Power, Competitiveness, and Advice Taking: Why
the Powerful Don't Listen
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Tost, L. P., F. Gino, and R. Larrick. "Power, Competitiveness, and Advice Taking: Why thePowerful Don't Listen." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 117, no. 1(2012): 53–65.

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AccessibilityPower and Advice Taking 1
Running Head: POWER AND ADVICE TAKING

Power, Competitiveness, and Advice Taking: Why the Powerful Don’t Listen

Leigh Plunkett Tost
University of Washington
Francesca Gino
Harvard University
Richard P. Larrick
Duke University

Forthcoming in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

Author Note
The authors greatly appreciate the support and facilities of the Center for Behavioral Decision
Research at Carnegie Mellon University and of the Center for Decision Research at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where the studies were conducted. Please address
correspondence to lptost@uw.edu.

Power and Advice Taking 2
Abstract
Four experiments test the prediction that feelings of power lead individuals to discount advice
received from both experts and novices. Experiment 1 documents a negative relationshipbetween subjective feelings of power and use of advice. Experiments 2 and 3 further show that
individuals experiencing neutral and low levels of power weigh advice from experts andexperienced advisors more heavily than advice from novices, but individuals experiencing highlevels of power discount both novice and expert advice. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrate that
this tendency of individuals experiencing high levels of power to discount advice from experts
and novices equally is mediated by feelings of competitiveness (Experiment 3) and confidence(Experiments 3 and 4). Finally, Experiment 4 shows that inducing high power individuals to feelcooperative with their advisors can mitigate this tendency, leading them to weigh expert advice
more heavily than advice from novices. Theoretical and practical contributions are discussed.

Keywords: advice taking; power; expertise; confidence; competitive mindset; competition

Power and Advice Taking 3
Power, Competitiveness, and Advice Taking: Why the Powerful Don’t Listen

Organizational leaders rarely make critical decisions in isolation. Instead, decision
makers more often receive input from advisors from both within and outside their organizations.
For example, in the process of making a critical strategic decision, a CEO might receive advice
from various members of her board, her top management team, or from a team of consultants.
This advice can have varying levels of impact on her ultimate decision. In some circumstances,
she may ignore the advice completely; at other times, the advice she receives may influence her
decision dramatically. Does the CEO’s relative power change her psychological openness toadvice? Does the CEO’s relative power influence her sensitivity to more or less expert advice?
Research has identified three types of factors that influence individuals’ use of advice.
First, characteristics of the judgment task affect the extent to which advice influences decisions.
Specifically, research has indicated that decision makers weigh advice more heavily when theadvice is costly to obtain (Gino, 2008; Patt, Bowles, & Cash, 2006) and when the task is difficult(Gino & Moore, 2007; Gino, Shang, & Croson, 2009). Second, characteristics of the advisor canhave an important influence on the extent of advice use. For example, research indicates that
advice is weighted more heavily when advisors are relatively more experienced or
knowledgeable than the decision makers (Goldsmith & Fitch, 1997; Feng & MacGeorge, 2006;
Harvey & Fischer, 1997; Sniezek, Schrah, & Dalal, 2004; Soll & Larrick, 2009; Yaniv, 2004;
Yaniv & Kleinberger, 2000; Yaniv & Milyavsky, 2007) and when the advisors express greater
confidence in the quality of their advice (Lawrence & Warren, 2003; Phillips, 1999; Sniezek &Buckley, 1995; Sniezek & Van Swol, 2001; Soll & Larrick, 2009; Van Swol & Sniezek, 2005;
Yaniv & Foster, 1997). Finally, aspects of the decision maker’s internal states can impact thePower and Advice Taking 4
extent of advice-taking. For example, decision makers weigh others’ opinions less heavily when
they are feeling confident (see Bonaccio & Dalal, 2006 for a review) or when experiencing
incidental emotions that increase feelings of certainty, such as anger (Gino & Schweitzer, 2008).
In this article, we focus on a type of internal state that is of critical importance in decision
making contexts: the decision maker’s subjective sense of power. A subjective sense of powerrefers to the extent to which individuals feel that they can exert influence over the outcomes andexperiences of others (Anderson & Berdahl, 2002; Van Kleef, Oveis, Van der Lowe, LuoKogan,
Goetz, & Keltner, 2008). Prior research on power has proposed that the sense of power has wideranging psychological consequences (Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003). For example,
recent work has found that the experience of power leads people to act more independently ofothers (Galinsky, Magee, Gruenfeld, Whitson, & Liljenquist, 2008) and to resist being
influenced by the opinions and perspectives of others (Brinol, Petty, Valle, Rucker, & Becerra,2007), thereby reducing the accuracy of their judgments (See, Morrison, Rothman, & Soll, inpress). We suggest that not only does the experience of power lead individuals to be less open tousing advice from others, but that power can lead individuals to discount advice even fromindividuals who have high levels of expertise.
Power and Advice Taking
One of the most robust findings in the advice taking literature is that people exhibit
egocentric advice discounting (Yaniv, 2004; Yaniv & Kleinberger, 2000) in that they
underweight advice from others and over-weight their own opinions (see Bonaccio & Dalal,
2006 for a review). Scholars have argued that this discounting of advice is particularly likely tooccur when decision makers perceive their own opinions to be superior to the opinions andperspectives of others (Krueger, 2003) and consequently feel a high level of confidence in theirPower and Advice Taking 5
ability to make an accurate judgment independently. This line of reasoning suggests that there
will be a greater degree of advice discounting when the decision maker 1) feels optimistic that
she will make a good decision, 2) feels that she has the decision under control, and consequently
3) is confident about her own ability in the decision.
Recent research on the psychological effects of power indicates that individuals with ahigh subjective sense of power are likely to experience each of these three perceptions. First,
power has been shown to produce a sense of optimism that leads individuals to perceive risky
behaviors as less risky (Anderson & Galinsky, 2006). Specifically, high power individuals focus
on the potential rewards, and ignore the potential downsides, of engaging in risky behaviors. As
a result, they expect that, to a disproportionate extent, uncertain events will turn out in theirfavor. Second, recent research building on the illusion of control (Langer, 1975; Taylor &Brown, 1988; Thompson, Armstrong, & Thomas, 1998) has found that power leads individuals
to experience an inflated perception of personal control (Fast, Gruenfeld, Sivanathan, &Galinsky, 2009). Fast et al. (2009) propose that this perception may underlie a broad range of thepsychological effects of power, including optimism, high self-esteem, and action-orientation.
Third, research has shown that feelings of power increase individuals’ levels of confidence intheir own opinions and perspectives (Brinol, et al., 2007; See, et al., 2010; Sivanathan &Galinsky, 2007).
Thus, the subjective experience of power leads people to be optimistic about theoutcomes they can produce and to perceive that they have a high level of control over thoseoutcomes; consequently, high power individuals tend to feel overconfident about their abilities.
These findings imply that individuals who experience a high level of power are likely to feel thatthey do not need to rely on advice from others and therefore are likely to significantly discountPower and Advice Taking 6
advice. At the same time, individuals with a low level of power are more likely to experiencelower levels of optimism, a lower sense of control, and less confidence, leading them to feel agreater need for input from others and therefore to be more willing to take advice. This line ofreasoning leads to our first hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: The experience of power will be associated with lower weighting ofadvice, such that advice will be weighted less heavily by individuals experiencing a highlevel of power and more heavily by individuals experiencing a low level of power.
The Role of Advisor Experience and Expertise
Individuals commonly weigh advice received from experienced and knowledgeableadvisors more heavily than advice received from advisors with less experience or expertise(Goldsmith & Fitch, 1997; Feng & MacGeorge, 2006; Harvey & Fischer, 1997; Sniezek, Schrah,& Dalal, 2004; Yaniv, 2004; Yaniv & Kleinberger, 2000; Yaniv & Milyavsky, 2007). Although
this research has focused on advice taking in dyadic interactions, related studies have examined
the influence of knowledgeable and expert team members and have found similar effects on
decision quality in team settings (see Hollenbeck, Ilgen, LePine, Colquitt, & Hedlund, J., 1998;
Hollenbeck, Ilgen, Sego, Hedlund, Major, & Phillips, 1995; Humphrey, Hollenbeck, Meyer, &Ilgen, 2002). Research in this area suggests that individuals discount the advice of others because
they presume their own judgments to be superior to the judgments of others (Krueger, 2003). As
a result, one would expect that when decision makers are presented with evidence that theiradvisor may have access to superior information or possess more expertise, they would be more
inclined to listen to advice.
Therefore, we expect that individuals who experience a low level of power will give
more weight to information from expert advisors than from novice advisors. However, we expectPower and Advice Taking 7
a different dynamic to emerge for high power decision makers. Specifically, we expect that highpower individuals will be insensitive to the level of an advisor’s expertise, such that they will
discount advice from novices and experts equally. We expect high power individuals to discountnovice and expert advice equally because we predict that powerful decision makers will feelcompetitive with expert advisors. These competitive feelings lead to enhanced confidence, which
in turn leads to advice discounting.
To understand why power would lead individuals to feel competitive with expert
advisors, it is necessary to consider the nature of power in more detail. An individual’s power ina particular social situation refers to the individual’s relative ability to control others’ outcomes,
experiences, or behaviors (Keltner, et al., 2003; Thibaut & Kelley, 1959). Because power isrelative, it is a property of the relations between or among individuals rather than a property of
the individual alone (Bacharach & Lawler, 1980; Kim, Pinkley, & Fragale, 2005). As such, thepower relationship between two individuals can change when aspects of the social situation
change. According to power-dependence theory (Blau, 1964; Emerson, 1962), ―the power of A
over B is equal to and based upon the dependence of B upon A‖ (Emerson, 1962: 32-33). Thus,
if B manages to decrease his or her dependence on A, then A loses power over B. Social
dynamics can change power dynamics and lead the powerful to lose power.
Advising is a social process that can have an impact on power dynamics. In an advisingcontext, the power of both the advisor and the decision maker can vary, and one important
determinant of the power of the advisor is the advisor’s expertise (French & Raven, 1959).
Expertise is a source of power for advisors because advice from experts is likely to be in higher
demand than advice from novices. Furthermore, when an advisor has high expertise, the advisor
is likely to have information that is valued by the decision maker. In this way, the advisor’sPower and Advice Taking 8
expertise increases the dependence of the decision maker on the advisor. Thus, expertise shifts
the balance of power in the advisor’s favor.
On the surface, it may therefore appear that receiving unsolicited advice from an expert
would eliminate the negative effect of power on the weighting of advice: In the face of advice
from an expert, an otherwise powerful decision maker would feel diminished and accept theadvice. However, we expect the dynamic to be more complicated because powerholders do notrelinquish their power easily. Previous research has shown that power is associated with anenhanced level of competitiveness (Magee, Galinsky, & Gruenfeld, 2007). To preserver power,
high power individuals often look for traits or characteristics in others that they can construe as
justifying their disproportionate amount of power (e.g., Goodwin, Gubin, Fiske, & Yzerbyt,
2000; Goodwin, Operario, & Fiske, 1998). Because the desire to maintain power is driven in partby self-enhancement (Pfeffer & Fong, 2005), an affront to the self-esteem of high power
individuals is likely to result in the powerholder experiencing feelings of aggression toward thesource of the threat (Fast & Chen, 2009).
Based on these findings, we expect that, rather than passively accepting a diminishedsense of power, individuals who feel a high subjective sense of power will react with feelings ofcompetitiveness when faced with unsolicited advice from experts. This competitiveness
represents an intention to establish their superiority to the advisor, which has the effect ofrefuting the advisor’s relative expertise and thus re-affirming their own entitlement to power.
Indeed, given the relative and perceptual nature of social power, a shift in the decision maker’s
feelings of power can occur only if the decision maker chooses to acknowledge the value of theexpertise that the advisor holds. Thus, although high power individuals are likely to resist advice
from novices because it is low in utility and accuracy, high power individuals resist advice fromPower and Advice Taking 9
experts for defensive reasons: The expert status of the advisor is a challenge to their own
standing.
This line of reasoning is consistent with research indicating that under certain
circumstances, advice is experienced as a threat to the decision maker’s independence andautonomy. For example, Goldsmith and Fitch (1997) found that in situations with salient power
dynamics, such as parent-child relationships, advice is perceived as a threat to the knowledge orability of the decision maker. Similarly, Koestner and colleagues (1999) found that individuals
seeking to maintain independence and power resist the recommendations of others. In addition,
Dalal and Bonaccio (2010) found that the motivation to preserve autonomy was enhanced when
advice was unsolicited (see also Deelstra, et al., 2003).
On the basis of these findings, we therefore propose that when confronted with an expert
advisor, high power individuals will interpret the advice taking context as a competition over
―who is right‖ and will consequently be motivated to out-perform the advisor. In addition,
because this competitiveness stems from a motivation to deny the superior knowledge of theadvisor, it is likely to be associated with an increase in confidence on the part of the decision
maker. Previous research has found that competitive arousal increases decision biases, such as
feelings of optimism and illusions of control (Ku, Malhotra, & Murnighan, 2005; Malhotra, Ku,& Murnighan, 2008). Similarly, we expect that competitive arousal felt by high power
individuals will increase optimism and illusions of control, leading to greater feelings ofconfidence. Thus, high power individuals’ competitive orientation toward expert advisors is
likely to lead to a boost in self-confidence related to the decision task, which in turn leads
powerholders to decrease the weight that they assign to the advice.

