power releases the psychological brakes on action by making failure seem less probable and feel less painful, thereby decreasing the downside risks of action. Power releases the psychological brakes on action by shrouding the feelings and thoughts of others, thereby diminishing the perceived social costs of action. Power releases the psychological brakes on action by limiting goal-inhibiting distractions, thereby promoting greater goal focus and focusing the mind on action. By removing these psychological barriers to action, power leads to action.

The influence of income and testosterone on the validity of facial width-to-height ratio as a biomarker for dominance

Research has indicated that men's facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) is part of an evolved system of social dominance, aggression, and power. fWHR has been linked to antisocial behavior, measured by self-reported aggression, but recent studies have failed to replicate this finding. To overcome these inconsistencies, influencing factors such as social status have to be taken into account in order to explain the relationship between fWHR and aggression. In particular, income has been shown to be an important influencing factor in this relationship. Furthermore, previous findings suggested that testosterone is linked to fWHR and might be associated with fWHR and dominance-related outcomes. Therefore, this study examined the influence of both social status defined by income and salivary testosterone on the association between fWHR and self-reported dominance-related behavioral traits. In particular, links between fWHR and self-report measures of aggression and the Dark Triad (encompassing psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism) were investigated in N = 109 men aged 40 to 75 years. fWHR was significantly associated with physical aggression and two of the Dark Triad traits (psychopathy and Machiavellianism) in men reporting low income. The relationship between fWHR and narcissism was moderated by testosterone. The findings highlight the importance of considering social status and neuroendocrine parameters such as testosterone when examining associations between fWHR and complex psychological traits and behaviors.

Social power and frontal alpha asymmetry

Recent studies have shown that the states of high and low social power (the ability to control or influence another's thoughts, feelings, or behaviours) are related to left and right frontal hemisphere activity, respectively, suggesting a connection with two neurobiological motivational systems-the Behavioural Activation and Inhibition Systems. However, an important and outstanding question is which state of social power is associated with differences in hemispheric activity. In the current study, we addressed this outstanding issue by examining differences in frontal alpha asymmetry while participants engaged in an established episodic recall task, priming states of high, low, or neutral social power. Our results showed that it was the low social power state that was associated with hemispheric differences; that is, the low social power state was associated with significantly less left-frontal cortical activity relative to both the high and neutral social power states, while the latter two states did not differ. We discuss our results considering previous work on social power and the notion that different social power states are associated with different cognitive and behavioural tendencies.

Less Power, Greater Conflict

Abstract. Power facilitates goal pursuit, but how does power affect the way people respond to conflict between their multiple goals? Our results showed that higher trait power was associated with reduced experience of conflict in scenarios describing multiple goals (Study 1) and between personal goals (Study 2). Moreover, manipulated low power increased individuals’ experience of goal conflict relative to high power and a control condition (Studies 3 and 4), with the consequence that they planned to invest less into the pursuit of their goals in the future. With its focus on multiple goals and individuals’ experiences during goal pursuit rather than objective performance, the present research uses new angles to examine power effects on goal pursuit.

Paradoxical Effects of Power on Moral Thinking: Why Power Both Increases and Decreases Deontological and Utilitarian Moral Decisions

The current research explores the role of power in moral decision-making. Some work suggests that power increases utilitarianism; other work suggests power increases deontological judgments. Conversely, we propose that power can both increase and decrease both deontological and utilitarian decisions by building on two recent insights in moral psychology. First, we utilize the moral orientation scale to assess four thinking styles that jointly predict moral dilemma decisions. Second, we employ process dissociation to assess deontological and utilitarian judgments as orthogonal rather than opposite constructs. We conducted two preregistered confirmatory studies that replicated exploratory findings. In Study 1, power increased three moral thinking styles: integration, deliberation, and rule orientation. In Study 2, these decision-making styles simultaneously mediated the effects of power on utilitarian and deontological responses in opposing ways, leading to null effects overall. These results reconcile previous findings and demonstrate the complex yet systematic effects power has on moral decision-making.

Power and Persuasion: Processes by Which Perceived Power Can Influence Evaluative Judgments

The present review focuses on how power—as a perception regarding the self, the source of the message, or the message itself—affects persuasion. Contemporary findings suggest that perceived power can increase or decrease persuasion depending on the circumstances and thus might result in both short-term and long-term consequences for behavior. Given that perceptions of power can produce different, and even opposite, effects on persuasion, it might seem that any relationship is possible and thus prediction is elusive or impossible. In contrast, the present review provides a unified perspective to understand and organize the psychological literature on the relationship between perceived power and persuasion. To accomplish this objective, present review identifies distinct mechanisms by which perceptions of power can influence persuasion and discusses when these mechanisms are likely to operate. In doing so, this article provides a structured approach for studying power and persuasion via antecedents, consequences, underlying psychological processes, and moderators. Finally, the article also discusses how power can affect evaluative judgments more broadly.

Do the Powerful Discount the Future Less? The Effects of Power on Temporal Discounting

Individuals have the tendency to discount rewards in the future, known as temporal discounting, and we find that sense of power (the felt capacity to influence the thinking and behavior of others) reduces such tendency. In Studies 1 and 2, we used both an experiment and a survey with organizational employees to demonstrate that power reduced temporal discounting. In Study 3, we replicated study 1 while exploring a unique cultural trait of Danbo, or indifference to fame and wealth, across two ethnic groups (Han and Tibetan groups) in China. While power reduces temporal discounting, the relationship between the two may be leveraged by individual differences of optimism, frustration, and Danbo. The results imply a more nuanced interpretation of how individual and situational factors can affect intertemporal choice.

Big Money: The Effect of Money Size on Value Perceptions and Saving Motivation

Motivated perception has been shown to affect people's estimates of money (e.g., perceiving coins as larger than real size). In the present research, we examine whether simply varying the size of a picture of money can affect its perceived value and subsequent decisions. Participants presented with a picture of money enlarged by 15% perceived the depicted money as more valuable compared with those seeing a real-size picture (Study 1). When told to imagine their own cash and banked money in the depicted form, participants presented with a picture enlarged by 15% felt more subjectively wealthy and reported fewer intentions to conserve their money compared with those seeing a real-size picture of the same money (Study 2). Together, these studies suggest that judgments about money and even attitudes toward personal spending can be influenced by manipulating the size of a picture of money.

Power and Choice

Power and choice represent two fundamental forces that govern human behavior. Scholars have largely treated power as an interpersonal construct involving control over other individuals, whereas choice has largely been treated as an intrapersonal construct that concerns the ability to select a preferred course of action. Although these constructs have historically been studied separately, we propose that they share a common foundation—that both are rooted in an individual’s sense of personal control. Because of this common underlying basis, we hypothesized that power and choice are substitutable; that is, we predicted that the absence of one would increase the desire for the other, which, when acquired, would serve to satisfy the broader need for control. We also predicted that choice and power would exhibit a threshold effect, such that once one source of control had been provided (e.g., power), the addition of the other (e.g., choice) would yield diminishing returns. Six experiments provide evidence supporting these predictions.