Perceiving the Powerful: Intriguing Individuals versus Threatening Groups

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 35, 461–480 (1999) Article ID jesp.1999.1380, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

Perceiving the Powerful: Intriguing Individuals versus Threatening Groups Eric De´pret University of Grenoble, France

and Susan T. Fiske University of Massachusetts at Amherst Received September 5, 1995; revised August 10, 1998; accepted January 11, 1999 An experiment investigated the effect of short-term asymmetrical outcome dependency (one form of power) on person perception in interpersonal and intergroup situations. Power was manipulated as the amount of control targets had over perceivers’ outcomes. In the interpersonal condition, targets were from various out-group categories, so they formed a loose aggregate. In the intergroup condition, targets all were from the same out-group category, forming a homogeneous out-group. The hypothesis, contrasting the impact of power in interpersonal and intergroup relations, was confirmed. Results show that, in the interpersonal condition only, targets’ power (perceiver outcome dependency) led to individuating impression-formation processes (attention and dispositional inferences), consistent with the continuum model of impression formation. By contrast, in the intergroup condition, targets’ power did not lead to individuating impression-formation processes, but generated in-group identification and favoritism, as well as negative affect, an apparent in-group cohesion effect under threat. Results are discussed with regard to the continuum model of impression formation, issues of control deprivation, and social identity theory. r 1999 Academic Press

People think with more or less effort, depending on the circumstances. People think about each other and about attitude objects, for example, using relatively more or fewer cognitive resources (for an overview of dual-process models in social psychology, see Chaiken & Trope, 1999). Chief among the determinants This research and the first author were supported by NIMH Grant 41801 to the second author. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Susan T. Fiske, Department of Psychology, Tobin Hall, Box 37710, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst MA 01003-7710. E-mail: [email protected]. 461 0022-1031/99 $30.00 Copyright r 1999 by Academic Press All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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of thinking harder or not is the pragmatics of the situation. If thinking is for doing (Fiske, 1993), then people behave fairly pragmatically: When people have goals that require thorough analysis, they engage in thoughtful processes, behaving like motivated tacticians (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). Otherwise, they stay with easier, less effortful processes, behaving like cognitive misers. For instance, the pragmatic view suggests that if people’s goals are contingent on another person, they will think harder about that person, but only if thinking harder seems useful. Thus, people in traditionally hierarchical organizations think harder about individuals who hold the purse strings than about less powerful individuals. However, if thinking harder seems useless (e.g., because the higher-ups are a homogeneous out-group prejudiced against one’s own group), then people may give up because the bosses are in cahoots and subordinates must rally around their own in-group to protect themselves from the bosses’ shady conspiracy. This paper addresses the distinction between forming impressions of more and less powerful people, depending on whether they are seen as individuals on whom one is contingent (various specific people who hold the purse strings) or as a homogeneous out-group on whom one is contingent (the bosses in cahoots, a shady conspiracy). First, the introduction reviews theoretical bases for different modes of impression formation, depending on pragmatic motives such as outcome dependency, and then it contrasts the interpersonal and intergroup cases of outcome dependency. Continuum Model and the Pragmatics of Impression Formation The continuum model of impression formation captures a distinction between more and less effortful processes of getting to know another person (Fiske & Neuberg, 1990). The model addresses information about others as including readily available categories, such as gender, race, and age, which may be immediately visible, as well as other readily available categories, such as occupation, college major, or avocation, which may be communicated, for example, via verbal labels. Information that serves as an overarching, organizing category may vary depending on the configuration, but the utilized category provides a framework for understanding other attributes, such as traits or behavior. The model proposes a range of impression-formation processes, from automatic initial categorization, to category reconfirmation, to intermediate processes that balance categories and attributes, to fully attribute-oriented processes, in which the initial category becomes just another attribute. Information configuration and motivational circumstances determine how far along the continuum perceivers move, from more category-based to more attribute-based processes. Attention to and interpretation of information mediate the underlying processes. The premises of the model have been well supported (for a recent review, see Fiske, Lin, & Neuberg, 1999). For example, perceivers follow more category-based or attribute-based processes, depending on the information configuration (Fiske, Neuberg, Beattie, & Milberg, 1987), the instructions (Pavel-

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chak, 1989), or their own sense of appropriate norms and values (Fiske & Von Hendy, 1992). Consistent with the pragmatic approach, one core motive determining relatively category-based or attribute-based social perception is interdependence, that is, the degree to which people need each other to further their goals. The continuum model research has emphasized interdependence as a central motivation. In particular, interdependent people typically use more effortful, attributebased processes of impression formation: Interdependence motivates people to attend to the most diagnostic information, namely, attributes that are inconsistent with the initial categorization. Because consistent attributes merely confirm prior information, they are less useful. In addition, interdependence motivates people to make dispositional analyses of the attended category-inconsistent information, thereby potentially individuating the person on whom they depend. Cooperative interdependence (Erber & Fiske, 1984; Neuberg & Fiske, 1987; Pendry & Macrae, 1994) and competitive interdependence (Ruscher & Fiske, 1990) both show these patterns, apparently in the service of providing perceivers with a sense of accuracy (Neuberg, 1989; Neuberg & Fiske, 1987). When people’s outcomes depend on another person, they attempt accuracy-oriented, potentially individuating processes to regain a sense of control over their outcomes. Until recently, such individuating effects of outcome dependency have always been obtained in situations of symmetrical interdependence (whether cooperative or competitive) between target and perceiver. These studies therefore do not ascertain that individuation was a function of the target’s control per se over the perceiver’s outcomes, as apart from the perceiver’s control over target or their joint control over each other. The current study directly addresses this issue, by isolating perceivers’ outcome dependency, a tighter test. Moreover, all our previous studies of outcome dependency have compared interdependence or dependence versus full independence, whereas a more focused comparison would manipulate degrees of outcome dependency. Hence, a crucial test of the model’s premise that individuation stems specifically from the perceiver’s outcome dependency would vary only the amount of control the target has over the perceiver in a situation of asymmetrical outcome dependency (i.e., in power relations). The current experiment undertakes precisely this comparison, as one of its central purposes. Interpersonal versus Intergroup Perception Another persistent gap in research testing the continuum model has been its focus on an individual level of analysis. In part, this focus has been deliberate, sustaining an interest in face-to-face interaction, reflected in the parameters of the model. In part, however, the individual focus is paradoxical, because the model concerns the impact of group categories on impression formation. Moreover, many processes differ in interpersonal versus intergroup interaction (for reviews, see Hamilton & Sherman, 1996; Schopler & Insko, 1992). With specific regard to the continuum model, the effects of interdependence

