Leading from Behind
The destructive nature of power without status
Nathanael Fast, Nir Halevy & Adam Galinsky
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The current research explores how roles that possess power but lack status influence behavior toward others. Past research has primarily examined the isolated effects of having either power or status, but we propose that power and status interact to affect interpersonal behavior. Based on the notions that a) low-status is threatening and aversive and b) power frees people to act on their internal states and feelings, we hypothesized that power without status fosters demeaning behaviors toward others. To test this idea, we orthogonally manipulated both power and status and gave participants the chance to select activities for their partners to perform. As predicted, individuals in high-power/low-status roles chose more demeaning activities for their partners (e.g., bark like a dog, say "I am filthy") than did those in any other combination of power and status roles. We discuss how these results clarify, challenge, and advance the existing power and status literatures.
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Matthew Bothner, Young-Kyu Kim & Edward Bishop Smith
Organization Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Two competing predictions about the effect of status on performance appear in the organizational theory and sociological literatures. On one hand, various researchers have asserted that status improves performance. This line of work emphasizes tangible and intangible resources that accrue to occupants of high-status positions and therefore pictures status as an asset. On the other hand, a second stream of research argues that status instead diminishes performance. This alternative line of work emphasizes complacency and distraction as deleterious processes that plague occupants of high-status positions and thus portrays status as a liability. Which of these two perspectives best characterizes the actual performance of individuals in a competitive setting? And are they in any way reconcilable? In this paper, we summarize these two perspectives and test them in two empirical settings: the Professional Golf Association (PGA) and the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). Using panel data on the PGA Tour, we model golfers' strokes from par in each competition as a function of their status in the sport. Using similar data on NASCAR's Winston Cup Series, we model drivers' speed in the qualifying round as a function of their status in the sport. We find curvilinear effects of status in both contexts. Performance improves with status until a very high level of status is reached, after which performance wanes. This result not only concurs with the view that status brings tangible and intangible resources but also provides empirical support for the contention that status fosters dispositions and behaviors that ultimately erode performance.
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The Return of the Honeymoon: Television News Coverage of New Presidents, 1981-2009
Stephen Farnsworth & Robert Lichter
Presidential Studies Quarterly, September 2011, Pages 590-603
Abstract:
Content analysis of network evening news coverage during the first year of the Barack Obama presidency revealed coverage that was far more positive in tone than comparable news reports from the first years of the Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush presidencies. Both domestic and international policy evaluations of the Obama presidency were more positive in tone than those of the last three presidents to take office during partisan transfers of power. The findings reveal a revival of the media honeymoon that scholars thought had disappeared during the modern era of a more combative press. An investigation of the "beat sweetening" hypothesis reveals mixed results, suggesting the need for further investigation.
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Analyzing the new Kennedy tape
John Logsdon
Space Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
A newly released tape of a 18 September 1963 conversation between President Kennedy and NASA Administrator James Webb has been interpreted by some as showing that the president was looking for a way out of his Apollo commitment. This commentary analyses the meeting - in which Webb did most of the talking - and concludes instead that Kennedy was concerned about how to keep the program going in the face of growing criticism of its cost and goals. In particular there was discussion of how to ensure that his support for Apollo did not harm his chances of re-election. To Kennedy, giving Apollo a military rationale seemed the best way to ensure its support.
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Daan Scheepers et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Possessing social power is beneficial for a wide range of physical and psychological outcomes. In the current research we test the hypothesis that the mere activation of high social power elicits an efficient cardiovascular pattern (challenge) while the activation of low social power elicits an inefficient cardiovascular pattern (threat; Blascovich, 2008a, b). Results from two experiments (one using power priming and one involving role playing) provide evidence for this hypothesis and are discussed in terms of the embodiment of power, the power-approach relationship, and further implications for the relation between power and health.
