Manipulations of power and status for laboratory experiments

Abstract

Previous research has primarily focused on the effect of either power or status as isolated variables despite many empirical evidences supporting their opposite effects on various psychological variables. In our studies, we invented an approach of manipulating power and status simultaneously. Based on the definition of power and status, participants were assigned randomly in a position in which they had control or no control over valuable resources as well as having high or low acceptance, admiration, and respect. In Study 1, participants were randomly assigned into a 2 (high power vs. low power) × 2 (high status vs. low status) design, where their senses of power and status were manipulated via resource allocation task. Next, in Study 2, we created a resume review task, new status manipulation approach, in order to eliminate possible order effects and elicit more intense status-priming effect. Our results showed a promising manipulation method for future studies on the interaction effect of power and status.