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demonstrably differ in interpersonal versus intergroup settings. For example, the original finding that one-on-one competition facilitates individuation (Ruscher & Fiske, 1990), while in accord with the model’s interdependence predictions, seemed to fly in the face of desegregation literature indicating that group-ongroup competition fosters stereotypic, category-based perceptions (e.g., Miller & Brewer, 1984; Sherif, Harvey, White, Hood, & Sherif, 1961). Closer analysis suggests that in small-group competition with another small group, the individual perceiver is subject to double outcome dependency: positive outcome dependency with in-group members and negative outcome dependency with the out-group. According to the model, perceivers should prioritize attention to whoever is more important to their outcomes. Ruscher, Fiske, Miki, and van Manen (1991) hypothesized that the in-group would be viewed as having higher priority, on the grounds that in-group favoritism is more important than out-group derogation. As predicted, individuals operating as part of a three-person team competing with another three-person team for team-level outcomes (as in a team sport) failed to attend to their opponents but did individuate their teammates. In contrast, individuals operating as part of a three-person ‘‘team’’ but competing one-on-one (as in tennis) with opponent team members for individual-level outcomes did individuate their opponents but not their teammates. These results illustrate the difference between interpersonal and intergroup competition. These results do not, however, differentiate between conflicting demands on attention and the interpersonal–intergroup dimension per se. Attentional resources do moderate the motivational impact of outcome dependency on individuating processes (Pendry & Macrae, 1994), so a stronger test of the interpersonal– intergroup dimension would control for the effect of in-group members on attention. Such a paradigm is available in the social identity/self-categorization theory approaches to intergroup relations (see, e.g., Tajfel, 1981; Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987). In this view, intergroup relations do not refer to interaction en masse, as opposed to dyadic interaction, and the concept of group is not defined on the basis of copresence, interpersonal attraction, or interdependence. Rather, ‘‘intergroup’’ refers to one mode of interaction in which individuals act on the basis of commonly perceived social identities and locations in the social structure (see Tajfel, 1978). Once individuals self-categorize as group members, their thoughts, feelings, and actions may not be understood as much in terms of personal motivations as in terms of social identity concerns, hence the typical in-group bias obtained in minimal group situations (for a review, see Brewer & Brown, 1998). In this view, grounded in a cognitive definition of the social group, what differentiates interpersonal from intergroup behavior is the extent to which individuals self-categorize as group members (Turner et al., 1987). In turn, the characteristics of social situations can affect the salience of social identities and the extent to which individuals categorize themselves as members of groups. According to Oakes (1987), the salient categorization is the one that maximizes intragroup similarities and intergroup differences. Consider a situation in which

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two sports teams compete: In one case, the teams are constituted so that all African Americans are on one team and all European Americans are on the other one; in the other case, the teams are constituted so that both teams are made up of both African Americans and European Americans. In the former case, ethnicity is more salient or relevant to the individuals than in the latter. In the latter case, where team membership and ethnicity crosscut, people are more likely to be treated as individuals (Brewer & Brown, 1998) because neither categorization is as salient. Taking the principle of categorization salience one step further, then, a heterogeneous set of various out-group members would be less a group than a homogeneous set of single-out-group members because the heterogeneous group has less entitativity (Campbell, 1958), that is, forms a less good Gestalt as a group entity. Thus, one would predict interpersonal interactions with an aggregate comprising heterogeneous out-group members, but intergroup interactions with a group comprising homogeneous out-group members. This holds constant the out-group status of the target individuals and their numbers, as well as any interdependence structure, but allows the ‘‘group-ness’’ of the interaction to vary. Several lines of theory and evidence suggest that intergroup interactions inherently carry a more negative and competitive interdependence structure than interpersonal interactions. Intergroup interactions are more competitive and less cooperative than interpersonal interactions, based on fear and perhaps greed (Schopler & Insko, 1992). At a minimum, mere membership in an out-group carries implications of uncertainty and unreliability, because the out-group is less familiar than the in-group; at a maximum, out-group membership presumes incompatible and perhaps hostile goals, because entitative groups are viewed as cohesive and different from one’s own group (Fiske & Ruscher, 1993). Either way, a coherent out-group is threatening and evokes negative affect. Because out-group members are perceived as committed to their own group norms (Leyens & Schadron, 1980), and out-groups are perceived as cohesive entities (Horwitz & Rabbie, 1982) which are expected to discriminate against the in-group (as in Fiske & Ruscher, 1993), information seeking is not the most appropriate strategy to restore control. If those in power as a group are expected to discriminate no matter what, leaving little room for influence, careful attention may not be seen as an option to gain prediction and control. In terms of the continuum model, dependence on a homogeneous out-group would be most threatening, especially if they had high power. Hypotheses The model proposes that the kind of hard thinking people do about others will depend on their outcome expectancy (Fiske & De´pret, 1996). If outcomedependent perceivers think they can influence the target, they attend to diagnostic information in the hopes of enhancing prediction and control. If they do not expect to be able to influence the target, and if they think positive outcomes are probable, they may attend to and interpret information in order to sustain wishful