Power and Advice Taking 10
In summary, we expect that receiving advice from expert but not novice advisors leads
high power individuals to experience a state of competitive arousal that enhances theirconfidence and therefore leads them to discount the advice of experts and novices equally (seeFigure 1). The key implication of this line of reasoning is that individuals with neutral or low
levels of power will replicate previous findings in which advice from expert advisors is weighted
more heavily than advice from novices, but individuals with high levels of power will discountadvice from novice and expert advisors alike. We therefore hypothesize the following:
Hypothesis 2: There will be an interaction between decision maker power and advisor
expertise, such that individuals with neutral and low levels of power will weigh advice
from expert advisors more heavily than advice from novice advisors, whereas individuals
experiencing high levels of power will ignore advisor expertise and discount advice fromall types of advisors equally.
Consistent with the path model depicted in Figure 1, we further expect a pattern of moderated
mediation in which the effect of power on advice taking is mediated by competitiveness andconfidence for those who receive advice from an expert, but is not mediated by these variables
for those receiving advice from a novice.
Hypothesis 3: For individuals receiving advice from an expert, there will be an indirect
mediating path from power to advice taking through competitiveness and confidence; thisindirect path will not be significant for individuals receiving advice from a novice.
Overview of Present Research
We tested our hypotheses in four experimental studies. Following the approach of other
scholars in the advice taking literature (e.g., Gino & Moore, 2007; Yaniv, 2004), the studies
employed different estimation tasks over multiple rounds. In the first study, we examined thePower and Advice Taking 11
negative effect of power on the degree of advice weighting (Hypothesis 1). The remaining threestudies then manipulated the expertise of the advisor by varying the advisor’s prior domain
experience (Experiment 2) or level of past performance (Experiments 3 and 4). In Experiment 2,
we examined our prediction that individuals experiencing low levels of power will weigh advice
from experienced advisors more heavily than advice from novices, whereas individuals
experiencing high levels of power will discount both types of advice to the same extent(Hypothesis 2). In Experiments 3 and 4, we sought to replicate this interaction focusing on
expertise rather than experience as the moderator. Finally, Experiments 3 and 4 also investigatedour moderated mediation prediction (Hypothesis 3): In Experiment 3, we examined the roles ofcompetitiveness and confidence in mediating the effect of power and advisor expertise on advice
taking; in Experiment 4, we manipulated competitive orientation to further examine thedynamics of the causal chain.
Experiment 1: Power and Advice Taking
In Experiment 1, we first asked people to engage in an estimation task over multiple
rounds. We then manipulated whether participants experienced a high versus low sense of
power. We also included a control condition. After the power manipulation, participants engaged
in the repeated estimation task once again but this second time they also received advice fromothers. We expected to find a negative relationship between power and advice weighting(Hypothesis 1), such that people experiencing a high level of power would weigh advice lessheavily and individuals experiencing low levels of power would weigh advice more heavily than
did participants in the control condition.
MethodPower and Advice Taking 12
Participants. One hundred seven students (53 female, Mage=21, SD=2.47) at a private
university in the eastern United States participated in the study for pay. Participants received a $2
show-up fee and had the opportunity to earn an additional $6 during the study. Participants wererandomly assigned to one of three conditions: high power, low power, and control.
Design and procedure. Participants sat in private computer cubicles. To mitigate
potential demand effects, we informed participants that the experiment included two unrelated
studies, a Vivid Writing Skills Study and a Weight Estimation Study (two parts).
Weight estimation study (Part I). In Part I of the Weight Estimation Study, participants
completed a repeated judgment task. In each of three rounds, participants saw a picture of aperson and estimated the person’s weight. Participants had an incentive to be accurate; we
informed participants that they would receive $1 if their estimate fell within 10 pounds of theactual weight of the person in the picture.
Vivid writing skills study. We referred to this segment of the experiment as the Vivid
Writing Skills Study. As in prior studies that manipulated power (e.g., Galinsky, Gruenfeld, &Magee, 2003), participants engaged in a writing task. Based on the experimental condition,
participants were asked to recall a situation in which they had power over other people (highpower), a situation in which other people had power over them (low power), or their last visit at
the grocery store (control), and to write the details of the situation (see Gruenfeld, Inesi, Magee,& Galinsky, 2008). Consistent with the definition of power as an individual’s relative ability tocontrol others’ outcomes, experiences, or behaviors, the instructions used in the high [low] power
condition read as follows:
Please think about a time when you had power over someone [when someone had powerover you]. By power, we mean a situation in which you [this person] controlled theability of another person or persons [your ability] to get something they [you] wanted, orPower and Advice Taking 13
were in a position to evaluate those individuals [you]. Please write 4-5 sentences
describing this situation in which you had [did not have] power.
In the control condition, instead, participants received the following instructions:
Please think about the last time you were at the supermarket shopping for yourself. Pleasewrite 4-5 sentences describing this situation and one item or product that you purchased
for yourself.
Weight estimation study (Part II). After finishing the writing task, participants
completed Part II of the Weight Estimation Study. We showed participants the same threepictures they saw in Part I of the Weight Estimation Study, and we again asked participants toestimate the weight of the three different people. This time, however, we provided participants
with the estimates that another participant had purportedly made for the same set of photos. For
consistency, we kept the three advice values constant across conditions. We explained that thesevalues had been randomly chosen from estimates that participants in a previous study had madewhen they were assigned to the role of advisor and were paid based upon the accuracy of theirestimates. In each round, the advice was of good quality since it fell within 5% of the true weightof the person in each photograph.
Dependent measure. As in prior advice-taking research, we measured the extent to which
participants relied upon advice by using the ―weight of advice‖ (WOA) measure. This measuregauges the extent to which participants revised their estimates in the direction of the advisor’s
estimate (Harvey & Fischer, 1997; Yaniv & Foster, 1997). The WOA ratio is equal to 0 when theadvice has no influence on the final estimate, and to 1 when the final estimate is exactly the sameas the advice.1 We measure WOA with the following fraction:(final estimate – initial estimate)
WOA=(advice – initial
estimate).

