They Love Me, They Love Me Not?: Social Power Shapes Expectations of Acceptance and Concerns about Rejection

Abstract

Four studies tested the overriding hypothesis that an actor's high relative to low social power enhances the actor's expectations of social acceptance, and attenuates his or her concerns about social rejection, from others. Study 1 yielded correlational support for this hypothesis, while Studies 2 and 3 produced causal evidence. Study 3 also suggested that actor-power effects on acceptance expectations and rejection concerns emerge in relation to both opposite-power counterparts and others in general, though the effects tend to be stronger for the former. Finally, Study 4 confirmed that our effects are driven at least partly by an actor's power, though at times in interaction with the high or low power of potential sources of acceptance/ rejection. The present studies extend a growing literature on power's effects on processes and phenomena related to social acceptance and rejection. We discuss limitations, implications, and future directions.

Revisiting the powerful-not-lonely effect across cultures: The mediating role of self-construal and social support

“…less loneliness) and approach motivation (Anderson & Berdahl, 2002). They are consistent with recent suggestions that power could decrease the need to belong and negative responses to social rejection (Chen et al, 2017;Kuehn et al, 2015;Narayanan et al, 2013). Most people in one culture share their self-construal (Chiu & Hong, 2006), for example, most Westerners construal self as independent and most Easterners construal self as interdependent.…”

“…A sense of power could affect loneliness because it is related to accessibility to valuable resources (see Keltner et al, 2003). The availability of these valuable resources increases the dependence of others on the individual with access to them, and also decreases individuals' desire for connections with others (Chen et al, 2017). This increase in dependence and decrease in desire might bridge the gap between a person's actual and desired interpersonal relationships, thus decreasing loneliness (Russell, 1996).…”