Three experiments demonstrated that the experience of power leads to an illusion of personal control. Regardless of whether power was experientially primed (Experiments 1 and 3) or manipulated through manager-subordinate roles (Experiment 2), it led to perceived control over outcomes that were...

Individuals often honor their own sunk costs, increasing their commitment to failing courses of action, from financial investments to wars. Because honoring sunk costs is driven by self justification processes, a widely offered prescription for preventing escalation of commitment is to have a...

A large body of research suggests that many high-stakes decisions made by powerful organizational actors are plagued by overconfidence (Hayward & Hanbrick, 1997; Zajac & Bazerman, 1991). Extant research on power has demonstrated that the sense of power has wide-ranging psychological consequences...

Three experiments demonstrated that the experience of power leads to an illusion of personal control. Regardless of whether power was experientially primed (Experiments 1 and 3) or manipulated through manager-subordinate roles (Experiment 2), it led to perceived control over outcomes that were...

We demonstrate that a person's eye gaze and his/her competitiveness are closely intertwined in social decision making. In an exploratory examination of this relationship, Study 1 uses field data from a high-stakes TV game show to demonstrate that the frequency by which contestants gaze at their...

Across four studies, guilt led to forgiveness of others’ transgressions. In Study 1, people prone to experience guilt (but not shame) were also prone to forgive others for past misdeeds. In Study 2, we manipulated harm- and inequity-based guilt; both increased forgiveness of others’...

A functionalist perspective on status suggests that the norm of expressing status-consistent emotions simplifies interactions within groups and aids group functioning. Group members respond to this norm by rewarding status-consistent, and punishing status-inconsistent emotional expressions....