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thinking and positivity biases (Goodwin, Fiske, Rosen, & Rosenthal, 1998; Stevens & Fiske, 1998). If they do not expect to be able to influence the target, and if they think negative outcomes are probable, they may attend to and interpret information to sustain beliefs about their worst expectations and stereotypes and shift their focus to the in-group for protection. Specifically, the model predicts that dependence on a high-power heterogeneous aggregate will increase (a) attention to and (b) dispositional attributions about the most diagnostic, expectancy-inconsistent attributes of individual outgroup targets, who (c) will be viewed in interpersonal rather than intergroup terms. In contrast, dependence on a high-power homogeneous out-group will not increase (a) attention to and (b) dispositional attributions about the most diagnostic, expectancy-inconsistent attributes of individual out-group targets, who (c) will be viewed in intergroup, rather than interpersonal, terms. People contingent on the high-power, homogeneous out-group may also (d) anticipate negative outcomes and report negative affect. Note that these hypotheses predict effects for the most diagnostic, expectancy-inconsistent attributes only; as in our previous studies, expectancy-consistent information is expected to show no effects of outcome dependency. The prediction does not compare inconsistent, relative to consistent, attributes, but predicts effects for inconsistency only (Erber & Fiske, 1984; Ruscher & Fiske, 1990; Ruscher et al., 1991). OVERVIEW We propose to operationalize the interpersonal–intergroup dimension in an experiment on short-term, outcome-control power relations: In the interpersonal situation, those in power will be an aggregate of individuals from different out-group categories, whereas in the intergroup situation, they all will be from the same out-group. We hypothesize that when those in power are a collection of unrelated individuals, the more power they have over the perceivers, the more the perceivers will individuate them, providing a crucial test of the continuum model of impression formation. In contrast, we hypothesize that when those in power share a single out-group membership, no such individuating effects of power will occur. In this case, we rather expect perceivers to report negative affect with increased target power. Hence, our central assumption concerns the individuating effects of target power in interpersonal relations, in line with the continuum model. We also predict contrasting effects of power on person perception in interpersonal and intergroup relations. This study makes a number of other innovations as well: It uses a different paradigm than that used previously in our laboratory, and it contributes new measures of attention time and dispositional inferences. More specifically, participants, who were identified as psychology students, expected to take part in an experiment comparing the concentration abilities of different college students. They believed that, like other psychology students, they would have to perform a concentration task in a distracting environment created by the presence of three distractors. Depending on the experimental condition, the

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distractors were described as having either high or low power over participants. In addition, the distractors were categorized as nonpsychology students who either all shared the same college major (homogeneous condition) or had various majors (heterogeneous condition). Prior to the expected concentration task, participants reported an impression of one of the distractors, based on the distractor’s self-description. Participants also reported emotions and intergroup perceptions (expected discrimination, in-group identification, and in-group favoritism). The effect of power as perceived contingency should depend on whether the interaction is intergroup or interpersonal. Hence, an interaction was predicted for impression formation, emotions, and intergroup perceptions: In the heterogeneous condition, distractors’ power should lead to individuating impression formation (more attention specifically to information inconsistent with categorical expectations, more dispositional inferences), but this should not occur in the homogeneous condition. Instead, in the homogeneous condition only, distractors’ power should induce expected discrimination and negative affect, thereby increasing in-group cohesion: in-group identification and favoritism. METHOD Stimulus Materials Two pretests determined the college majors and their associated stereotypes to be used as out-groups in the experiment. The aim was to select a set of traits that would be relevant to two different majors (the traits perceived as consistent with the first major being perceived as inconsistent with the second, and the other way around), so that the category membership of the target of the impression could be counterbalanced in the experimental design. In a first step, 200 psychology students were asked to select, from a list of 109 personality traits, the most typical traits associated with 20 different college majors (for each major, n ⫽ 50). On the basis of the frequencies of the traits selected for each major, four pairs of majors displaying clear and opposite stereotypes were chosen (i.e., art/business, art/ mathematics, business/physical education, mathematics/physical education). For each pair, inconsistent traits were generated and added to the list of consistent traits. In a second step, 80 psychology students rated the consistency or inconsistency of the traits, for both majors of each pair, on 7-point Likert scales (for each pair, n ⫽ 20). The pair art/mathematics was chosen as showing the clearest and most opposite stereotypes. From the ratings, a list of eight traits was constituted such that four traits were perceived as consistent with art but inconsistent with mathematics, and four other traits were perceived as consistent with mathematics but inconsistent with art (see Table 1). From these eight traits, eight self-descriptive sentences were generated. These sentences were constructed so that no information would be added to the traits (e.g., for logical: ‘‘I try to be very logical in all I do’’). The number of words was the same in the four sentences consistent with art and in the four sentences

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TABLE 1 Stimulus Materials: Ratings of Typicality–Atypicality of Traits for Art and Math Majors

Creative Emotional Individualistic Impulsive Studious Logical Traditional Conventional