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Drew Noble Lanier
American Politics Research, July 2011, Pages 682-723
Abstract:
Under the acclimation effect view, recent appointees to the Court modify their behavior in systematic ways early in their tenure as opposed to their later decisional tendencies. Similarly, many studies have examined the chief justice's unique behavior. This study blends these two rich strands and explores whether chief justices demonstrate an acclimation effect, such that their behavior changes systematically through time. Using more than a century of Court data, this study examines whether new chief justices' concurrence and dissent rates decline and whether they write fewer individual opinions gradually. I find that the chief justice's position serves to create an incentive structure that is uniquely associated with declining rates of specially concurring and dissenting votes in certain cases. Also, new chief justices pen fewer special concurrences and dissents in some policy areas. My results hence imply that the chief justice experiences unique acclimation effects in learning to marshal the Court.
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Hiding an inconvenient truth: Lies and vagueness
Marta Serra-Garcia, Eric van Damme & Jan Potters
Games and Economic Behavior, September 2011, Pages 244-261
Abstract:
When truth conflicts with efficiency, can verbal communication destroy efficiency? Or are lies or vagueness used to hide inconvenient truths? We consider a sequential 2-player public good game in which the leader has private information about the value of the public good. This value can be low, high, or intermediate, the latter case giving rise to a prisoners' dilemma. Without verbal communication, efficiency is achieved, with contributions for high or intermediate values. When verbal communication is added, the leader has an incentive to hide the precise truth when the value is intermediate. We show experimentally that, when communication must be precise, the leader frequently lies, preserving efficiency by exaggerating. When communication can be vague, the leader turns to vague messages when the value is intermediate. Thus, she implicitly reveals all values. Interestingly, efficiency is preserved, since the follower does not seem to realize that vague messages hide inconvenient truths.
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Agency Performance and Executive Pay in Government: An Empirical Test
Anne Skorkjær Binderkrantz & Jørgen Grønnegaard Christensen
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, forthcoming
Abstract:
Public management reform has drawn inspiration from principal agent theory and private management, and a favored reform strategy has been civil service reform that strongly recommends pay-for-performance. The hypothesis tested in this paper is that the incentive effect will improve public sector management. The basis is the performance management system introduced in Danish central government where access to both performance and pay data provides us with unique behavioral data. The system combines performance contracts with executive contracts for agency heads, who in this way can earn a bonus based on agency performance. We find no support for the hypothesis and discuss the result against principal agent theory, private sector experience, and bureaucratic theory.
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The Popularity of British Prime Ministers
David Denver & Mark Garnett
British Journal of Politics & International Relations, forthcoming
Abstract:
Prime ministers have been crucial figures in British politics for nearly three centuries and the media now give them more prominence than ever. Polling data on prime ministerial popularity suggest that there has been an increasing tendency for voters to take a negative view of the incumbent prime minister. Moreover, almost every post-war premier has left office less popular than when he or she took over. This trend has not affected opposition leaders, however. Despite the fact that they dominate media coverage of British politics, voters' reactions to prime ministers are less good predictors of party preferences than appraisals of the general competence of the government. This suggests that while valence theorists are right to draw attention to the role of party leaders as a means of providing voters with a ‘short cut' in decision-making, the importance of leader evaluations should not be exaggerated.
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Adam Grant & David Hofmann
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although ideological messages are thought to inspire employee performance, research has shown mixed results. Typically, ideological messages are delivered by leaders, but employees may be suspicious of ulterior motives - leaders may merely be seeking to inspire higher performance. As such, we propose that these messages are often more effective when outsourced to a more neutral third party - the beneficiaries of employees' work. In Study 1, a field quasi-experiment with fundraisers, ideological messages from a beneficiary - but not from two leaders - increased performance. In Study 2, a laboratory experiment with an editing task, participants achieved higher task and citizenship performance when an ideological message was delivered by a speaker portrayed as a beneficiary vs. a leader, mediated by suspicion. In Study 3, a laboratory experiment with a marketing task, the beneficiary source advantage was contingent on message content: beneficiaries motivated higher task and citizenship performance than leaders with prosocial messages but not achievement messages.