Power and Belonging

Although it is well known that people have fundamental desires for both social affiliation and power, it is less clear how these core social motives interface with each other. In the current research, I tested the hypothesis that power reduces social affiliative motives, especially among those high in power motivation. In Study 1, I found that the psychological experience of power reduced people's desire to connect with others. In Study 2, compared to control and low power individuals, powerful individuals displayed less interest in joining a campus service aimed at bringing students together. For individuals high in power motivation, experiencing power caused especially strong disinterest in affiliating with others. In Study 3, participants were randomly assigned to a powerful role, a powerless role, or a control role on a dyadic task and then completed a variety of measures assessing affiliative desire. Relative to control and low power participants, high power participants experienced significant decreases in their affiliative desire and were more likely to distance themselves physically from anticipated social partners. Together, these results are consistent with the hypothesis that power reduces people's need for social connection.