When the Bases of Social Hierarchy Collide: Power Without Status Drives Interpersonal Conflict

Abstract

Leveraging the social hierarchy literature, the present research offers a role-based account of the antecedents of interpersonal conflict. Specifically, we suggest that the negative feelings and emotions resulting from the experience of occupying a low-status position interact with the action-facilitating effects of power to produce vicious cycles of interpersonal conflict and demeaning behavior. Five studies demonstrate that power without status leads to interpersonal conflict and demeaning treatment, both in specific dyadic work relationships and among organizational members more broadly. Study 1 provides initial support for the prediction that employees in low-status/high-power roles engage in more conflict with coworkers than all other combinations of status and power. In Studies 2a and 2b, a yoked experimental design replicated this effect and established low-status/high-power roles as a direct source of the interpersonal conflict and demeaning treatment. Study 3 used an experimental manipulation of relative status and power within specific dyadic relationships in the workplace and found evidence of a vicious cycle of interpersonal conflict and demeaning treatment within any dyad that included a low-status/high-power individual. Finally, Study 4 utilized survey and human resource data from a large government agency to replicate the power without status effect on interpersonal conflict and demonstrate that power interacts with subjective status change to produce a similar effect; increasing the status of a high-power role reduces conflict whereas decreasing its status increases conflict. Taken together, these findings offer a role-based account of interpersonal conflict and highlight the importance of making a theoretical distinction between status and power.

Witnessing wrongdoing: The effects of observer power on incivility intervention in the workplace

“…Specifically, we found that power's effects partially come from concerns about status challenges. In a similar vein, Fast and colleagues found power without status had a negative impact on interpersonal behaviors (Anicich, Fast, Halevy, & Galinsky, 2015;Fast, Halevy, & Galinsky, 2012). Building on these findings, future research might consider whether the effects found in this paper are intensified by the experience of high power coupled with low status.…”

On the dimensionality of intragroup conflict

“…However, the measurement items of relationship conflict only cover negative emotions, and the incompatibilities of behaviors have been neglected. The proposition of behavioral conflict offers an explanation for the content of incompatible behaviors included in interpersonal incompatibilities mentioned by Jehn (1995) and other researchers (Anicich et al, 2016;Loughry and Amason, 2014). Therefore, further study on the connotation of behavioral conflict is a necessity.…”

Preferred customer status, supplier satisfaction and their contingencies

“…Past organizational research already showed that coercive power and conflict apart can be detrimental to the quality of a relationship, but did no test them in the same research model (Gaski & Nevin, 1985;Geyskens et al, 1999;Lusch, 1976). This is a flaw in literature, since both are strongly inter-related (Anicich et al, 2015).…”

“…The most widely recognized and used sources of power in literature are coercive and reward power (Pulles et al, 2014;Zhao, Huo, Flynn, & Yeung, 2008). Additionally, in psychological research the usage of power has been linked to conflict in a relationship (Anicich, Fast, Halevy, & Galinsky, 2015), but this link has not yet been studied in buyersupplier relationships. Past organizational research already showed that coercive power and conflict apart can be detrimental to the quality of a relationship, but did no test them in the same research model (Gaski & Nevin, 1985;Geyskens et al, 1999;Lusch, 1976).…”

“…It influences a plenitude of individual and corporate-level perceptions of relational aspects (Anicich et al, 2015;Piazza & Castellucci, 2014;Shipilov & Li, 2008;Shipilov, Li, & Greve, 2011). For example, Anicich et al (2015) found that high coercive power combined with low status is a direct source of demeaning treatment in relationships. Also, they showed that increasing the status of a high-power role reduces conflict whereas decreasing its status increases conflict (Anicich et al, 2015).…”