Using Power to Elevate Status: Observers of Power Use and Philanthropy

社会学研究区分了权力和地位，前者被定义为获得资源的结构性能力，后者被定义为基于对个人目标贡献的期望而获得的威望和荣誉。研究已经证明了地位如何导致权力，但很难证明权力地位可以用来提升个人地位。虽然地位可以被用来获得物质上的优势，从而获得权力，但权力的使用往往会在被使用权力的人身上产生负面反应，从而干扰可能来自权力的地位优势。为了帮助理解涉及这两个密切相关概念的令人困惑的不一致，本项目发展了一个理论，描述了权力可以用来提升地位的两种方式。首先，权力使用者可能会提升他们在权力使用观察者眼中的地位（即，那些不会经历直接被权力利用者所经历的负面反应的人）。其次，高级用户可以通过慈善事业或对社区的自愿贡献来获得地位。慈善事业可以改善对权力使用的负面反应，改变权力使用者自私的看法。该项目通过两个实验来检验该理论的两个组成部分。在第一个实验中，观察者观察在网络交换环境中使用权力，然后有机会与他们观察到的交换中的高权力或低权力参与者合作完成任务。前一次交换中的高或低权力参与者对合作任务的影响提供了一种衡量地位的方法。在第二个实验中，权力交换网络中的伙伴根据主导伙伴对小组成功的贡献程度而不同，然后在随后的交换中对拥有权力的伙伴的地位或影响进行评分。除了证明这一理论的有效性外，研究结果还揭示了人们自愿参加一些活动的意愿，这些活动对获得权力的途径很少，但可能会提高地位。

Sociological research distinguishes between power, defined as the structural capacity to attain resources, and status, defined as a position of prestige and honor based on expectations for an individual's contributions to goals. Research has demonstrated how status can lead to power, but has had more difficulty demonstrating that a position of power can be used to elevate an individual's status. Whereas status can be used to gain a material advantage that leads to power, use of power often produces a negative reaction in those on whom it is used and therefore interferes with the status advantage that might come from power. To help understand this puzzling inconsistency involving these two otherwise closely related concepts, this project develops a theory that describes two ways power can be used to elevate status. First, power users may elevate their status in the eyes of observers of the power use (i.e., those who do not experience the negative reactions that those directly exploited by power do). Second, power users may gain status through philanthropy, or voluntary contributions to the community. Philanthropy may ameliorate negative reactions to power use and change the perception that power users are selfish. The project tests the two components of the theory with two experiments. In the first experiment, observers watch power being used in a network exchange setting, and then have the opportunity to cooperate in a task with either a high power or low power participant from the exchange they observed. The influence of the high or low power participant from the previous exchange on the cooperative task provides a measure of status. In the second experiment, partners in a power exchange network differ according to how much the dominant partner contributes to the success of the group, and then give ratings in subsequent exchanges of the status or influence of the power-wielding partner. Besides demonstrating the validity of the theory, the results shed light on the willingness of people to volunteer for activities that provide little in the way of power gain, but may increase status.