Subjective power and emotions in everyday interpersonal interactions: Counterparts' constrictive posture as moderator

Abstract

Power is one of the vital components embedded within interpersonal interactions, but few studies have studied it in everyday life context. This experience sampling study examined the associations of subjective power with emotional well‐being and investigated the moderating effects of counterpart' postures in the associations. Our results demonstrated that individuals reported higher positive emotions and lower negative emotions when they perceived higher subjective power. Their positive emotions were positively correlated with counterparts' expansive postures while negative emotions were positively correlated with counterparts' constrictive postures. The subjective power‐negative emotion associations were stronger when counterparts displayed higher level of constrictive posture. Our findings provide an evidence base for a comprehensive understanding on the role of subjective power and perception of counterparts' power‐related posture in dyadic communications in emotional well‐being.

Power Differences and Dynamics in Multiparty Collaborative Systems: A Systematic Literature Review

“…This comes at odds with the conceptualization proposed by AIM [14,26] claiming that those with high levels of power are characterized by positive moods and emotions, while those with low levels of power tend to be more withdrawn and to mainly experience negative emotions during interactions. Recent studies support the idea of power related to positive emotions and negative emotions [27,28]. Both theories claim that individuals with high levels of power tend to show dominance, pride, assertiveness, and anger when others make mistakes [12,14], whereas those with low levels of power show guilt or embarrassment [12,14].…”