Friend or fiend? Disentangling upward humor's (De)stabilizing effects on hierarchies.

Humor research in organizations focuses on leaders' humor, but we know far less about followers' humor. Here, we review and synthesize the scattered work on this "upward humor," offering a novel framing of it as a strategy for followers to deal with hierarchies. We propose a continuum of upward humor from stabilizing (i.e., a friend who uses upward humor to reinforce hierarchies, make hierarchies more bearable or stable) to destabilizing (i.e., a fiend who uses upward humor to question or reshape existing hierarchies) depending on perceived intent (i.e., from benevolent to malicious, respectively) and outline key factors that shape these interpretations. We close with novel questions and methods for future research such as power plays, multi-modal data, and human-robot interactions.

Beliefs about abstraction: Low-level and high-level construal signal different lay theories.

Construal level theory identifies abstraction as the key process that guides the pursuit of distant goals and expands the scope of regulation beyond the here and now (Liberman & Trope, 2008; Trope et al., 2021). While low-level (concrete) construals are concrete representations that foster a narrow view on the immediate circumstances and allow people to focus on a small subset of concerns, high-level (abstract) construals enable people to consider variability and change by taking more distant targets into account. In the present research, we investigate how people associate construal level with lay theories and, in particular, how this association manifests in the inferences they draw about others. In line with predictions, results across eight experiments (N = 1,110) show that people associate high-level construal with growth theories and low-level construal with fixed theories. Moreover, Studies 4 and 5 demonstrate that construal level can selectively influence a candidate's employability, depending on the hiring company's organizational mindset. Overall, this research points out the importance of investigating people's beliefs about abstraction, as it highlights how low-level and high-level construals can communicate distinct traits, characteristics, or intentions to peers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Individuals' Power Persistence in Teams: A Study Examining the Effects of Individuals' Competence, Uncooperative Behavior and Team Performance in the National Basketball Association.

This paper examined (a) the persistence of individuals' power in teams and (b) the individual- and team-level factors influencing power maintenance and loss in the long-term (i.e., power dynamics). Specifically, and in line with the functional theory of power, we showed that individuals' state of power in the past exerted a significant behavioral impact on their later state of power, hence, confirming the "power persistence" hypothesis. Furthermore, and in accordance with the conflict theory of power, we found that individuals' competence positively influenced power above and beyond its persistence. We also showed that individuals' uncooperative behavior and team performance had a negative and significant effect on individuals' power above and beyond its persistence. Finally, we discussed the importance of individuals' power dynamics for effectively managing power struggles in teams.

Effects of high and low power on the visual encoding of faces.

The experience of power is typically associated with social disengagement, yet power has also been shown to facilitate configural visual encoding - a process that supports the initial perception of a human face. To investigate this apparent contradiction, we directly tested whether power influences the visual encoding of faces. Two experiments, using neural and psychophysical assessments, revealed that low power impeded both first-order configural processing (the encoding of a stimulus as a face, assessed by the N170 event-related potential) and second-order configural processing (the encoding of feature distances within configuration, assessed using the face inversion paradigm), relative to high-power and control conditions. Power did not significantly affect facial feature encoding. Results reveal an early and automatic effect of low power on face perception, characterized primarily by diminished face processing. These findings suggest a novel interplay between visual and cognitive processes in power's influence on social behavior.

Psychological power alters cognitive efficiency.

Power is known to promote cognitive processing in a goal-directed way. However, it is unknown whether powerful individuals invest more resources when pursuing their goals or whether they invest their resources more efficiently. We examined how experiencing high versus low power affects the efficient investment of cognitive resources using electroencephalography (EEG). Specifically, event-related desynchronization (ERD) in the upper alpha band (10.5-12.75 Hz) was used to quantify the use of cognitive resources during task completion. Results showed that high-power participants used fewer neural resources compared to low-power participants across the whole brain but task performance did not differ between groups. These findings demonstrate that, instead of investing more resources, high-power participants performed the task with greater cognitive efficiency compared to low-power participants. Performing tasks efficiently could help powerholders deal with their demanding jobs and responsibilities.