Power and Advice Taking 14
To maximize the value of advice, participants who are equally well informed should equallyweight their own and another person’s estimate (WOA = 0.5) (Soll & Larrick, 2009). We notethat prior research has often considered absolute values when computing the WOA measure. For
robustness, across all studies, we conducted the analyses using the absolute value approach aswell; the nature and significance of our results did not change.
Results
We conducted analyses that included gender and age as independent variables. We foundno main effects or interaction effects for these demographic variables, and we report our findings
collapsed across demographic groups.2
The mean values of WOA by condition are depicted in Figure 2. A 2-way mixed
ANOVA with 1 between-subjects factor (recipient’s power: high vs. low) and 1 within-subject
factor (3 rounds of estimates) found that advice use varied across condition (F[2,104]=16.95,
p<.001, ηp2=.25): Consistent with Hypothesis 1, advice use in the high power condition was
significantly lower than in both the control condition (p=.034) and the low power condition(p<.001); furthermore, advice use in the low power condition was significantly higher than in thecontrol condition (p<.001).
Soll and Larrick (2009) found that the distribution of WOA was trimodal, with peaks at
ignoring advice completely (WOA = 0), averaging (WOA ≈ .5), and listening to advice
completely (WOA = 1). The strategy of completely ignoring advice is a common one (Soll &Larrick, 2009) and particularly interesting as an expression of power. Thus, to further explore
Hypothesis 1, we examined the frequencies with which advice was ignored completely.
Participants in the high power condition ignored the advice (WOA = 0) on 65.6% of their
judgments, which was significantly more than the proportions in the control condition (34.2%, pPower and Advice Taking 15< .001 by two-tailed Fisher exact test) and in the low power condition (25.7%, p < .001 by twotailed Fisher exact test). Participants in the control condition ignored advice at a marginallyhigher rate than did participants in the low power condition (p = .10 two-tailed Fisher exacttest).3
Discussion
These findings support our prediction that power leads individuals to be less receptive toothers’ advice. Specifically, our analyses demonstrated that advice weight was lowest forindividuals in the high power condition, moderate for those in the control condition, and highest
for those in the low power condition. High power participants completely ignored advice almost
two-thirds of the time—a rate nearly twice that observed in the other conditions. This finding is
consistent with our argument that power leads people to feel higher levels of optimism andcontrol that in turn produce feelings of overconfidence and a disinclination to use advice fromothers. In our second study, we sought to replicate the finding of a main effect of power on
advice use and to demonstrate that the tendency for high power individuals to discount advice
from others extends even to advice from more experienced individuals.
Experiment 2: Power, Advisor Experience, and Advice Taking
Experiment 1 demonstrated that individuals primed with high feelings of power were lessopen to others’ advice compared to individuals with low feelings of power or individuals in acontrol condition. In Experiment 1, participants received advice attributed to a randomly chosenparticipant from a previous study. This description provided no direct information about therelative ability of the advisor. Experiment 2 tested whether the same results would hold when
advice is received from an experienced rather than inexperienced advisor. We expected that there
would be an interaction between the participant’s level of power and the advisor’s experience,Power and Advice Taking 16
such that participants experiencing low or neutral levels of power would weigh advice fromexperienced advisors more heavily than advice from novices. The tendency to give more weight
to more able advisors replicates many past results (Goldsmith & Fitch, 1997; Feng &MacGeorge, 2006; Harvey & Fischer, 1997; Sniezek, Schrah, & Dalal, 2004; Soll & Larrick,
2009; Yaniv, 2004; Yaniv & Kleinberger, 2000; Yaniv & Milyavsky, 2007). However, we
expected that participants experiencing a high level of power would preserve their sense of
power by discounting advice from experienced advisors and novices equally (Hypothesis 2).
Study 2 was designed to test for this interaction.
MethodParticipants. One hundred thirty-two students (62 female, Mage=21, SD=2.03) at a
private university in the eastern United States participated in the study in exchange for a $2
show-up fee and the opportunity to earn an additional $6.
Design and procedure. We randomly assigned participants to one of four experimental
conditions from a 2 (Recipient’s power: high vs. low) x 2 (Advisor’s experience: experienced vs.
inexperienced) between-subjects design.
In Experiment 2, we used a different estimation task than the one we used in Experiment
1. Across three rounds, participants viewed a photograph of a jar filled with coins and estimatedthe amount of money in each jar. In both Part 1 and Part 2 of the estimation task, participantsreceived an additional $1 if their estimate fell within 25 cents of the true amount in the jar.
In Experiment 2 we also introduced a new manipulation: advisor’s experience.
Participants were told that the advice was a randomly selected estimate from participants in aprevious study who were assigned the role of advisor and were paid based on the accuracy of
their estimates. In addition, in the experienced-advisor condition, we told participants that theirPower and Advice Taking 17
advisors engaged in ten practice trials in which they received feedback on the accuracy of theirestimates so that they could improve them over time.
Prior to conducting this study, we conducted a pilot study with a non-overlapping sampleof participants (N = 86). We asked these participants to view the same three photographs and to
make estimates that they would offer as advice to future participants. We used the mean value
from the pilot study as advice to participants in Experiment 2.
Results
We conducted a 3-way mixed ANOVA with 2 between-subjects factors (recipient’s
power: high vs. low; advisor’s experience: high vs. low) and 1 within-subject factor (3 rounds of
estimates). We found a main effect of power such that low power individuals were more
receptive to advice (Mean WOA= 0.63, SD=0.38) than were high power individuals (Mean
WOA=0.14, SD=0.31, F[1,128]=69.14, p<.001, ηp2=.35). There was no main effect of advisor’s
experience on advice use (F[1,128]=1.62, p=.21, ηp2=.01). However, as predicted in Hypothesis
2, there was a significant interaction between recipient’s power and advisor’s experience(F[1,128]=3.72, p=.056, ηp2=.03). As depicted in Figure 3, low power individuals were more
receptive to the advice of experienced advisors than to the advice of inexperienced advisors(F[1,63]=4.25, p<.05, ηp2=.06), but high power individuals equally discounted advice
independent of the advisor’s experience (p=.61).
To further explore Hypothesis 2, we examined the frequencies with which advice wasignored completely depending on advisor experience. When advice came from novices, highpower individuals ignored the advice (WOA = 0) on 67.7% of their judgments compared to23.3% of the judgments by low power individuals (p < .001 by two-tailed Fisher exact test).
When advice came from experts, high power individuals ignored advice on 75.5% of theirPower and Advice Taking 18
judgments compared to just 9.4% of the judgments by low power individuals (p < .001 by twotailed Fisher exact test).4 Low power individuals ignored advice significantly more for novice
than for expert advisors (p < .01 by two-tailed Fisher exact test), but the rate at which high power
individuals ignored advice did not differ by advisor expertise (p > .10). Overall power had theeffect of closing judges to advice from all advisors, novice or expert.
Discussion
These findings are consistent with the results of Experiment 1 and indicate that power
leads individuals to be less receptive to others’ advice. Furthermore, in support of Hypothesis 2,
the findings showed that advice taking by low power individuals was sensitive to an advisor’s
experience, whereas advice taking by high power individuals was not. Specifically, low power
individuals were more receptive to the advice they received when it came from an experienced
rather than inexperienced advisor. By contrast, high power individuals heavily discounted advice
from any advisor regardless of the advisor’s level of experience. In Study 3, we conceptually
replicate Study 2 by testing whether advisor expertise measured by past performance produces
the same effects as advisor experience. In addition, we explore the role of competitiveness andconfidence in mediating the effects of power and advisor ability on advice use.
Experiment 3: Power, Advisor Expertise, and Advice Use
Our first two studies demonstrated that individuals primed with high power were lessopen to others’ advice compared to individuals with low power, even when advice is received
from an experienced rather than inexperienced advisor. The goal of Experiment 3 was twofold.
First, we wanted to test whether an advisor’s expertise would produce the same results as anadvisor’s level of experience (providing a second test of Hypothesis 2). Second, we wanted toPower and Advice Taking 19
examine the roles of competitiveness and confidence in mediating the relationship between
power and advice taking as a test of Hypothesis 3.
MethodParticipants. One hundred ninety-nine college and graduate students (67 male, Mage=23,
SD=7.41) from local universities in a city in the Southern United States participated in the study
in exchange for a $4 show-up fee and the opportunity to earn an additional $6.
Design and procedure. We randomly assigned participants to one of six experimental
conditions from a 3 (Recipient’s power: high vs. low vs. control) x 2 (Advisor’s expertise: expert
advisor vs. novice advisor) between-subjects design. The study employed the same weight
estimation task as in Experiment 1. We manipulated advisor’s expertise by giving participants
information about the advisor’s performance (in terms of accuracy) in a prior session of the same
study. In the expert-advisor condition, we told participants that the estimates were those of anadvisor who was among the best performers in a previous session (specifically, in the top 5%). In
the novice-advisor condition, we told participants that the estimates were those of an advisor
who was among the average performers in a previous session (specifically, in the 50th
percentile). We used the same power manipulation employed in Experiments 1 and 2.
After the second part of the Estimation Study we included a questionnaire with measuresof state competitiveness and confidence. We randomized the order in which these questions were
presented to participants. The questionnaire also included manipulation checks and demographic
questions related to age and gender.
Measures. Unless otherwise indicated, participants answered the questions with ourmeasures by indicating their level of agreement on a 7-point scale (1=strongly disagree,
7=strongly agree).

