Power in everyday life

Abstract

How does power manifest itself in everyday life? Using experiencesampling methodology, we investigated the prevalence, sources, and correlates of power in people's natural environments. Participants experienced power-relevant situations regularly, though not frequently. High power was not restricted to a limited few: almost half of the sample reported experiencing high-power positions. Positional power and subjective feelings of power were strongly related but had unique relations with several individual difference measures and independent effects on participants' affect, cognition, and interpersonal relations. Subjective feelings of power resulted more from within-participant situational fluctuation, such as the social roles participants held at different times, than from stable differences between people. Our data supported some theoretical predictions about power's effects on affect, cognition, and interpersonal relations, but qualified others, particularly highlighting the role of responsibility in power's effects. Although the power literature has focused on high power, we found stronger effects of low power than high power.positional power | subjective feelings of power | experience sampling | social roles | ecological setting P ower-asymmetric control over valued resources (1-4)-is a fundamental feature of human relations (5): individuals detect power differences quickly, recall them easily, and often prefer them to equality (6, 7). Although power plays a pivotal role in many aspects of life, from the workplace (1) to the family (8) to romantic relationships (9), little is known empirically about the course of power in everyday life. Without such data, it is unclear how power is experienced by individuals on a daily basis, including basic facts such as whether having or lacking power is a regular or rare occurrence and to what degree individuals fluctuate in their level of power throughout the day.Surveying the full array of power experiences occurring in real life also allows for a robust test of power theories. Most recent data on the psychological experience of power has focused on workplace environments and experimental power manipulations (10). Although such manipulations allow for causal attributions, the most common ones involve thinking about power (11) or anticipating power differences rather than experiencing them (12). Even when participants experience low-and high-power roles in the laboratory, these roles generally do not involve real decisions or consequential outcomes (13). Because the effects of power are known to change when power involves meaningful interpersonal interactions versus hypothetical scenarios or anticipated interactions (14), and when power differences are experienced as appropriate and legitimate versus arbitrarily assigned (15, 16), it is not a given that theories developed in the experimental laboratory will generalize to real-world power experiences. Furthermore, if power operates in aspects of life beyond work, it is important to determine if theories of power (3, 4) ho...

From grumpy to cheerful (and back): How power impacts mood in and across different contexts

“…However, research measuring and manipulating subjective feelings of power finds mixed results. For example, Smith and Hoffmann (2016) tracked individuals' experiences over a three-day period finding an association between high power and elevated mood, and low power and depressed mood, in keeping with a number of previous studies (Anderson & Berdahl, 2002, Study 1;Berdahl & Martorana, 2006;Bombari, Schmid Mast & Bachmann, 2017;Hecht & LaFrance, 1998;Langner & Keltner, 2008;Strelan, Weick & Vasiljevic, 2014;Weick & Guinote, 2008, Study 4;Weick & Guinote, 2010, Study 4;Wojciszke & Struzynska-Kujalowicz, 2007).…”

Women experience more serious relationship problems when male partners endorse hostile sexism

“…Yet, hostile sexism has been disproportionally examined from an intergroup perspective, including investigating the ways men try to protect their advantaged societal position (Glick & Fiske, 1996Glick et al, 1997). The focus on women as outgroup members who contest men's advantaged societal-level power overlooks one of the most threatening contexts that challenges the power, dependence and gender-related concerns central to hostile sexism-heterosexual intimate relationships Overall & Hammond, 2018;Smith & Hofmann, 2016). Men and women deeply affect one another on a daily basis within intimate relationships, and thus hostile sexism is likely to have a particularly prevalent, routine and damaging impact on women.…”

It's lonely at the bottom (too): The effects of experienced powerlessness on social closeness and disengagement

“…Additionally, scholars have recently suggested that the relationship between power and social distance may be bidirectional (Trope & Liberman, ), therefore we felt that manipulating powerlessness could help enhance causal inferences. However, we encourage future research to replicate our findings measuring naturally occurring fluctuations in powerlessness (e.g., Smith & Hofmann, ).…”

“…To this point, a recent review of the power literature found that only 0.8% of the reviewed studies focused on powerlessness explicitly (Schaerer et al., ). This is an important shortcoming because research shows that most employees typically experience both powerfulness and powerlessness each day at work (Smith & Hofmann, ), and that the pyramid‐like structure of most organizations likely makes the experience of powerlessness far more common than the experience of powerfulness (Schaerer et al., ). Yet, despite the ubiquitous nature of experienced powerlessness, its organizational implications are not well understood (Schaerer et al., ).…”