Between Conspiracy Beliefs, Ingroup Bias, and System Justification: How People Use Defense Strategies to Cope With the Threat of COVID-19.

The current situation around coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) portrays a threat to us in several ways: It imposes uncertainty and a lack of control and reminds us of our own mortality. People around the world have reacted to these threats in seemingly unrelated ways: From stockpiling yeast and toilet paper to favoring nationalist ideas or endorsing conspiratorial beliefs. According to the General Process Model of Threat and Defense, the confrontation with a threat - a discrepant experience - makes humans react with both proximal and distal threat responses. While the proximal response manifests in behavioral inhibition that leads to heightened anxious arousal and vigilance, distal responses seek to lower behavioral inhibition and the associated state of anxiety and vigilance through engaging in distal defenses. In the present research, we propose that the reactions to COVID-19 may represent distal defense strategies to the pandemic and, therefore, can be explained and forecasted by the model. Thus, we hypothesized increased perceived COVID-19 threat to lead to a proximal threat response in the form of heightened behavioral inhibition. This, in return, should enhance the use of distal defenses (i.e., several ingroup biases, system justification, and conspiratorial beliefs) overlapping with the reactions observed as a response to COVID-19. This hypothesized mediated effect of increased perceived COVID-19 threat on distal defenses was tested in two preregistered studies: In Study 1 (N = 358), results showed perceived COVID-19 threat to be related to behavioral inhibition and, in turn, to be associated with increased distal defenses (i.e., higher entitativity, control restoration motivation, passive party support). In Study 2 (N = 348), we manipulated COVID-19 threat salience and found results suggesting the distal defenses of ingroup entitativity, system justification, and conspiratorial beliefs to be mediated by the proximal threat response. The results of the present research hint toward a common mechanism through which the seemingly unrelated reactions to COVID-19 can be explained. The results might help to predict future behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic and to design measures to counteract the detrimental effects of the pandemic.

Frontal cortical effects on feedback processing and reinforcement learning: Relation of EEG asymmetry with the feedback-related negativity and behavior.

Reinforcement learning refers to the acquisition of approach or avoidance action tendencies through repeated reward/nonreward feedback. Although much research on reinforcement learning has focused on the striatum, the prefrontal cortex likely modulates this process. Given prior research demonstrating a consistent pattern of lateralized frontal cortical activity in affective responses and approach/avoidance tendencies in the EEG literature, we aimed to elucidate the role of frontal EEG asymmetry in reinforcement learning. Thirty-two participants completed a probabilistic selection task in which they learned to select some targets and avoid others though correct/incorrect feedback. EEG indices of frontal cortical asymmetry were computed from alpha power recorded at baseline and during task completion. We also examined the feedback-related negativity ERP component to assess feedback processing associated with activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. Results revealed that greater right-lateralized frontal cortical activity during learning was associated with better avoidance learning, but neither left- nor right-sided asymmetry reliably related to approach learning. Results also suggested that left frontal activity may relate to reinforcement feedback processing, as indicated by the feedback-related negativity (FRN). These findings offer preliminary evidence regarding the role of frontal cortical activity in reinforcement learning while integrating classic and contemporary research on lateralized frontal cortical functions.

Power effects on implicit prejudice and stereotyping: The role of intergroup face processing.

Power is thought to increase discrimination toward subordinate groups, yet its effect on different forms of implicit bias remains unclear. We tested whether power enhances implicit racial stereotyping, in addition to implicit prejudice (i.e., evaluative associations), and examined the effect of power on the automatic processing of faces during implicit tasks. Study 1 showed that manipulated high power increased both forms of implicit bias, relative to low power. Using a neural index of visual face processing (the N170 component of the ERP), Study 2 revealed that power affected the encoding of White ingroup vs. Black outgroup faces. Whereas high power increased the relative processing of outgroup faces during evaluative judgments in the prejudice task, it decreased the relative processing of outgroup faces during stereotype trait judgments. An indirect effect of power on implicit prejudice through enhanced processing of outgroup versus ingroup faces suggested a potential link between face processing and implicit bias. Together, these findings demonstrate that power can affect implicit prejudice and stereotyping as well as early processing of racial ingroup and outgroup faces.