Power and Advice Taking 20
Competitiveness. To measure competitiveness, we modified the competitiveness index
scale suggested by Houston and colleagues (see Houston, Farese, & La Du, 1992; Smither &Houston, 1992) so that we could capture state competitive mindset. The scale included thefollowing items: 1) Right now, I think that competing against an opponent would be enjoyable
and 2) Right now, I think that keeping score is important when playing games. The two items
were correlated at r=.73, p<.001, which corresponds to =.84 (M=4.95, SD=1.42).
Confidence. We measured confidence by asking participants to indicate their level ofagreement on a 7-point scale with the following three items: 1) I am very certain about theaccuracy of my judgments, 2) I feel confident I performed well on this task, and 3) I have no
doubt my estimates are close to the true values (=.89) (M=4.08, SD=1.33). The measures ofconfidence and competitiveness were positively correlated (r = .30, p < .001).
Results
Manipulation checks. We confirmed that all participants correctly recalled theinformation we provided regarding the advisor’s level of expertise. Specifically, participants inthe expert advisor condition were able to indicate that their advisor was in the top 5% ofperformers, and participants in the novice advisor condition were able to indicate that theiradvisor was in the 50th percentile.
To test for the effect of the power manipulation, we asked participants to think back to
the experience that they had written about at the beginning of the study, and to indicate theamount of power they personally felt in that experience using a 7-point scale (from 1=very little
to 7=a great deal). We used their answers to this question as the dependent variable in a 3(recipient’s power) x 2 (advisor’s expertise) between-subjects ANOVA. This analysis revealed
only a significant effect of power in the expected direction (F[2,193]=62.66, p<.001, ηp2=.39):

Power and Advice Taking 21
Participants reported higher ratings in the high power condition (M=5.27, SD=1.01) compared toboth the control condition (M=4.73, SD=1.43; p<.04) and the low power condition (M=2.68,
SD=1.60; p<.001), indicating that our manipulation of power was effective. The ratings ofperceived power were significantly lower in the low power condition than in the control
condition (p<.001).
Advice-taking. We conducted a 3-way mixed ANOVA with 2 between-subject variables(recipient’s power: high, low, or neutral; advisor’s expertise: high vs. low) and 1 within-subject
variable (3 rounds of estimates). We found a significant effect for power (F[2,179]=18.41,
p<.001, ηp2=.17) and a significant effect for advisor’s expertise (F[1,179]=17.27, p<.001,
ηp2=.09). More interestingly, as depicted in Figure 4, the interaction between recipient’s power
and advisor’s expertise was also significant (F[2,179]=5.86, p<.01, ηp2=.06). Low power
individuals were more receptive to the advice of expert advisors than to that of novice advisors(F[1,179]=27.37, p<.001, ηp2=.13). Participants in the control condition were also more receptive
to the advice of expert advisors than to that of novice advisors, but this difference only reachedmarginal significance (F[1,179]=2.72, p=.10, ηp2=.02). High power individuals, instead, equally
discounted advice independent of the advisor’s expertise (p=.65). Thus, Hypothesis 2 was again
supported.
To further explore Hypothesis 2, we examined the frequencies with which advice wasignored completely depending on advisor expertise. When advice came from novices, highpower individuals ignored the advice (WOA = 0) on 53.3% of their judgments compared to
31.0% of the judgments by low power individuals (p < .001 by two-tailed Fisher exact test).
When advice came from experts, high power individuals ignored advice on 56.0% of their
judgments compared to just 6.7% of the judgments by low power individuals (p < .001 by two-

