Presenter(s): Joshua Pearman
Faculty Mentor(s): Bradley Hughes & Sanjay Srivastava
Poster 96
Session: Social Sciences & Humanities
In interpersonal dynamics, perceptions of power can influence social outcomes, such as liking or respect. Although most studies focus on how power in others influences these outcomes, there is a lack of work on the influence of self-perceived power on one’s behavior and judgments. Therefore, this research examines how one’s self-perception of power predicts social outcomes during dyadic interactions, which involve two people interacting with one other. Specifically, I worked with the Personality and Social Dynamics Lab to examine the relationship between self- perceived power, experienced during the interaction, and how much the perceiver liked the interaction partner, thought the target liked them, and how much they enjoyed the interaction. These relationships were tested with actor-partner interdependence models. We collected data after 20 minute dyadic social interactions, in which participants worked together on an art gallery task to choose the best 3 paintings out of the 20 provided to display in a hypothetical museum (N = 320). Results indicated a strong relationship between perceived power and how much a participant liked their partner, as well as a strong relationship between perceived power and how much a participant thought their interaction partner liked them. There was not a significant relationship between perceived power and enjoyment of the interaction activity. While previous literature focuses on either how assigned power can influence behavior or how perceived power can be influenced by socio-structural and psychological factors, the present work seeks to examine how perceived power can predict feelings of affiliations when two people interact.