The effects of power on prosocial outcomes: A self-validation analysis

The present research distinguishes between primary (cognitive) and secondary (metacognitive) processes in the domain of power. Power is a central construct in economic decision making, influencing people’s thoughts and behavior in organizational, political, consumer, and interpersonal contexts. Whereas most research has discussed ways that power can influence primary cognition (e.g., increased self-focused thoughts, heuristic processing), we examine how power can influence secondary cognition (i.e., thinking about thinking). We argue that high (relative to low) power can increase reliance on one’s current thoughts, magnifying their influence on judgment. If thoughts are antisocial (prosocial), increased power will produce more antisocial (prosocial) judgments and behavior. We activated prosocial or antisocial concepts through priming before activating powerfulness or powerlessness. As predicted, primes impacted people’s self-perceptions of cooperation (Experiment 1) and the extent to which they were willing to help others (Experiment 2) when induced to feel powerful, but not when led to feel powerless.

► Power increases confidence and use of currently accessible thoughts. ► This is a metacognitive impact of power on judgment. ► Power should lead to prosocial judgments when a person’s thoughts are prosocial. ► We manipulate people’s prosocial or antisocial thoughts before manipulating power. ► These thoughts predict judgments only when people feel high (not low) in power.