Power and Advice Taking 22
tailed Fisher exact test).5 Low power individuals ignored advice from novices more than fromexperts (p < .001); high power individuals did not differ across experts and novices (p > .10). As
in Study 2, power had the effect of closing judges to advice from all advisors, novice or expert.
Explaining the link between power and advice taking. In order to test for support forthe path model depicted in Figure 1, we focused only on the high power and the low power
conditions since we were interested in the differences produced by these two levels of power on
advice use. We followed the path-analysis procedures recommended by Edwards and Lambert(2007), which are implemented by running regressions on the mediators and the dependent
variable and using the results of these regressions to generate a reduced form equation (i.e., that
includes only exogenous variables as predictors), which is used to compute simple paths that
constitute the indirect effect of the independent variable at different levels of the moderator
variable. Below, we explain the results from the three constituent regressions in turn, and wethen present the results for the indirect effects computed using the bootstrap procedure.
We used hierarchical linear regression and began by regressing our measure ofcompetitiveness on dummy variables for power (high power = 1; low power = 0) and advisor’s
expertise (expert = 1; novice = 0) in the first step and found a significant effect of power (b=.66,
t=2.74, p<.01). We then entered the interaction on the second step. Inclusion of the interaction
term led to a significant increase in variance explained in the second step (from R2=.06 to
R2=.09; p=.02) (b=1.16, t=2.37, p<.05). Contrast analyses revealed that there was a significant
effect of power on competitiveness within the expert advisor condition (low power: M=4.32,
SD=1.23; high power: M=5.70, SD=1.19; F[1,131]=12.78, p<.001, ηp2=.09), but there was nosimple effect of power within the novice advisor condition (low power: M=4.82, SD=1.50; highpower: M=5.04, SD=1.37; F[1,131]=.55, p=.46, ηp2=.004). Contrast analyses further revealedPower and Advice Taking 23
that there was a marginally significant simple effect of advisor expertise within the high power
condition (novice: M=5.04, SD=1.37; expert: M=5.70, SD=1.19; F[1,131]=3.38, p=.068,
ηp2=.03), but there was no simple effect of advisor within the low power condition (novice:
M=4.82, SD=1.50; expert: M=4.32, SD=1.23; F[1,131]=2.24, p=.14, ηp2=.02). These findings
support our contention that the experience of power leads decision makers to experience feelingsof competitiveness when they encounter an expert advisor. These findings also indicate support
for the first stage of our proposed path model (Figure 1).
Next, we tested our prediction for the second stage of our path model, in which we
expected that there would be a main effect of competitiveness on confidence. To do so, we again
used hierarchical linear regression. In the first step, we entered the dummy variable for power
and found a significant effect of power on confidence (b=.54, t=2.38, p<.05). On the second step
we entered our measure of competitiveness (centered) and found a significant effect ofcompetitiveness on confidence (b=.36, t=3.19, p<.01). In the second step, the effect of power
was no longer significant, indicating that the measure of competitiveness fully mediated theeffect of power on confidence. We note that including the measure of competitivenesssignificantly improved the variance explained (from r2=.04 to r2=.11, F(1,132)=10.17, p<.01).
These results support the second stage of our path model.
To explore the third stage of our path model, in which we expected that there would be aneffect of confidence on WOA, we again used hierarchical linear regression. In the first step, we
entered the dummy variable for power and found a significant effect of power on WOA (b=-.23,
t=-4.35, p<.001). In the second step, we entered our measure of confidence (centered), which
was significant (b=-.10, t=-4.09, p<.001). We note that including the measure of confidence
decreased the effect of power (b=-.19, t=-3.35, p=.001) and significantly improved the variancePower and Advice Taking 24
explained (from r2=.12 to r2=.22, F(1,132)=16.78, p<.001). In addition, we wanted to confirm
that our measure of confidence mediated the effect of competitiveness on WOA. To do so, weagain used hierarchical linear regression. In the first step, we entered our measure ofcompetitiveness (centered) and found a significant effect of competitiveness (centered) on WOA(b=-.06, t=-2.09, p<.04). In the second step, we entered our measure of confidence (centered),which was significant (b=-.11, t=-4.24, p<.001). We note that including the measure ofconfidence eliminated the effect of competitiveness on WOA (b=-.02, t=-0.84, p=.40) andsignificantly improved the variance explained (from r2=.03 to r2=.15, F(1,132)=17.98, p<.001).
These results support the third stage of our path model.
We then used the results of these three regressions to test whether the indirect effect ofpower through competitiveness and confidence was moderated by advisor’s expertise, as
depicted in our path model (Figure 1). Specifically, we used a bootstrap procedure on the
regressions of competitiveness, confidence, and WOA in order to construct bias-correctedconfidence intervals based on 1,000 random samples with replacement from the full sample, as
recommended by Edwards and Lambert (2007; see also MacKinnon, Fairchild, & Fritz, 2007;
Shrout & Bolger, 2002). The analysis indicated that the indirect effect of power on WOA
through competitiveness and confidence was significant for those in the expert advisor condition(bias-corrected 95% confidence interval: -.11 to -.02) but not for those in the novice advisor
condition (bias-corrected 95% confidence interval: -.04 to .01) (see Table 1). Thus, Hypothesis 3
was supported. In addition, we note that the direct effect of power on WOA was diminished but
remained significant regardless of the advisor’s level of expertise, indicating that the mediation
was partial.

Power and Advice Taking 25
Finally, our moderated mediation prediction entails an expectation that the causal chain
from competitiveness to confidence to WOA should be significant when high power people
receive advice from experts but should not be significant when high power people receive advice
from novices. We tested this aspect of the expected causal chain using the bootstrap procedureon only our high power participants. The analysis confirmed a significant indirect effect fromcompetitiveness to WOA through confidence when high power participants received advice froman expert (bias-corrected 95% confidence interval: -.31 to -.05), and the indirect effect was not
significant when the high power participants received advice from a novice (bias-corrected 95%
confidence interval: -.09 to .03). Thus, the causal chain from competition to confidence to WOA
is significant only among high power participants receiving advice from experts. This analysis
provides additional support for Hypothesis 3.
Discussion
The results of our third study are consistent with those of Experiments 1 and 2.
Participants were more receptive to the advice of others when they experienced low power thanwhen they experienced high power. Our results also show that advisor expertise only influences
the extent of advice taking for participants experiencing low power; participants experiencing
high power did not adjust their weight of advice according to the advisor’s expertise. In addition,
our results further demonstrate that the effect of power on advice use is mediated bycompetitiveness and confidence for those receiving advice from experts. Specifically, when
individuals received advice from experts, power significantly increased feelings ofcompetitiveness, which in turn increased confidence and reduced advice-taking. However, highand low power individuals did not differ significantly in competitiveness or confidence when

Power and Advice Taking 26
facing novice advisors (and the indirect effect for those receiving advice from novices was not
significant). Therefore, our path model based on Hypothesis 3 was supported.
Experiment 4: Power, Competitiveness, and Advice Use
The results of Experiment 3 indicated that high power people feel competitive when
exposed to advice from experts and that these feelings of competition lead them to inflate theirconfidence and underweight experts’ advice. Thus, one important implication of Study 3 is thatwhen powerful people feel cooperative with their advisors, rather than competitive, they arelikely to behave similarly to their lower power counterparts and weigh the advice of experts
more heavily than advice from novices. In order to explore this possibility, and to examine our
proposed causal mechanism in more detail, we conducted an additional study in which we
exposed all participants to a high power prime and then manipulated both advisor expertise andfeelings of competition vs. cooperation with the advisor.
Thus, Experiment 4 involved a 2 (advisor expertise: expert vs. novice) x 2 (participant
mindset: competitive vs. cooperative) between-subjects design, in which self-confidence wasmeasured and all participants received the high power writing task. We expected an interaction
between advisor expertise and participant mindset, such that in the competitive condition,
participants (all of whom were high power) would discount advice from novices and experts
equally (as in Experiments 2 and 3), but that in the cooperation condition, participants would
weigh the advice of experts more heavily than advice from novices. Consistent with Hypothesis
3 and the findings from Experiment 3, we expected that this interaction would be mediated byfeelings of confidence.