Art major

Math major

⫹2.80 ⫹2.35 ⫹2.35 ⫹1.95 ⫺1.15 ⫺0.80 ⫺1.50 ⫺1.50

⫺1.35 ⫺1.20 ⫺0.80 ⫺1.20 ⫹2.65 ⫹2.55 ⫹1.60 ⫹1.55

Note. Judgments were made, for each major, on 7-point Likert scales, ranging from ⫹3 (extremely typical) to ⫺3 (extremely atypical). All means differ significantly from zero (neither typical nor atypical) at p ⬍ .01 (two-tailed t test; N ⫽ 20 judges).

consistent with math. The eight sentences, handwritten on different sheets of paper, constituted the stimulus materials for impression formation. Research Design The experiment used a 2 ⫻ 2 ⫻ 2 factorial design with Distractor Power (low, high), Distractor Homogeneity (homogeneous, heterogeneous), and Target Major (math, art) as between-participants variables. Target Major was included in the design as a counterbalancing variable. Participants The participants were 90 undergraduate psychology students (78 females, 12 males) from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, randomly assigned to each of the conditions created by the between-participants variables, with approximately the same proportion of males and females per condition. (Sex differences were not analyzed, due to the small number of men.) Because the experiment was based on categorizing participants as psychology students and the distractors as out-group members, 16 participants who reported a major or minor in art/ literature, math/science, or business/economics were deleted from subsequent analysis. In addition, 3 participants who reported suspicion were also deleted, leaving a total of 71 valid observations. Participants were contacted by phone and asked to participate in a group experiment entitled ‘‘How to study at home with noisy housemates,’’ in exchange for extra credit toward their course grade. The experimenter explained on the phone that the aim of the experiment was to measure students’ ability to concentrate in a distracting environment. While trying to arrange an appointment, the experimenter insisted on the necessity to find a time that would be convenient for all participants. It was also stressed that, because it was a group experiment, it was important to be on time for the appointment. The experiment would last approximately 40 min.

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Procedure Participants were run individually. Coming into the laboratory, the participant saw a row of three chairs holding coats and backpacks facing a single empty chair, in which the experimenter invited the participant to sit. Under this chair was hidden a microphone, connected to a tape recorder concealed in another part of the room. Once the participant was seated, the experimenter explained that the experiment comprised two phases: In a preparation phase, lasting about 20 min, participants would receive instructions and be asked to fill out some questionnaires; in a second phase, also lasting 20 min, the group experiment itself would take place.

Experimental Manipulation An instruction sheet, describing the experimental manipulations, was handed to the participant and read aloud by the experimenter. The experiment was described as a test of concentration abilities in a distracting environment. It was emphasized that the aim was to compare the concentration abilities of different college students and that the ones currently tested were psychology students. Participants, all psychology students, were to complete a task requiring concentration (writing down multiples of 3, as fast as possible and without mistakes) and would be rewarded as a function of their performance (indicated by the highest number they could reach after 15 min). Facing the participant would sit three other students playing the role of ‘‘distractors.’’ The experimenter explained that the distractors had already arrived (hence the coats on the chairs) and were currently being briefed about their role in another room. In the low power condition, the distractors were supposed to ‘‘speak loudly to each other in order to distract you from your work.’’ In the high power condition, they would ‘‘also watch you and each time they think you have been distracted, even slightly, they will punish you by making you start again from scratch; if they think you are very concentrated, they can also reward you by multiplying your final score by two.’’ The participant was told that, in order to avoid the distractors’ knowing them and being biased, the distractors had not been recruited among psychology students. In the heterogeneous condition, the experimenter said, ‘‘Actually, one is a math major, another an art major, and the third a business major’’ (for the math target condition) or ‘‘Actually, one is an art major, another a math major, and the third a business major’’ (for the art target condition). In the homogeneous condition he said, ‘‘Actually, they are math majors’’ (for the math target condition) or ‘‘Actually, they are art majors’’ (for the art target condition). The experimenter, although not blind to the experimental condition, was naive to the expected pattern of results, namely an interaction between power and heterogeneity.

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470 Dependent Measures

Emotions and perceived control. After having read the instructions, the experimenter requested the participant to fill out a first questionnaire asking ‘‘what is your current mood right now’’ and ‘‘what do you think your concentration abilities are?’’ This was justified by explaining that concentration performances may be affected by the mood people are in. To avoid self-protective impression management, the experimenter gave contradictory hypotheses for the effect of mood, namely that either a good or a poor mood could improve concentration abilities. The questions were designed to assess participants’ current emotional state on 7-point Likert scales. These scales, developed by Epstein (1979), presented nine clusters of three adjectives: ‘‘happy, cheerful, or joyous’’; ‘‘angry, irritated, or annoyed’’; ‘‘unhappy, sad, or gloomy’’; ‘‘frightened, worried, or threatened’’; ‘‘energetic, aroused, or keyed-up’’; ‘‘tired, weary, or unreactive’’; ‘‘jittery, shaky, or nervous’’; ‘‘calm, relaxed, or at-ease’’; and ‘‘enthusiastic, alive, or alert.’’ Thus, a participant would rate the extent to which he or she was feeling ‘‘unhappy, sad, or gloomy’’ right then. Perceived control was assessed by the following items (7-point scales): ‘‘How much control do you feel you will have over your outcomes in this experiment’’ (very little to a lot) and ‘‘How much control do you feel the distractors will have over your outcomes in this experiment’’ (very little to a lot). In-group favoritism. In-group favoritism was assessed by the following items: ‘‘Where do you expect the average performance of psychology students to be, as compared to all other groups of students’’ (9-point scale, from upper 10% to lower 10%; 50% is average) and ‘‘What do you think the concentration performance of these different groups will be’’ (psychology, art, and math students; 7-point scales: poor to excellent). Intergroup discrimination. Anticipated discrimination was assessed by the following items (7-point scales): ‘‘Do you expect the distractors to be, with regard to you’’ (open to influence, very rigid); ‘‘Do you expect the distractors to treat you’’ (fairly to unfairly); and ‘‘Do you think that these distractors will be harsher for psychology students than for other groups of students’’ (probably not, probably yes). Attention time. After the first questionnaire was filled out, the experimenter explained that in a natural situation, such as working at home with noisy housemates, people usually know the persons by whom they are being distracted. In the present situation, however, participants would not know the distractors at all. Out of a concern for realism, therefore, the experimenter wanted the participants to have an idea of who the distractors were before the concentration test started. But at the same time the experimenter did not want participants and distractors to meet each other before the test because this could have biased the distractors. This explanation justified the fact that the distractors had been asked to describe themselves prior to the experiment and that this information was shown to the participant. It was explained that, to make the task easier for the distractors, they had been presented with a list of personality traits on different

