I investigate the psychological and social costs of power imbalances as well as the psychological processes that can counteract these costs. My research indicates that having low power is associated with behavioral inhibition and negative emotion and my current work focuses on understanding the long-term health implications of low power and behavioral inhibition. One factor that may help counteract these costs is collective action. I am studying why people become politically involved and how this involvement can buffer low status individuals from negative health outcomes. I am also interested in the translation of research on status and health for policy-makers concerned with issues of poverty and inequity.
Articles
When Dispositional and Role Power Fit: Implications for Self-Expression and Self-Other Congruence (with Serena Chen and Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2009)
Integrating and extending the literatures on social power and person–environment fit, 4 studies tested the...
How Personalized and Socialized Power Motivation Facilitate Antisocial and Prosocial Decision-Making (with Joe C. Magee), Journal of Research in Personality (2008)
In two studies, we investigate the effects of individuals’ power motivation on decision-making. We distinguish...
Social Power and Emotional Experience: Actor and Partner Effects Within Dyadic Interactions (with Dacher Keltner), Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (2008)
A dyadic methodological and statistical approach to social power is used to test the notion...
The Motivational Basis of Concessions and Compromise: Archival and Laboratory Studies (with David G. Winter), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2001)
A content analysis system for measuring positive concessions (offering concessions) and negative concessions (rejecting offered...