Power and Advice Taking 27
MethodParticipants. Two-hundred and two adults (56% female, Mage=33.62, SD=11.47)
participated in the study for pay. Participants received a $2 show-up fee and had the opportunity
to earn an additional $6 during the study.
Design and procedure. Participants completed the study online, at their own computer.
To mitigate potential demand effects, we informed participants that the experiment included
three unrelated studies: a Vivid Writing Skills Study, a Weight Estimation Study (two parts), anda final task described as either ―Cooperative Alliance Task‖ or ―Strategic Competition Task,‖
depending on condition. For the Vivid Writing Skills task, all participants received the highpower version of the task. The study employed the same weight estimation task as inExperiments 1 and 3, and the same manipulation of advisor’s expertise used in Experiment 3.
Before presenting the advisor’s estimates, however, we first described the fourth part ofthe study to participants. Participants were told that Part 4 of the study would require them either
to work cooperatively with their advisor (cooperation condition) or to engage in a game in which
they would compete with their advisor (competition condition). We also reinforced the strengthof the manipulation by referring to the tasks with different titles (Epley, Caruso, & Bazerman,
2006). Specifically, the task was entitled ―Part 4: Cooperative Alliance Task‖ in the cooperative
condition and ―Part 4: Strategic Competition Task‖ in the competitive condition.
We then asked half of our participants to respond to a few brief questions to assess theirconfidence in their original estimates. The other half were not asked to respond to thesequestions until after they received their advisor’s advice and reported their own final estimates of
the weights. This approach allowed us to test for mediation by assessing whether feelings ofconfidence arise before, or only after, the participants receive advice and report their finalPower and Advice Taking 28
estimates. We assessed self-confidence by asking participants to indicate their agreement withthe following statements using a 7-point scale (scale: 1=strongly disagree, 7=strongly agree): 1)
I am very certain about the accuracy of my judgments; 2) I feel confident I performed well on
this task; and 3) I have no doubt my estimates are close to the true values (α=.92).
Next, we presented the advisors’ estimates and asked the participants to report their own
final estimates. Once again, we kept the three advice values constant across conditions. After
participants indicated their final estimates of the weights, we included a questionnaire. The
questionnaire included measures of confidence (for those who did not respond to those items
before their final estimates), as well as manipulation checks and demographic questions related
to age and gender. We randomized the order in which these questions were presented toparticipants.
Results
Manipulation checks: advisor’s expertise. We confirmed that all participants correctly
recalled the information we provided regarding the advisor’s level of expertise. Specifically,
participants in the expert advisor condition were able to indicate that their advisor was in the top
5% of performers, and participants in the novice advisor condition were able to indicate that theiradvisor was in the 50th percentile. In addition, participants indicated how expert they believed
their advisor to be on a 7-point scale (1=not at all, 7=very much). A 2 (advisor’s expertise: highvs. low) X 2 (task description: competition vs. cooperation) ANOVA revealed a main effect foradvisor’s expertise, F(1,198)=111, p<.001, ηp2=.36: Participants reported higher ratings in theexpert advisor condition (M=5.33, SD=1.01) than in the novice advisor condition (M=3.76,
SD=1.10), indicating that our manipulation of advisor’s expertise was effective. Both the main
effect of task description and the interaction were not significant (both Fs<1).

Power and Advice Taking 29
Manipulation checks: competition toward advisor. We also confirmed that all
participants correctly recalled the information we provided regarding whether they would becompeting or cooperating with their advisor in the final task. Specifically, participants in thecompetition condition were able to indicate that they would compete with their advisor, andparticipants in the cooperation condition were able to indicate that they would cooperate with
their advisor. In addition, participants indicated how cooperative or competitive they felt toward
their advisor (1=very cooperative, 7=very competitive). A 2 (advisor’s expertise) X 2 (taskdescription) ANOVA revealed a main effect for task description, F(1,198)=48.22, p<.001,
ηp2=.20: Participants reported higher ratings of competitiveness in the competition condition(M=4.91, SD=1.64) than in the cooperation condition (M=3.19, SD=1.86), indicating that our
manipulation of competition toward the advisor was effective. Both the main effect of advisor’s
expertise and the interaction were not significant (both Fs<1).
Manipulation checks: power. We also included a question regarding participants’experience of power. Participants were asked to think back to the experience that they wrote
about at the beginning of the study, and to indicate the amount of power they personally felt inthat experience on a 7-point scale (1=very little to 7=a great deal). The average rating was 5.47
(SD=1.25). As expected given that our manipulations were introduced after the power induction,
this rating was not affected by our manipulations. We then proceeded to test our hypotheses.
Advice-taking. We conducted a 3-way mixed ANOVA with two between-subject
variables (advisor’s expertise and task description) and one within-subject variable (3 rounds of
estimates). We found a significant effect for advisor’s expertise (F[1,190]=14.91, p<.001,
ηp2=.07) and a significant effect for task description (F[1,190]=11.46, p=.001, ηp2=.06). Moreinterestingly, as depicted in Figure 6, the interaction between the two manipulations was also

Power and Advice Taking 30
significant (F[1,190]=5.67, p<.02, ηp2=.03). As was true for subjects experiencing high power inExperiments 2 and 3, participants in Experiment 4 who expected to compete with their advisor
discounted the advice of novice and expert advisors equally (F[1,190]=1.06, p=.30). However,participants who expected to cooperate with their advisor were more receptive to advice fromexperts than from novices (F[1,190]=20.10, p<.001, ηp2=.10). Indeed, participants who received
advice from experts with whom they expected to cooperate exhibited the highest level of WOAof the four cells (all p’s < .001).
We also examined the frequencies with which advice was ignored completely. In thecompetition condition, participants ignored advice (WOA = 0) from novices on 37.0% of their
judgments and ignored advice from experts on 38.7% of their judgments. In the cooperation
condition, participants ignored advice from novices on 36% of their judgments and ignoredadvice from experts on 15.1% of their judgments (p < .001 by two-tailed Fisher exact test).6
Compared to the high power conditions in the previous studies, Experiment 4 revealed alower rate of completely ignoring advice (WOA = 0). Although we do not have a definitive
explanation for this pattern, we note that the population was substantially different: Experiment 4
involved an online sample of adults and not a college-based population.
Confidence. We then examined whether our manipulations affected participants’ selfreported level of confidence. A 2 (advisor’s expertise) X 2 (competition) ANOVA revealed asignificant effect for advisor’s expertise (F[1,198]=5.05, p<.03, ηp2=.03) and a significant effectfor task description (F[1,198]=8.79, p<.01, ηp2=.04). More interestingly, the interaction between
the two manipulations was also significant (F[1,198]=6.11, p<.02, ηp2=.03). Participants who
expected to compete with their advisor reported feeling equally confident independent of
whether the advisor was a novice or an expert (Mnovice=5.07, SD=1.19 vs. Mexpert=5.11, SD=1.40,

Power and Advice Taking 31
F[1,198]=0.02, p=.88). However, participants who expected to cooperate with their advisor
reported feeling less confident when the advisor was an expert than when the advisor was a
novice ( Mexpert=4.08, SD=1.31 vs. Mnovice=4.97, SD=1.46, F[1,198]=11.35, p=.001, ηp2=.05).
Indeed, participants who received advice from experts with whom they expected to cooperate
exhibited the lowest levels of confidence of the four cells (all p’s =< .001). Controlling for thetiming of these variables in our analyses did not substantively affect the results.
First-stage moderated mediation model. We conducted additional analyses to examine
whether self-reported confidence would explain the moderating effect of competition on therelationship between advisor’s expertise and advice taking for high power individuals. We
expected that competition would moderate the effect of advisor’s expertise on self-reported
confidence, which would directly predict higher levels of advice taking, constituting a first-stage
moderation model (Edwards & Lambert, 2007). To test for this effect, we used hierarchicallinear regression in which we entered dummy variables for advisor expertise (expert = 1; novice= 0) and competition (competitive orientation = 1; cooperative orientation = 0) in the first step,
the interaction between the two in the second step, and our measure of self-reported confidence
in the third step. When the measure of confidence was included, the interaction between
advisor’s expertise and competition became non-significant (b=-0.05, t=-0.72, p=.47), whereas
self-reported confidence was a significant, negative predictor of advice taking (b=-.12, t=-9.36,
p<.001). In addition, we used the bootstrap procedure recommended by Edwards and Lambert(2007) to assess the indirect effect of advisor expertise on WOA through confidence forindividuals in the competition vs. cooperation conditions. Consistent with our causal model andwith the finding reported above that there is no effect of advisor expertise on WOA for
individuals in the competition condition, we expected that there would be an indirect effect ofPower and Advice Taking 32
expertise on WOA mediated by confidence for those in the cooperation condition but not among
those in the competition condition. The analysis indicated that the indirect effect was significant
for those in the cooperation condition (bias-corrected 95% confidence interval: 0.04 to 0.23) but
not for those in the competition condition (bias-corrected 95% confidence interval: -0.10 to 0.09)(see Table 2).
Discussion
The results of our fourth study replicate the findings of Experiments 2 and 3 with respect
to high power individuals and provide further support for our predicted causal mechanism.
Specifically, Experiment 4 demonstrated that high power participants discount advice fromexperts and novices equally but that when high power participants are made to feel cooperativewith their advisors, they weigh advice from experts more heavily. Furthermore, the findings
indicate that high power participants who feel competitive with their expert advisors reportincreased feelings of confidence in their own judgments relative to high power participants who
feel cooperative with experts. These feelings of confidence mediate the interactive effect ofadvisor expertise and competitive vs. cooperative orientation on WOA. Thus, the findings ofExperiment 4 provide further support for our hypothesized causal model.
In sum, the competitive feelings created in our manipulation reinforced the default
mindset of high power decision makers—for them, taking advice from an expert would diminish
their standing and they responded by reasserting their own competence. In contrast, a
cooperative mindset led our high power participants to behave more like the low power orcontrol participants from our previous experiments, exhibiting less confidence in their own
judgments and accepting advice more readily from experts.

