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Power gets the job: Priming power improves interview outcomes

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Abstract

The current research explores whether momentary changes in power can shift professional interview outcomes. Two experiments manipulated power by asking applicants to recall a time they had or lacked power prior to writing a job application letter (Experiment 1) or being interviewed for admission to business schools (Experiment 2). Independent judges, who were unaware of the applicants' experimental condition or even the existence of the power manipulation, significantly preferred the written and face-to-face interview performance of powerful applicants to that of powerless (Experiments 1 and 2) or power-neutral applicants (Experiment 2). In addition, the judges' preference for power-primed applicants was mediated by perceptions of the applicant's persuasiveness. Overall, merely asking participants to remember a personal experience with power dramatically affected the impressions that interviewers had of them. Our findings illustrate power's far-reaching effects and have potentially important implications for understanding the psychology of job interviews.

Highlights

► Priming participants with feelings of power improves professional interview outcomes. ► In two studies, participants wrote application letters and attended 15-minute job interviews. ► In both studies, unaware judges significantly preferred the power-primed applicants.

Introduction

Have successful professionals always been successful? Take Francesca Gino. An Associate Professor at Harvard, she is considered by many to be a superstar. But things did not always look so bright for her: two years in a row she gave job talks at a number of top 10 schools and universities, but got no offers from those schools. Yet, in 2009, everything suddenly turned up roses; she got offers from Harvard, Wharton, Berkeley, and New York University. What had changed? Well, clearly she was older and wiser. But she also changed her pre-talk ritual: before each campus talk and interview she sat down and wrote out a reflection of a time in which she had power.1

This example raises the possibility that merely recalling a time in which one had power–a solitary, anonymous, internal task–can transform people in the eyes of others and even change professional interview outcomes. Inspired by Gino's example, we experimentally tested whether priming power increases success in the job application process, from writing an application letter to being interviewed, even when interviewers are unaware of the power manipulation given to applicants.

Our reasoning starts with the premise that powerlessness is central to job applicants' experience: they desire a job but depend on interviewers to get a position (Jones & Pinkney, 1989). This position undermines applicants' sense of control and results in a sense of insecurity that can ultimately hurt their performance in the job-interview setting (Rynes, Bretz, & Gerhart, 1991). Consequently, making applicants feel more powerful might improve their performance by addressing their underlying feelings of lack of control and lack of confidence that are endemic to the powerless position of being an interviewee.

Several streams of research support this premise. For instance, merely asking participants to write a few lines about a time in which they had power increases their feeling of control (Fast, Gruenfeld, Sivanathan, & Galinsky, 2009). In addition, episodic power primes foster optimism (Anderson & Galinsky, 2006) and confidence (Briñol et al., 2007, Fast et al., 2011).

We propose that these power-induced feelings of control, optimism, and confidence will directly improve performance in job application tasks. First, although untested, it is likely that this increase in feelings of power will lead to a more confident, commanding, and self-assured communication style. Such a communication style is valuable in an interview (Bradac and Mulac, 1984, Sparks et al., 1998). Furthermore, feeling powerful leads to more dominant non-verbal behavior (Carney et al., 2005, Hall et al., 2005), a plus when applying for a job (Imada and Hakel, 1977, Young and Beier, 1977). Second, feelings of power can increase feelings of competence, relative to states of powerlessness (Dubois, 2011). Given that competence is of prime importance in interview settings, a state of high power might improve the likelihood that interviewers judge him or her positively. Finally, feelings of power can decrease cortisol, a stress hormone (Carney et al., 2013). If power decreases hormonal evidence of stress, it should also lead to less expressions of stress that can derail an interview (Rynes et al., 1991).

In sum, because feelings of power increase expressed confidence and competence, and decrease stress, we propose that giving applicants a sense of power will increase their likelihood of success in an interview. We conducted two experiments testing whether recalling a personal experience with power allows applicants to make a more positive impression on interviewers and increase their chances of being selected in written (Experiment 1) and face-to-face contexts (Experiment 2), even when interviewers are unaware of that manipulation of power.

Section snippets

Participants and design

One hundred and seventy-seven Dutch students (142 women, 35 men, Mage = 20 years) were randomly assigned to the role of applicant or interviewer in same-sex dyads. Data from 11 participants who were erroneously not assigned to same-sex dyads were not included. Applicants were randomly assigned to receive a low-power or high-power prime. Interviewers did not receive a prime.

Applicants

Applicants were first asked to write about an experience in which they either had power or lacked power (Galinsky, Gruenfeld,

Experiment 2: selection interview with experienced interviewers

Experiment 2 aimed to extend the findings of Experiment 1 to a face-to-face interview context. We also tested whether power made participants more successful because judges saw them as more persuasive. Finally, we added a baseline condition to determine whether the effects of the power primes stem from power, powerlessness, or both.

In this study, French undergraduates underwent a 15-minute mock interview for entrance to business schools. During their selection interview, interviewees have to

General discussion

Merely asking applicants to remember a personal experience of power significantly increased their success in simulated interviews for job and academic admissions. These effects were found both in written applications and in a 15-minute face-to-face interview where experts served as interviewers. Importantly, these effects occurred even though evaluators/interviewers were unaware of the power manipulation.

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