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...

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...

Five experiments demonstrate that experiencing power leads to overconfident decision-making. Using multiple instantiations of power, including an episodic recall task (Experiments 1–3), a measure of work-related power (Experiment 4), and assignment to high- and low-power roles (Experiment 5),...