Power and Advice Taking 33
General Discussion
The four experiments presented here demonstrate that feelings of power lead individuals
to decrease their use of advice from others and to discount advice from experts and novices
equivalently. In Experiment 1, the findings confirmed that there is a negative relationshipbetween subjective feelings of power and use of advice from others. In addition, Experiments 2,
3, and 4 demonstrated that individuals experiencing high levels of power not only discounted
advice from novice advisors, but also discounted advice from expert advisors. In contrast,
individuals experiencing neutral and low levels of power in Experiments 2 and 3 exhibited
behavior that was consistent with previous research findings: They weighed advice from experts
and experienced advisors more heavily than advice from novices. Finally, Experiments 3 and 4
provided evidence supporting our causal mechanism. Experiment 3 found that high power
individuals felt increased competitiveness and confidence when paired with an expert advisor. A
moderated mediation analysis demonstrated that the tendency of high power individuals to
discount advice from experts and novices equivalently is mediated by feelings ofcompetitiveness and confidence. In Experiment 4, we manipulated competitive vs. cooperativeorientation among high power individuals and demonstrated that the boost in confidence andconsequent discounting of advice that high power decision makers exhibit when receiving advice
from experts can be eliminated if the decision maker can be induced to feel cooperative, rather
than competitive, with the advisor.
Theoretical Contributions
We highlight four main theoretical contributions of this research, two with respect toresearch on advice and two with respect to research on power. First, the findings from thesestudies contribute to the ongoing research indicating that the decision maker’s internal states canPower and Advice Taking 34
have important influences on the extent of advice taking (e.g., Cooper, 1991; Gino & Schweitzer,
2008). Previous work in this area has focused primarily on the influence of decision makers’
emotional states (Gino & Schweitzer, 2008; Lerner & Tiedens, 2006). Our work extends this lineof research by showing that the decision maker’s subjective sense of power is an important factor
impacting the extent of advice use (see also See, et al., 2010). Second, our studies also provide
insight about when and why this happens. Advice taking by high power individuals is lesssensitive to advisor expertise than is advice taking by low power individuals. This happens
because high power individuals experience greater competitiveness and confidence when they
confront expert advisors, and these internal states mediate the link between power and adviceuse.
The research presented here also contributes in two key ways to research on thepsychological effects of power. First, our findings from Experiment 3 extend previous researchon the relationship between power and competitiveness. Specifically, prior studies have foundthat power increases competitive behavior in competitive social contexts, such as negotiations(Magee, Galinsky, & Gruenfeld, 2007). Our findings provide further support for this dynamic
but also extend previous findings by highlighting that high power individuals are more likely toperceive situations as competitive when their status, power, or influence are threatened (e.g.,when confronted with someone with greater expertise). Second, our findings in Experiments 3
and 4 also complement previous research on power and overconfidence (e.g., See et al., 2010;
Sivanathan & Galinsky, 2007) by demonstrating that the effect of power on confidence may attimes be mediated by competitiveness.

Power and Advice Taking 35
Implications for PracticeIn recent years, there has been increasing interest in the fact that averaging judgments
across people increases the accuracy of judgments (Clemen, 1989), which has been termed the―wisdom of crowds‖ (Surowiecki, 2004). An important insight from past research is that there
are diminishing marginal returns to crowd size. For a given judgment, the first piece of advice is
far more valuable than the second (or third, or fourth) piece of advice because it doubles the
sample size (Hogarth, 1978). Research has shown, however, the people misunderstand thebenefits of combining the estimates of two people (Larrick & Soll, 2006), and, in revising theirown judgments, often ignore advice from others (WOA = 0), making their final estimates lessaccurate than if they had given equal weight to advice (WOA = .5) (Soll & Larrick, 2009).
Although there are circumstances when ignoring advice is an effective strategy (for example,
when the advisor has substantially less expertise than the advisee), it is a demonstrably inferior
strategy to averaging when a judge and advisor are equally expert (Soll & Larrick, 2009). Underany reasonable assumption about differences in expertise, the high power individuals inExperiments 3 and 4 should be integrating the judgments of a ―top 5% expert‖ with their own
judgments rather than ignoring the expert’s judgments.
The tendency for power to reduce the use of advice suggests that organizational leaders
should take steps to mitigate the negative effects of power. One way to do so may be to attempt
to prevent subjective feelings of power from emerging in the first place. To that end, leaders may
attempt to design work roles and responsibilities in ways that equalize power relations acrossorganizational actors and promote non-hierarchical cultures. Alternatively, leaders could work topush decision making power as much as possible to the lower levels of organizational hierarchy.
There is a general logic for decentralizing decisions because it allows people with the bestPower and Advice Taking 36
information to make key organizational decisions. A secondary benefit of decentralization may
be psychological: Decisions will be made by people who feel less powerful and are therefore
more open to advice from others.
In addition, organizational leaders could also take steps to minimize the likelihood ofhigh power individuals experiencing feelings of competitiveness with advisors. This goal might
be achieved by structuring tasks such that high power individuals are induced to feel acooperative orientation to their advisors, as in Experiment 4. This goal may also be achieved bytaking action to provide decision makers with feelings of security about their status and position
so that exposure to experts is experienced as less threatening. This type of reassurance could
occur by training advisors to affirm the knowledge and experience of the decision maker as astep to making their advice more impactful. At the same time, the goal of diminishing feelings ofcompetitiveness could also be accomplished by choosing decision makers who are relatively
more self-assured and who feel the effects of competitive arousal less acutely (Malhotra, Ku, &Murnighan, 2008).
We conclude by noting that although listening to advice is an effective way to form moreaccurate judgments, there is a potential social cost: Relying on others can be perceived as a signof incompetence or uncertainty (Lee, 1997; Westphal, 1999). Those who hold power and want tomaintain it may in fact be acting appropriately to preserve their social dominance. To combat thepotential social costs of taking advice, organizations need to create cultures in whichorganizational members are encouraged to share information and leaders are rewarded forseeking and integrating the perspectives of others.

