Author:

Abstract:

In three projects we investigate the influence of power on a variety of social effects and elements in peoples everyday life and show that power, contrary to what often is assumed, can have a positive effect on social behavior. In project one, we look at the relationship of power with social connectedness and find that, contrary to the previously established negative link between the two constructs, that naturally occuring power and social connectedness actually have a positive relationship. We explain the earlier found negative link by the widespread use of power manipulations that often do not capture the social element of power. In the second project we investigate power's influence on Word-Of-Mouth behavior. We find that powerholders are less sensitive to the valence of a consumer experience: Whereas those with neutral or those who lack power tend to talk less about bad consumer experiences than about the good, power seems to moderate this effect.The third project looks at a category of people that is often overlooked in the literature: the Rising Star. Previous power literature posits that the powerful tend to objectify and dehumanize those in lower positions, but we show that this Rising Star category of people, who are objectifly in low power roles, are actually preffered social targets to the powerless as well as the powerful