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sheets of paper and asked to select the traits that best fit them as well as to write a brief sentence of self-description for each trait. At this point, a folder containing our stimulus materials—marked ‘‘Distractor #1, Major: Math’’ or ‘‘Distractor #1, Major: Art’’—was presented to the participant. The eight pages (the four consistent and four inconsistent sentences) were placed in a random order in the folder. The participant was specifically asked to ‘‘study these traits and try to form an impression of the first distractor.’’ While he was getting the folder with the traits, the experimenter also turned on the hidden tape recorder that would record the sound of the pages being turned and provide a measure of the time spent studying each piece of information. This would be used, in fact, for coding attention time to consistent and inconsistent information. Dispositional inferences and impression formed. Once the previous task was completed, the experimenter explained that the concentration test would be run several times with different groups of participants, but he was not sure whether to keep the same distractors or not. For that reason, it would be helpful for him to know what kind of impact these distractors have on people. Hence, the participant was asked to give first impressions of the first distractor, by answering a second questionnaire. It was made clear that the answers would be kept confidential. The questionnaire was designed to assess the dispositional inferences participants would make about the target. Specifically, the participant was asked ‘‘according to you, what other personality traits may characterize this person,’’ and eight blank lines were available to list these traits. In-group identification. On the second questionnaire also came additional measures of intergroup cognition. In-group identification was assessed by the following items (7-point scales): ‘‘How similar or close do you feel to the typical psychology student’’ (very different to very similar); same question for the typical math or art student depending on target’s category; ‘‘Do you think you could become very good friends with the typical psychology student’’ (probably not, definitively yes); and same question for the typical math or art student. When the last questionnaire was completed, approximately 30 min had passed since the participant was first introduced into the lab. At this point, the procedure of forming impressions did not continue for the other distractors, nor did the expected concentration test. The participant was first checked for suspicion and then carefully debriefed. The participant was given extra credit and a lottery was planned to distribute the money participants could have won according to the cover story (at the end of the semester, six randomly selected participants received $10 each). Coding Attention time One judge, unaware of condition, coded the time spent by each participant on the four inconsistent and the four consistent sentences. This was done using a stopwatch, from the sound of the turning pages recorded on the audiotape. The coding resulted in total attention time for consistencies and total attention time for

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inconsistencies for each participant, recorded in seconds and hundredths of seconds. The observation was coded as missing data if an ambiguity occurred on the recorded material, technical difficulties prevented the recording, or the observation was over three standard deviations from the mean. Eight of the 71 participants were thus deleted from the attention analysis. Dispositional inferences Overall, participants generated 66 traits in the art condition and 78 in the math condition, resulting in a total of 126 different traits. The main data, consistent with previous studies in our research program, were sheer numbers of dispositional inferences. In addition, as exploratory measures, 10 judges (psychology students) rated these traits, using 7-point Likert scales, on three dimensions: typicality with regard to art, typicality with regard to math, and positivity. Judgments were highly reliable (for all three combined, ␣ ⫽ .93). From these judgments, we could compute, for each participant, a score of the inferred traits’ typicality with regard to the target’s category (i.e., stereotypicality), as well as a score of positivity. These scores represented the mean typicality and positivity of the traits inferred by each participant. Hence, for each participant, available data on dispositional inferences were number of traits inferred (the standard measure) as well as typicality score and positivity score (exploratory measures). RESULTS Data were analyzed with these between-participants factors: 2 (Distractors’ Power) by 2 (Distractors’ Homogeneity). Target’s major was not included, for preliminary analyses showed that it did not interact with the experimental manipulations. Attention Time For attention time, the within-participants factor of attention to expectancyconsistent and expectancy-inconsistent information was added to the 2 ⫻ 2 between-participants design. The predicted three-way interaction between power, homogeneity, and consistency was significant, F(1, 59) ⫽ 9.10, p ⫽ .004 (see Table 2). Separate ANOVAs were then conducted for consistent and inconsistent information. As predicted, only the analysis for inconsistent information yielded an interaction of power and homogeneity (F(1, 59) ⫽ 7.04, p ⬍ .01). Distractors’ power led participants to increase attention to inconsistent information, but only in the heterogeneous condition, in accord with continuum model predictions. Although the analysis also yielded a main effect of power (F(1, 59) ⫽ 4.67, p ⬍ .05), attention times did not differ in the homogeneous condition, as predicted. Also as predicted, no effects reached significance for consistent information. Note that, as in all previous studies in this research program (from Erber & Fiske, 1984, on), we did not make predictions concerning the relative attention to consistencies and inconsistencies, having not calibrated such a measure; our