Neural mechanisms of proactive and reactive cognitive control in social anxiety.

Social anxiety--the fear of social embarrassment and negative evaluation by others--ranks among people's worst fears, and it is often thought to impair task performance. We investigated the neurocognitive processes through which trait social anxiety relates to task performance, proposing a model of the joint contributions of reactive control, theoretically associated with conflict monitoring and activity of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), and proactive control, theoretically associated with top-down regulation and activity of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). Participants varying in their degree of trait social anxiety completed the Eriksen flanker task while electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. Task-related left dlPFC activity was indexed by relative left prefrontal EEG (inverse alpha), and conflict-related dACC activity was indexed by the N2r component of the event-related potential. Stronger activity in both regions predicted better response control, and greater social anxiety was associated with worse response control. Furthermore, for all participants, greater left prefrontal EEG activity predicted better behavioral control, but for high social anxiety participants only, greater N2r responses also predicted behavioral control. This pattern suggests that low social anxiety individuals engaged a proactive control process, driven by dlPFC activity, whereas high social anxiety individuals relied additionally on a reactive control process, driven by conflict-related dACC activity. These findings support a model of control that involves different patterns of interplay between proactive and reactive strategies and may help to explain self-regulatory impairments in social anxiety.

Power effects on cognitive control: Turning conflict into action.

Power is known to promote effective goal pursuit, especially when it requires one to overcome distractions or bias. We proposed that this effect involves the ability to engage and implement cognitive control. In Study 1, we demonstrated that power enhances behavioral performance on a response conflict task and that it does so by enhancing controlled processing rather than by reducing automatic processing. In Study 2, we used an event-related potential index of anterior cingulate activity to test whether power effects on control were due to enhanced conflict sensitivity or action implementation. Power did not significantly affect neural sensitivity to conflict; rather, high power was associated with a stronger link between conflict processing and intended action, relative to low power. These findings suggest a new perspective on how social factors can affect controlled processing and offer new evidence regarding the transition between conflict detection and the implementation of action control.

Prioritizing--The task strategy of the powerful?

Previous research has shown that power increases focus on the main goal when distractor information is present. As a result, high-power people have been described as goal-focused. In real life, one typically wants to pursue multiple goals at the same time. There is a lack of research on how power affects how people deal with situations in which multiple important goals are present. To address this question, 158 participants were primed with high or low power or assigned to a control condition, and were asked to perform a dual-goal task with three difficulty levels. We hypothesized and found that high-power primed people prioritize when confronted with a multiple-goal situation. More specifically, when task demands were relatively low, power had no effect; participants generally pursued multiple goals in parallel. However, when task demands were high, the participants in the high-power condition focused on a single goal whereas participants in the low-power condition continued using a dual-task strategy. This study extends existing power theories and research in the domain of goal pursuit.

Emotion recognition: the role of featural and configural face information.

Several studies investigated the role of featural and configural information when processing facial identity. A lot less is known about their contribution to emotion recognition. In this study, we addressed this issue by inducing either a featural or a configural processing strategy (Experiment 1) and by investigating the attentional strategies in response to emotional expressions (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, participants identified emotional expressions in faces that were presented in three different versions (intact, blurred, and scrambled) and in two orientations (upright and inverted). Blurred faces contain mainly configural information, and scrambled faces contain mainly featural information. Inversion is known to selectively hinder configural processing. Analyses of the discriminability measure (A') and response times (RTs) revealed that configural processing plays a more prominent role in expression recognition than featural processing, but their relative contribution varies depending on the emotion. In Experiment 2, we qualified these differences between emotions by investigating the relative importance of specific features by means of eye movements. Participants had to match intact expressions with the emotional cues that preceded the stimulus. The analysis of eye movements confirmed that the recognition of different emotions rely on different types of information. While the mouth is important for the detection of happiness and fear, the eyes are more relevant for anger, fear, and sadness.