LAUSR.org creates dashboard-style pages of related content for over 1.5 million academic articles. Sign Up to like articles & get recommendations!

The Burden of Power: Construing Power as Responsibility (Rather Than as Opportunity) Alters Threat-Challenge Responses

Photo from wikipedia

Power usually lowers stress responses. In stressful situations, having high (vs. low) power heightens challenge and lowers threat. Yet, even power-holders may experience threat when becoming aware of the responsibility… Click to show full abstract

Power usually lowers stress responses. In stressful situations, having high (vs. low) power heightens challenge and lowers threat. Yet, even power-holders may experience threat when becoming aware of the responsibility that accompanies their power. Power-holders can construe (i.e., understand) a high-power position primarily as opportunity to “make things happen” or as responsibility to “take care of things.” Power-holders construing power as responsibility (rather than opportunity) may be more likely to experience demands—such as taking care of important decisions under their control—as outweighing their resources, resulting in less challenge and more threat. Four experiments with subjective and cardiovascular threat-challenge indicators support this. Going beyond prior work on structural aspects (e.g., power instability) that induce stress, we show that merely the way how power-holders construe their power can evoke stress. Specifically, we find that power construed as responsibility (vs. opportunity) is more likely to imply a “burden” for the power-holder.

Keywords: power holders; opportunity; power; threat; construing power; responsibility

Journal Title: Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Year Published: 2018

Link to full text (if available)


Share on Social Media:                               Sign Up to like & get
recommendations!

Related content

More Information              News              Social Media              Video              Recommended



                Click one of the above tabs to view related content.