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PERCEIVING THE POWERFUL TABLE 2 Attention Times and Dispositional Inferences, as a Function of Out-Group Power and Heterogeneity Heterogeneous Low power

High power

Homogeneous Low power

High power

Attention to inconsistent 19.12a (17, 4.88) 25.06b (16, 5.16) 20.75a (16, 5.59) 20.14a (14, 3.51) Attention to consistent 20.35a (17, 5.00) 22.56a (16, 5.05) 20.69a (16, 5.19) 22.14a (14, 5.60) Dispositional inferences 2.79a (19, 1.36) 4.29b (14, 1.33) 3.05a (19, 1.43) 2.69a (16, 1.49) Note. Attention times to consistent and inconsistent information are reported in seconds. Dispositional inferences represent the number of traits inferred about the target. Numbers in parentheses are cell ns and standard deviations. Within row, means with different subscripts differ significantly at p ⬍ .05 (two-tailed t tests).

predictions concerned attention to inconsistencies taken separately, with null effects predicted for consistencies. Dispositional Inferences As predicted, the 2 ⫻ 2 analysis yielded an interaction of power and homogeneity for the number of traits inferred (F(1, 64) ⫽ 7.33, p ⬍ .01): In line with the attention data, participants made more dispositional inferences when the distractors had more power, but only in the heterogeneous condition (see Table 2). The manipulation did not affect the typicality or positivity of the traits inferred, exploratory measures in this experiment. Emotions and Perceived Control The analysis yielded a significant interaction of power and homogeneity on only one type of self-reported emotion. Namely, participants reported feeling more unhappy, sad, or gloomy when distractors’ power was high, but only in the homogeneous condition, F(1, 67) ⫽ 7.50, p ⬍ .01 (see Table 3). While consistent with predictions, none of the other emotion measures showed comparable effects. One might argue that this simple measure of negative emotion is the most relevant or plausible to the setting, but further exploration awaits additional research. Surprisingly, no effects reached significance for the perceived control measures. Intergroup Cognition A series of measures, taken at two separate points in the experiment, assessed intergroup cognitions. Although the patterns are strikingly consistent, combining the separate measures would be inappropriate, given their separate scaling properties. As predicted, a significant interaction of power by homogeneity occurred for in-group identification (F(1, 67) ⫽ 4.40, p ⬍ .05). In the homogeneous condition, distractors’ power tended to increase feelings of similarity to the typical psychol-

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TABLE 3 Emotions and Intergroup Cognition, as a Function of Out-Group Power and Heterogeneity Heterogeneous

Feeling unhappy In-group identification In-group liking In-group preference In-group favoritism In-group evaluation Relative evaluation

Homogeneous

Low power (n ⫽ 19)

High power (n ⫽ 17)

Low power (n ⫽ 19)

High power (n ⫽ 16)

2.53ab (1.47) 4.53a (1.17) 5.37ab (1.34) .47ab (1.39) 37.9%b** (1.03) 4.63ab (0.89) ⫺.24ab (0.75)

2.06a (1.20) 4.12a (1.32) 5.35ab (1.41) .24ab (1.25) 46.5%a (0.70) 4.71ab (0.85) ⫺.15ab (0.39)

1.79a (1.13) 4.05a (1.22) 5.00a (1.29) .21a (1.27) 44.7%a (0.84) 4.47a (0.61) ⫺.47a (0.66)

3.19b (1.87) 4.94a (1.48) 6.00b (1.03) 1.25b** (1.73) 36.2%** (1.15) 5.06b (0.77) ⫹.16b (0.51)

Note. Feeling unhappy represents the extent to which participants reported feeling unhappy, sad, or gloomy, on a 7-point Likert scale (1 not at all, 7 very much). In-group identification represents how similar or close to the typical psychology student participants felt (7-point Likert scale: 1 very different, 7 very similar). In-group liking represents participants’ evaluation of whether or not they could become very good friends with the typical psychology student (7-point Likert scale: 1 probably not, 7 definitively yes). In-group preference was computed by subtracting liking for target’s category from liking for in-group. In-group favoritism represent the ranking of psychology students, as compared to all other students, in terms of concentration performance (9-point scale, from upper 10% to lower 10%; 50% is average). In-group evaluation represents the expected concentration performance of psychology students (7-point Likert scale: 1 poor, 7 excellent). Relative evaluation was computed by subtracting mean expected performance of art and math students from the one of psychology students. Numbers in parentheses are standard deviations. Means with different subscripts differ significantly at p ⬍ .05 (two-tailed t tests). ** Significant in-group bias at p ⬍ .01 (two-tailed t tests, pooled variance across conditions). For in-group preference, means were compared to zero; for in-group favoritism, means were compared to 50%.

ogy students, while the reverse tendency occurred in the heterogeneous condition (see Table 3). Similarly, for in-group liking and in-group preference, marginal interactions of power by homogeneity occurred (respectively, F(1, 67) ⫽ 2.76, p ⫽ .10, and F(1, 67) ⫽ 3.60, p ⫽ .06). In the homogeneous condition only, distractors’ power led participants to report more liking for the typical psychology student, as well as preference for the typical psychology student over the typical student of the target’s category, leading to significant in-group bias on both liking and preference (see Table 3). As predicted, a similar interaction occurred for in-group favoritism, when participants reported expectations about the concentration performance of psychology students versus that of other students (F(1, 67) ⫽ 14.46, p ⬍ .001). In the homogeneous condition, distractors’ power led participants to increase in-group favoritism (i.e., expect the average performance of psychology students to be above the average performance of all other students), leading to a significant in-group bias, while in the heterogeneous condition, distractors’ power led participants to decrease in-group favoritism (see Table 3).