Power and Advice Taking 37
Limitations and Future Directions
There are multiple avenues of future research that could explore the limitations andboundary conditions of our findings. Specifically, we focus on the effects of power on the use ofunsolicited advice. However, it would be interesting to explore whether power also has similareffects on the likelihood that advice will be sought in the first place: Are individuals who
experience an enhanced feeling of power also less likely to seek advice? If such an effect exists,
is it also mediated by competiveness and confidence? Furthermore, once advice has beensolicited, would the effect of power on weight of advice persist? We suspect that it would not:When a high power person solicits advice from another, the very act of soliciting advice can beviewed as an affirmation of the decision maker’s high-power status, and it is likely that thisaffirmation could minimize the feelings of competitiveness that would otherwise emerge due tostatus threat.
In addition, our manipulation of power focused primarily on a particular type of power.
French and Raven (1959) distinguish among reward, coercive, expert, legitimate, and referent
forms of power. Our manipulation of power (―By power, we mean a situation in which you
controlled the ability of another person or persons to get something they wanted, or were in aposition to evaluate those individuals‖) focused on reward power, which refers to an actor’sability to control the rewards others receive, and coercive power, which refers to an actor’sability to punish others. We suspect that the effect of power on expert and novice advice use mayvary across bases of power. If the decision maker’s power is based on expertise, then the threatof advice from experts may be particularly high, leading to an even greater tendency to discountadvice. However, if the decision maker’s power is based on legitimate (power based on others’
perceptions that the decision maker has lawful authority) or referent power (power based onPower and Advice Taking 38
attraction and identification), then expert advice may represent less of a status threat, and perhaps
the effects demonstrated in our studies would be mitigated.
The nature of the power manipulation used in our studies also prompts us to consider
another potential boundary condition of these effects. Specifically, we used a writing prime toelicit individuals’ subjective feelings of power unrelated to the experimental task. This approachraises the question of whether the competitiveness that our high power individuals felt in
response to expert advice would necessarily emerge among individuals who have achieved
authority positions in organizations. Certainly individuals in positions of authority are frequently
primed with power by cues in their environments, such as the deferential behavior of others andthe high status perks associated with their offices. However, might individuals in positions ofauthority become accustomed or habituated to these cues, such that these cues no longer elicit the
subjective feelings of power that were the focus of our experimental manipulations? If so, we
would not expect our findings to generalize broadly to every decision made by an individual in aposition of power; instead, we would only expect that our findings would generalize in thosecircumstances in which the powerful individual experiences a subjective awareness or feeling of
power. Similarly, it is possible that the writing prime approach to the manipulation of power
elicited rather tenuous feelings of power, making our participants particularly susceptible tofeelings of threat when confronted with an expert. This observation suggests that our results
would be less robust among individuals who feel highly secure in their position of power orwhose power bases are quite solidified; future research should investigate these possibilities.
Other interesting avenues of inquiry remain as well. For example, we did not examine theeffect of power on judgment quality: Does the tendency for high power individuals to discountadvice from experts lead to a decrease in judgment quality? We expect that it does, but futurePower and Advice Taking 39
research should explore this issue. It would also be interesting to explore whether the experienceof power makes people more open to advice under some circumstances. Previous research
indicates that high power individuals are strategic in their interactions, such that they allocate
attention to those whom they perceive as instrumental to their goals but ignore individuals whomthey perceive as less useful in their goal pursuits (e.g., Gruenfeld, Inesi, Magee, & Galinsky,
2008; Overbeck & Park, 2006). This line of reasoning suggests that high power individuals may
be more willing to seek and use advice from individuals who have expertise that is clearly
instrumental to their goal pursuits (Fitzsimons & Shah, 2009). Finally, it would be interesting to
explore the role of feelings of power in prompting advice provision: Are high power individuals
more likely to give advice than are individuals with lower levels of power?
Conclusions
Other people are a source of broader perspectives and differing opinions. Acquiring thisinformation is arguably the easiest way to improve one’s decisions (Larrick, 2009). But dopeople listen to others? Individuals with formal positions of authority are generally granted broad
decision-making authority and would benefit from listening to others; however, formal authority
itself can create feelings of power, competitiveness, and confidence that inhibit advice taking.
The studies presented here represent a first step toward a better understanding of a paradox ofpower—greater decision rights are often coupled with a power-induced neglect of the judgmentsof others. The findings have important theoretical implications for advice taking research and forresearch on the psychological effects of power, and they also have important practical
implications for mitigating the negative effect of power on advice taking.

Power and Advice Taking 40
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Power and Advice Taking 48
Footnotes
1

In Experiments 1 and 2, no participants guessed the same weight as the advice acrossrounds, and all values for WOA were within the range -1 to 1. In Experiment 3 there was one
person who guessed the same weight as the advice for the third target (none for the first two);that participant’s WOA for that target was removed from the computation of their average WOA.
In addition, there were 15 people with WOA>1 or <-1 for the first target, 3 for the second target,and 23 for the third target. These were treated as WOA=1 (or -1 for negative values) incomputing the average WOA as in previous research (e.g., Gino et al., 2009). In Experiment 4,
there was one person who guessed the same weight as the advice for the first target and one
person for the third target (none for the second target); that participant’s WOA for that target wasremoved from the computation of their average WOA. In addition, there were 6 people with
WOA>1 or <-1 for the first target, 5 for the second target, and 11 for the third target. These weretreated as WOA = 1 (or -1 for negative values) in computing the average WOA. In addition,
WOA values greater than 3 standard deviations from the mean were excluded from the analyses.
2

We coded participants’ essays to determine whether they included any mention ofcompetitive content. Specifically, two independent raters (who were blind to the study
hypotheses) read each essay and then indicated whether it described a competitive situation ornot. Similar to the coding of the power prime essays described in Galinsky, Gruenfeld, andMagee (2003), participants described different types of relationships (e.g., teacher-student,
employer-employee). Yet, independent of the relationship described or the experimental
condition, the results of the coding indicated that participants’ essays did not include competitive
content.

Power and Advice Taking 49
3High power and control participants rarely used advice in place of their own opinion(WOA = 1)—3.0% and 8.1% of the time, respectively—whereas low power individuals usedadvice in place of their own opinion frequently—37.8% of the time. Participants differed little intheir use of averaging (.4 < WOA < .6), ranging from 8% to 16% across the 3 cells.
4High power individuals rarely used novice and expert advice in place of their own

opinion (WOA = 1)—9.1% and 8.8% of the time, respectively—whereas low power individuals
used novice and expert advice in place of their own opinion more often—30.3% and 50.0% of
the time, respectively. Participants differed little in their use of averaging, ranging from 0% to
13% across the 4 cells.
5High power individuals rarely used novice and expert advice in place of their own

opinion (WOA = 1)—3.8% and 6.7% of the time, respectively—whereas low power individuals
used novice and expert advice in place of their own opinion more often—20.0% and 34.7% of
the time, respectively. Participants differed little in their use of averaging, ranging from 10% to
16% across the 4 cells.
6Participants in the competition condition rarely used novice and expert advice in placeof their own opinion (WOA = 1)—6.0% and 6.9% of the time, respectively. Participants in thecooperation condition rarely used novice advice in place of their own opinion (9.3% of the time),
but participants in the cooperation condition used expert advice in place of their own 17.6% of
the time. Participants differed little in their use of averaging, ranging from 12.1% to 17.6%
across the 4 cells.

Power and Advice Taking 50

Table 1
Differences in effects for moderated mediation analyses (Study 3)First stage effect ofPower onCompetitivenessIndirect effect ofPower on WOA
through
Competitivenessand Confidence

Novice0.22-.01

Expert1.38***-0.05***

Difference

1.16**-.04***

Note: entries are non-standardized regression coefficients.
*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001

Power and Advice Taking 51
Table 2
Experiment 4: Analysis of Simple Effects
Moderator:
Competition

Stage

EffectFirst

SecondDirectIndirect

Total

Cooperation (0)-.89**-.13**

.14*

.12**

.26**

Competition (1).04-.20**

.07

-.01

.06

Differences

.93*

-.07*

-.07

-.12*

-.19*

Note: entries are non-standardized regression coefficients.
*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001

Power and Advice Taking 52
Figure Captions
Figure 1. Path model for moderated mediation.
Figure 2. Mean WOA values by condition, Experiment 1. Error bars represent standard errors.
Figure 3. Mean WOA values by condition, Experiment 2. Error bars represent standard errors.
Figure 4. Mean WOA values by condition, Experiment 3. Error bars represent standard errors.
Figure 5. Interaction between advisor expertise and power on competitiveness, Experiment 3.
Figure 6. Mean WOA values by condition, Experiment 4. Error bars represent standard errors.

Figure 1

AdvisorExpertiseCompetitiveness++Confidence

–

+

–
Power

WOA

Power and Advice Taking 53
Figure 2Power and Advice Taking 54
Figure 3Power and Advice Taking 55
Figure 4

Power and Advice Taking 56
Figure 5Power and Advice Taking 57
Figure 6