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People feeling powerful don’t listen, study finds
Feb. 15, 2008
Courtesy Ohio State University
and World Science staff
Don’t bother trying to persuade your boss of a new idea while he’s feeling the power of his position, new research suggests—he’s not listening. People tend to disregard
new opinions when they are in the glow of power, a study has found.
“Powerful people have confidence in what they are thinking. Whether their thoughts are positive or negative toward an idea, that position is going to be hard to change,” said Richard Petty, co-author of the study and a psychologist at Ohio State University.
The best way to get leaders to consider new ideas is to reach them when they don’t feel as powerful, the research suggests.
Then “you have a better chance of getting them to pay attention,” said Pablo Briñol, lead author of the study and a social psychologist at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in Spain.
The research examined an issue largely ignored by social scientists, Petty
said: many studies have looked at how the power of a person delivering a message affects recipients, but this
one seems to be the first to assess how the listener’s power affects persuasion.
In the studies, the investigators told college students they would participate in two supposedly separate experiments.
In one, the students role-played in a game in which one acted as a boss,
the other as an employee. In the second experiment, the participants viewed a fake ad for a mobile phone. Half the viewers saw ads with rather feeble arguments for buying the phone, such as its great currency converter; the other half saw ads with strong arguments, such as the quick five-minute recharging time.
When the role-playing took place before the ad, those who played boss were more likely than the “employees” to rate the phone similarly—regardless of the
ad type, Petty and Briñol said. “The strength of the argument made no difference to those who played the boss. They obviously weren’t paying attention when they felt powerful,” Petty remarked. “Those who played the employee, who were made to feel powerless, paid a lot more attention to the arguments. They weren’t as confident in their own initial beliefs and weighed the arguments more carefully.”
In another study, the order of the experiments was reversed. Participants first read the phone ads and wrote down their thoughts while reading. Then they played the role-playing game. Later, they went back and rated the phones. The role-playing “bosses” were now more influenced by the quality of the arguments in the ads, the researchers said, whereas the “employees” were less influenced.
“When power was experienced after the ads had been processed, it gave people confidence in their most recent thoughts, so if they read strong arguments, they rated the phones more favorably. If they read weak arguments, they were much more negative,” Petty said.
How can an average person make use of the findings? Petty suggests the following examples: if you have good arguments to get a raise, try not to ask the boss in her office, amid the trappings of power. Bring it up in a lunch room or somewhere where there aren’t reminders of who is in charge. But if you must talk in the boss’s office, try to say something that shakes his or her confidence. “Try to bring up something that the boss doesn’t know, something that makes him less certain.”
But once you do make your argument—assuming it’s strong—it is good to remind the boss he’s in charge, Petty added. That can lock in the results. “You want to sow all your arguments when the boss is not thinking of his power, and after you make a good case, then remind your boss of his power. Then he will be more confident in his own evaluation of what you say,” Petty said, although that will only work if he was actually won over in the first place.
Petty said the research casts doubt on a classic assertion that power corrupts people and leads them to negative actions. Instead, what power does is make people more likely to unquestionably believe their own thoughts and act on them, he said.
Both low- and high-power people may have negative thoughts at times,
he added, and think about doing bad things. But because high-power people are more confident in their thoughts—and less
open to countering views—they’re more likely to follow through into action,
he said; but this can work for good ideas as well as bad. The research was published in the December issue of the
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
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Don’t bother trying to persuade your boss of a new idea while he’s feeling the power of his position, new research suggests—he’s not listening. “Powerful people have confidence in what they are thinking. Whether their thoughts are positive or negative toward an idea, that position is going to be hard to change,” said Richard Petty, co-author of the study and a psychologist at Ohio State University. The best way to get leaders to consider new ideas is to get to them when they don’t feel as powerful, the research suggests. Then “you have a better chance of getting them to pay attention,” said Pablo Briñol, lead author of the study and a social psychologist at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in Spain. The research examined an issue largely ignored by social scientists, Petty said. Many studies have looked at how the power of a person delivering a message affects recipients, but this seems to be the first to asses how the listener’s power affects persuasion. The investigators told college students they would be participating in two supposedly separate experiments. In one, the students role-played in a game in which one was a boss and the other an employee. In the second experiment, the participants viewed a fake ad for a mobile phone. Half the viewers saw ads with rather feeble arguments for buying the phone, such as its great currency converter; the other half saw ads with strong arguments, such as the quick five-minute recharging time. When the role-playing took place before the ad, those who played boss were more likely than the “employees” to rate the phone similarly—regardless of the ad, Petty and Briñol said. “The strength of the argument made no difference to those who played the boss. They obviously weren’t paying attention when they felt powerful,” Petty remarked. “Those who played the employee, who were made to feel powerless, paid a lot more attention to the arguments. They weren’t as confident in their own initial beliefs and weighed the arguments more carefully.” In another study, the order of the experiments was reversed. Participants first read the phone ads and wrote down their thoughts while reading. Then they played the role-playing game. Later, they went back and rated the phones. The role-playing “bosses” were now more influenced by the quality of the arguments in the ads, the researchers said, whereas the “employees” were less influenced. “When power was experienced after the ads had been processed, it gave people confidence in their most recent thoughts, so if they read strong arguments, they rated the phones more favorably. If they read weak arguments, they were much more negative toward the phone,” Petty said. How can an average person make use of the findings? Petty suggests the following examples: if you have good arguments to get a raise, try not to ask the boss in her office, amid the trappings of power. Bring it up in a lunch room or somewhere where there aren’t reminders of who is in charge. But if you must talk in the boss’s office, try to say something that shakes his or her confidence. “Try to bring up something that the boss doesn’t know, something that makes him less certain.” But once you do make your argument—assuming it’s strong—it is good to remind the boss he’s in charge, Petty added. That can lock in the results. “You want to sow all your arguments when the boss is not thinking of his power, and after you make a good case, then remind your boss of his power. Then he will be more confident in his own evaluation of what you say,” Petty said, although that will only work if he was actually won over in the first place. Petty said the research casts doubt on a classic assertion that power corrupts people and leads them to negative actions. Instead, what power does is make people more likely to unquestionably believe their own thoughts and act on them, he said. Both low- and high-power people may have negative thoughts at times, and think about doing something bad. But because high-power people are more confident in their thoughts – and less susceptible to countering views—they’re more likely to follow through into action. But this can work for good ideas as well as bad, Petty argued. The research was published in the December issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.