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In addition, when participants were asked to rate independently the expected performance of psychology, math, and art students, distractors’ power led participants to report a better concentration performance of psychology students, but only in the homogeneous condition (see Table 3). When the expected in-group performance was compared to the average performance of those specific outgroups, a marginal interaction of power by homogeneity occurred again (F(1, 67) ⫽ 3.57, p ⫽ .06): In the homogeneous condition only, distractors’ power led participants to report a better performance of the in-group as compared to the out-groups (see Table 3). Although the analysis also yielded a main effect of power (F(1, 67) ⫽ 6.34, p ⬍ .05), means do not differ in the heterogeneous condition, consistent with predictions. The experimental manipulations, however, did not affect anticipated intergroup discrimination, measures taken separately at the end of the study. DISCUSSION The hypothesis contrasting the impact of power on social perception in interpersonal and intergroup relations was supported. Power was operationalized as short-term, asymmetrical outcome dependency. As predicted, when those in power were a collection of unrelated individuals (heterogeneous condition), the more power they had over the perceivers, the more the perceivers engaged in individuating impression-formation processes: more attention to the most diagnostic information, that is, information inconsistent with category information, as well as more dispositional inferences (although power did not seem to affect the stereotypic content of dispositional inferences).1 In contrast, when those in power shared out-group membership (homogeneous condition), power did not lead to individuating processes. Further insights, also consistent with hypotheses, concerned intergroup cognition. When those in power shared a single out-group membership (homogeneous condition), the more power they had, the more participants reported feeling unhappy, strengthened in-group identification (similarity to in-group, liking and preference for in-group over out-group), and asserted in-group superiority by displaying in-group favoritism, although power did not seem to affect anticipated discrimination on the part of the powerful. We had half expected an out-group conspiracy effect, but in fact obtained an in-group cohesion effect, when the 1 An exploratory measure, included here for the first time, assessed the typicality and positivity of the dispositional inferences. Target power did not affect the stereotypicality of dispositional inferences. It can be argued that this lack of individuation with regard to the quality of the traits inferred is consistent neither with our general hypothesis nor with results on attention time and number of traits inferred. We understand this result, however, as stemming from a bias in our assessment of dispositional inferences: Although in previous research dispositional inferences were assessed by asking participants to think aloud about the target, here we asked participants to write down ‘‘what other personality traits may characterize’’ the target. Such a phrasing may have led participants to dismiss as appropriate answers elaboration on previously provided trait information; hence, the traits reported, although more numerous when the participant was thinking harder about the target, were not necessarily stereotypical or counterstereotypical.

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powerful out-group is homogeneous. As with other intergroup favoritism (Brewer & Brown, 1998; Fiske, 1998), the action seems to reside in views of the in-group more than in views of the out-group. A critic might raise the apparent weakness of the emotion measures and of the dispositional inferences’ failure to show typicality or positivity effects. With regard to both the emotion measures and the typicality and positivity measures, they were included as exploratory possibilities. The standard measures in our previous research have always been attention to consistent and inconsistent information (which showed the predicted effects) and number of dispositional inferences (which also showed the predicted effects). Some of the measures new to this study worked (unhappy emotions, intergroup cognition), and some did not. The study therefore provides useful information. In our view, the differential impact of social power, depending on the social categorization of those in power, has several important consequences. First, in the domain of person perception, our results have direct consequences for the continuum model of impression formation proposed by Fiske and Neuberg (1990). Remember that this model assumes that people can be motivated to move beyond category-based impressions and that the motivation to control one’s outcomes can play this role. In other words, people would individuate those who have some control over their outcomes in order to restore a sense of control. Our results confirm this idea for interpersonal relations, in a situation yet untested (power relations), hence providing a crucial test of the model. Having directly manipulated targets’ power over perceivers, we can ascertain with more confidence that individuation is a function of the amount of control targets have over perceivers (regardless of the type of interdependence). Indeed, the individuating effect of power can be seen as illustrating one typical reaction to control deprivation, namely, information seeking (see De´pret & Fiske, 1993; Fiske & Taylor, 1984, chap. 5). Yet, the lack of individuation in the intergroup condition imposes some restrictions on the model. Given the ‘‘minimal group’’ (no interaction between group members), the lack of individuation of out-group members cannot be explained by the fact that participants’ limited attention resources would have been drained by attention to in-group members, as in Ruscher et al. (1991). We had hypothesized that participants might expect negative outcomes, that is, discrimination from the powerful out-group, no matter what, leaving little room for influence, so careful attention to out-group members would not be seen as an appropriate strategy to improve prediction and control. In other words, information seeking to restore control would have been discouraged by expected discrimination and rigidity on the part of the powerful out-group. Our data, however, fail to support this interpretation, for we did not obtain clear evidence for expected discrimination by out-group targets. But we did obtain evidence of enhanced in-group identification and cohesion, perhaps in line with Ruscher et al.’s finding of priority to in-group over out-group. This leads us to the second domain of relevance of our results, namely, the

