Prioritizing - The task strategy of the powerful?

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_61CDB9F34466
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Prioritizing - The task strategy of the powerful?
Journal
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
Author(s)
Schmid P. C., Schmid Mast M., Mast F.
ISSN
1747-0218
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2015
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
68
Number
10
Pages
2097-2105
Language
english
Abstract
Previous research has shown that power increases focus on the main goal when distractor information is present. As a result, high-power people have been described as goal-focused. In real life, one typically wants to pursue multiple goals at the same time. There is a lack of research on how power affects how people deal with situations in which multiple important goals are present. To address this question, 158 participants were primed with high or low power or assigned to a control condition, and were asked to perform a dual-goal task with three difficulty levels. We hypothesized and found that high-power primed people prioritize when confronted with a multiple-goal situation. More specifically, when task demands were relatively low, power had no effect; participants generally pursued multiple goals in parallel. However, when task demands were high, the participants in the high-power condition focused on a single goal whereas participants in the low-power condition continued using a dualtask strategy. This study extends existing power theories and research in the domain of goal pursuit.
Keywords
Goal pursuit, Power, Multiple goals
Web of science
Create date
09/06/2015 15:20
Last modification date
20/08/2019 15:18
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