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How Power Affects One's Ability Research Paper

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How Power Affects One’s Ability to
Consider the Perspectives of Others
Sabryn Aguilar
Texas Tech University How Power Affects One’s Ability to Consider the Perspectives of Others
Powerful people are often associated with the words rude, indifferent, and/or inconsiderate while powerless people are associated with the terms push-over, weak, and/or easy-going. Because of these stereotypes, the necessity for studies on the relationship between power and perspective taking became apparent. Power is often described as having the ability to manipulate the actions of others in order to achieve one’s personal goals (Galinsky, Magee, Inesi, Gruenfeld, 2006; Magee, Keltner, & Galinsky, 2004) or as holding a position in which one has the capacity …show more content…

Power, the independent variable in this experiment, was manipulated by asking participants to write about a situation in which they had power over someone else or someone else had power over them. Perspective taking, the dependent variable, was measured by recording whether participants wrote a self-oriented (Ǝ) or other-oriented E on their foreheads. It was expected that, in concurrence with Galinsky et al.’s 2006 experiment, participants primed with high-power would be more likely to draw a self-oriented E because they had not subconsciously taken the ability of others to read the letter into consideration.

References
Galinsky, A. D., Magee, J. C., Gruenfeld, D. H., & Whitson, J. A. (2008). Power reduces the press of the situation: Implications for creativity, conformity, and dissonance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 1450-1466.
Galinsky, A. D., Magee, J. C., Inesi, M. E., & Gruenfeld, D. H. (2006). Power and perspectives not taken. Psychological Science, 17, 1068-1074.
Gruenfeld, D. H., Inesi, M. E., Magee, J. C., & Galinsky, A. D. (2008). Power and the objectification of social targets. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 111-127.
Magee, Joe, D.H. Gruenfeld, D. Keltner, & Adam Galinsky. "Leadership and the psychology of power." In The Psychology of Leadership: New Perspectives and Research. Ed. David M. Messick and Roderick M. Kramer. Mahwah, NJ: Psychology Press,

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