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study of intergroup relations. As pointed out by many scholars, the power dimension remains surprisingly neglected in intergroup research and theory (e.g., Apfelbaum, 1979; Billig, 1976; Brown, 1988; Condor & Brown, 1986; Deschamps, 1982; Hogg & Abrams, 1988; Ng, 1982; Sachdev & Bourhis, 1985; Sherif, 1962). Social identity theory in particular focuses on social competition for status and self-esteem motivation (e.g., Tajfel & Turner, 1979), but an analysis of social conflict in terms of power is still missing (Ng, 1980). Our results suggest, however, that perceived out-group power is an important determinant of intergroup attitudes: Only when out-group power was high, in the salient intergroup condition, did participants engage in in-group favoritism. Possibly, control motivation is an important factor in intergroup relations. It may be that in salient intergroup relations what matters to people is more perceived in-group control (the amount of control one’s group has over its own outcome) than personal control (the amount of control one has over one’s own outcomes). Hence, powerless participants may not be motivated to restore personal control but in-group control (De´pret, 1993). This may help us understand why, in the intergroup condition, control-deprived participants did not engage in individual control-restoring strategies, such as information seeking, but displayed a pattern of reactance (see Brehm, 1993): Participants’ negative affect, allegiance to in-group, and assertion of in-group superiority can be viewed as expressions of dissatisfaction with regard to the power partition. Clearly, more research is required in order to move beyond speculation. However, indirect support for these ideas comes from recent research showing that the social categorization of powerful others as in-group members induces vicarious feelings of control in the powerless participants (De´pret, 1993). We believe an important issue for power relations research is to investigate the relationship between social identification and control feelings (De´pret & Fiske, 1993). A systematic analysis of the role of perceived power in intergroup comparisons may provide heuristic perspectives for intergroup relations research and theory. Arguably, a pervasive feature of groups and society is the unequal partition of power between members, the existence of power structures and hierarchies. Certainly, social psychologists ought to take into account such power asymmetry in their analysis of social behavior (Cartwright, 1959; Hollander, 1985; Ng, 1980). Further, because the reproduction or change of power structures depends, in part, on the reactions of the powerless, it will be important to understand when the powerless will accept or challenge the current partition of power. What determines people’s attitudes toward those in power, the ambivalent mixture of admiration and suspicion? Our results hint that the social categorization of powerful others plays a role. On the one hand, when those in power are seen as unrelated to each other, they become intriguing individuals. Indeed, people in power are often described as ‘‘personalities,’’ singular individuals, as in ‘‘political personalities.’’ On the other hand, when those in power are perceived as an

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out-group, power becomes threatening, and intergroup partition of power is an issue. According to Sik Hung Ng (1990), a certain antagonism is inherent between those in control and those controlled; hence, a problem for power holders is to try to minimize this antagonism. One way is to mask control, as implied by Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu: ‘‘Leaders are good when nobody seems to know they exist, not so good when people adore them, bad when people fear them’’ (as cited by Ng, 1990). Our results suggest that leaders are ‘‘good’’ when they are perceived as unrelated individuals; ‘‘not so good’’ when they are perceived as sharing outgroup membership; and, one may suspect, ‘‘even better’’ when they are perceived as in-group members. REFERENCES Apfelbaum, E. (1979). Relations of domination and movements for liberation: An analysis of power between groups. In W. G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 188–204). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Billig, M. (1976). Social psychology and intergroup relations. London: Academic Press. Brehm, J. (1993). Psychological reactance. In G. Weary, F. Gleicher, & K. Marsh (Eds.), Control motivation and social cognition. New York: Springer-Verlag. Brewer, M. B., & Brown, R. J. (1998). Intergroup relations. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (4th ed., Vol 2, pp. 554–594). New York: McGraw– Hill. Brown, R. (1988). Group processes. New York: Blackwell. Campbell, D. T. (1958). Common fate, similarity, and other indices of the status of aggregates of persons as social entities. Behavioral Science, 3, 14–25. Cartwright, D. (Ed.). (1959). Studies in social power. Ann Arbor, MI: Institute of Social Research. Chaiken, S., & Trope, Y. (Eds.). (1999). Dual process theories in social psychology. New York: Guilford. Condor, S. G., & Brown, R. J. (1986). Psychological processes in intergroup conflicts. In W. Stroebe, A. W. Kruglanski, D. Bar-Tal, & M. Hewstone (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup conflicts (pp. 3–26). New York: Springer-Verlag. De´pret, E. (1993). Feelings of personal control and the social categorization of powerful others. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. De´pret, E., & Fiske, S. T. (1993). Social cognition and power: Some cognitive consequences of social structure as a source of control deprivation. In G. Weary, F. Gleicher, & K. Marsh (Eds.), Control motivation and social cognition. New York: Springer-Verlag. Deschamps, J.-C. (1982). Relations of power between groups. In H. Tajfel (Ed.), Social identity and intergroup relations (pp. 85–98). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press. Erber, R., & Fiske, S. T. (1984). Outcome dependency and attention to inconsistent information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 709–726. Fiske, S. T. (1993). Social cognition and social perception. Annual Review of Psychology, 44, 155–194. Fiske, S. T. (1998). Stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (4th ed., Vol. 2, pp. 357–411). New York: McGraw–Hill. Fiske, S. T., & De´pret, E. (1996). Control, interdependence, and power: Understanding social cognition in its social context. In W. Stroebe & M. Hewstone (Eds.), European review of social psychology (Vol. 7, pp. 31–61). New York: Wiley. Fiske, S. T., Lin, M., & Neuberg, S. L. (1999). The continuum model: Ten years later. In S. Chaiken & Y. Trope (Eds.), Dual process theories in social psychology (pp. 231–254). New York: Guilford.

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