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Power and motivated impression formation

Stephanie Ann Goodwin, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Abstract

Four studies explore the relationship between power--control over others' outcomes--and impression formation. Participants in each study occupied different power roles: the powerful (managers) controlled others' outcomes, the powerless (employees) were contingent on the powerful for outcomes, and the power-irrelevant (alternate participants) neither controlled the powerless nor were contingent on the powerful. Dependent measures included attention to target trait information and impression ratings. Power-irrelevant targets served as the experimental control condition. Participants were predicted to ignore both stereotype-consistent and stereotype-inconsistent information about these targets, forming moderately stereotypic but relatively less confident impressions. Powerful participants were predicted to stereotype subordinates by default (ignoring stereotype-inconsistent information) and by design (effortfully attending to stereotype-consistent information). As a result, powerholders' impressions of subordinates were predicted to be most stereotypic and most confident. In contrast, the powerless were predicted to individuate the powerful, effortfully attending to stereotype-inconsistent information and forming less stereotypic impressions, relative to the other groups. The results of Study 1 support the hypotheses regarding attention to trait information; attention to trait information varied as a function of perceiver/target power roles. The impression rating data did not support the hypothesized relationship between power and stereotyping. Studies 2-4 failed to replicate the attention data of Study 1. Intergroup versus intragroup contexts are discussed as a possible explanation for the failure to replicate across studies.

Subject Area

Social psychology

Recommended Citation

Goodwin, Stephanie Ann, "Power and motivated impression formation" (1997). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9737530.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9737530

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