Department of Organizational Behavior, The Faculty of Management, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.
Psychol Sci. 2013 Mar 1;24(3):280-8. doi: 10.1177/0956797612450891. Epub 2013 Jan 15.
A common cliché and system-justifying stereotype is that power leads to misery and self-alienation. Drawing on the power and authenticity literatures, however, we predicted the opposite relationship. Because power increases the correspondence between internal states and behavior, we hypothesized that power enhances subjective well-being (SWB) by leading people to feel more authentic. Across four surveys representing markedly different primary social roles (general, work, romantic-relationship, and friendship surveys; Study 1), and in an experiment (Study 2a), we found consistent evidence that experiencing power leads to greater SWB. Moreover, authenticity mediated this effect. Further establishing the causal importance of authenticity, a final experiment (Study 2b), in which authenticity was manipulated, demonstrated that greater authenticity directly increased SWB. Although striving for power lowers well-being, these results demonstrate the pervasive positive psychological effects of having power, and indicate the importance of spreading power to enhance collective well-being.
一个常见的陈词滥调和为现有体制辩护的刻板印象是，权力会导致痛苦和自我异化。然而，借鉴权力和真实性文献，我们预测了相反的关系。因为权力增加了内部状态和行为之间的一致性，我们假设权力通过使人们感到更真实，从而提高主观幸福感（SWB）。在四项代表截然不同的主要社会角色（一般、工作、浪漫关系和友谊调查；研究 1）的调查中，以及在一项实验（研究 2a）中，我们发现一致的证据表明，体验权力会带来更大的 SWB。此外，真实性在其中起到了中介作用。通过最后一项实验（研究 2b）进一步证明了真实性的因果重要性，该实验对真实性进行了操纵，表明更大的真实性直接增加了 SWB。尽管追求权力会降低幸福感，但这些结果表明拥有权力具有普遍的积极心理效应，并表明传播权力以增强集体幸福感的重要性。
