Friend and Foe: When to Cooperate, When to Compete, and How to Succeed at Both by Adam Galinsky, Maurice Schweitzer Page B
Authors: Adam Galinsky, Maurice Schweitzer
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University of Groningen, we have found that power reduces physiological stress as measured by heart rate and systolic blood pressure.
Neurologically, hormonally, and physiologically, it feels good to be the king. And when we
feel
like a king, we are more likely to act like one.
So, recalling an experience with power can temporarily change how we feel and act. But are there longer-term effects?
How to Nail a Job Interview and Become the Boss
In 2004, one of our former grad students, Gillian Ku, got a highly coveted interview for a professorship at London Business School (LBS). In general, academic interviews are long, arduous affairs that have tremendous amounts of stress built in. You typically have a series of 30-minute one-on-one interviews with each professor in the department throughout the day, culminating with the crucial job talk: a 90-minute presentation in which you present your research while being mercilessly grilled by a faculty that is searching for any flaw. When Gillian interviewed at LBS, she was given 30 minutes to prepare before her talk. She spent a full 10 minutes of that time completing our power prime—writing out an experience she had had with power. This simple task surged confidence into Gillian. As she gave her talk, she was in complete command of the room and situation. She handled every question with aplomb and captivated the audience with her persuasive responses. And better yet, she got the job.
This anecdote was so striking that we wanted to scientifically test whether activating that feeling of power can give someone a competitive advantage in landing a job. In a project led by Joris Lammers of the University of Cologne, we conducted an experiment that involved mock face-to-face interviews with a two-person committee for entrance into a prestigious French business school. During these selection interviews, applicants had to convince two expert interviewers (typically professors) that they had the motivation, skills, and experience to be successful. Unbeknownst to the interviewers, we randomly assigned these applicants to one of three conditions: a high-power recall prime, a low-power recall prime, and a baseline condition with no prime.
The result? Astoundingly, interviewers accepted 68 percent of the candidates in the high-power-prime condition but just a mere 26 percent in the low-power-prime condition. A later study replicated these effects with written job applications: Applicants who had been primed with power got higher ratings.
Why did these remarkable results occur? Because in both cases—the live interview and the application essay—those applicants primed with power displayed greater confidence, and were thus viewed as more capable and competent.
Now, you might think this effect is ephemeral, floating away after a few minutes. And you would be right if the power prime existed in isolation. Indeed, in a vacuum, the effects of priming only last for an hour or two. However, if the prime
alters behavior
in those couple of hours, it can have a lasting effect.
We demonstrated the enduring nature of power primes in a study we ran over a three-day period with Gavin Kilduff of New York University. We split participants into three-person, same-sex groups, and primed one person in each group with high power, one person with low power, and one with a neutral level of power. These three-person teams then worked together on a task and went home. Two days later each team came back to the lab and did some new tasks. Then came the interesting part: We asked each team member who they thought the leader of the group was. We found that the participants primed with power on the first day of the study were perceived to be leaders
two days later
.
Why did effects that seem so ephemeral persist here? Well, when we analyzed videotape of the conversations on the first day, we found that the individuals primed with power initially
acted
as though they were the leader. They spoke earlier and with
Neurologically, hormonally, and physiologically, it feels good to be the king. And when we
feel
like a king, we are more likely to act like one.
So, recalling an experience with power can temporarily change how we feel and act. But are there longer-term effects?
How to Nail a Job Interview and Become the Boss
In 2004, one of our former grad students, Gillian Ku, got a highly coveted interview for a professorship at London Business School (LBS). In general, academic interviews are long, arduous affairs that have tremendous amounts of stress built in. You typically have a series of 30-minute one-on-one interviews with each professor in the department throughout the day, culminating with the crucial job talk: a 90-minute presentation in which you present your research while being mercilessly grilled by a faculty that is searching for any flaw. When Gillian interviewed at LBS, she was given 30 minutes to prepare before her talk. She spent a full 10 minutes of that time completing our power prime—writing out an experience she had had with power. This simple task surged confidence into Gillian. As she gave her talk, she was in complete command of the room and situation. She handled every question with aplomb and captivated the audience with her persuasive responses. And better yet, she got the job.
This anecdote was so striking that we wanted to scientifically test whether activating that feeling of power can give someone a competitive advantage in landing a job. In a project led by Joris Lammers of the University of Cologne, we conducted an experiment that involved mock face-to-face interviews with a two-person committee for entrance into a prestigious French business school. During these selection interviews, applicants had to convince two expert interviewers (typically professors) that they had the motivation, skills, and experience to be successful. Unbeknownst to the interviewers, we randomly assigned these applicants to one of three conditions: a high-power recall prime, a low-power recall prime, and a baseline condition with no prime.
The result? Astoundingly, interviewers accepted 68 percent of the candidates in the high-power-prime condition but just a mere 26 percent in the low-power-prime condition. A later study replicated these effects with written job applications: Applicants who had been primed with power got higher ratings.
Why did these remarkable results occur? Because in both cases—the live interview and the application essay—those applicants primed with power displayed greater confidence, and were thus viewed as more capable and competent.
Now, you might think this effect is ephemeral, floating away after a few minutes. And you would be right if the power prime existed in isolation. Indeed, in a vacuum, the effects of priming only last for an hour or two. However, if the prime
alters behavior
in those couple of hours, it can have a lasting effect.
We demonstrated the enduring nature of power primes in a study we ran over a three-day period with Gavin Kilduff of New York University. We split participants into three-person, same-sex groups, and primed one person in each group with high power, one person with low power, and one with a neutral level of power. These three-person teams then worked together on a task and went home. Two days later each team came back to the lab and did some new tasks. Then came the interesting part: We asked each team member who they thought the leader of the group was. We found that the participants primed with power on the first day of the study were perceived to be leaders
two days later
.
Why did effects that seem so ephemeral persist here? Well, when we analyzed videotape of the conversations on the first day, we found that the individuals primed with power initially
acted
as though they were the leader. They spoke earlier and with
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