Power, Approach, and Inhibition

Keltner, Dacher
Gruenfeld, Deborah H.
Anderson, Cameron

¹Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley
²Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.

³Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dacher Keltner, Department of Psychology, University of California, Tolman Hall, Berkeley, California 94720-1650. E-mail: [email protected].

We would like to thank Mahzarin Banaji, Jack Glaser, Charles Judd, Joseph Newman, David Owens, Steve Sutton, and Larissa Tiedens for their thoughtful comments on drafts of this article.

Received Date: November 8, 1999; Revised Date: September 25, 2001; Accepted Date: November 18, 2001

Psychological Review 110(2):p 265-284, April 2003.

This article examines how power influences behavior. Elevated power is associated with increased rewards and freedom and thereby activates approach-related tendencies. Reduced power is associated with increased threat, punishment, and social constraint and thereby activates inhibition-related tendencies. The authors derive predictions from recent theorizing about approach and inhibition and review relevant evidence. Specifically, power is associated with (a) positive affect, (b) attention to rewards, (c) automatic information processing, and (d) disinhibited behavior. In contrast, reduced power is associated with (a) negative affect; (b) attention to threat, punishment, others' interests, and those features of the self that are relevant to others' goals; (c) controlled information processing; and (d) inhibited social behavior. The potential moderators and consequences of these power-related behavioral patterns are discussed.