Answer Power Survey

People have different beliefs about power. I’d like to learn about how common these different beliefs are. You can help! Answer the embedded survey, which will also give you personalized feedback on your own approaches to power.

Power changes hands in Afghanistan

The crumbling of the 20-year US effort in Afghanistan, in a sudden collapse, illustrates the dynamics of coercive power in a heartbreaking way.

“You just didn’t want to lose face, and that’s unforgivable.”

A scene in the BBC drama Time shows a restorative justice meeting between a convicted murderer and his victim’s parents; it ends with the mother declaring that, because of the motive, the crime is ‘unforgiveable.’ This judgment reflects a gap between her dignity-culture logic and his honor logic.

Theories of Power

In two papers with colleagues, I lay out two-factor theories that describe how some people want power for the pleasures it offers, and others because it enables progress toward important goals; and that analyze how power can lead to more agency or more aggression based on the power holder’s balance of resource control and capacity for volitional influence.

Latent Lieutenant

In multiple studies, we’ve shown that a potential leader is seen as more powerful, more competent, and sometimes even more likable, based on the subtle nonverbal responses of other people around them.