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SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY IN
ORGANISATIONS SPECIALISATION
SUMMMARY
Social Psychology in Organisations (2012)
2017/2018
INTERNATIONAL BACHELOR’S IN PSYCHOLOGY (IBP)
,Chapter 1
Social Psychology and Organisations: Understanding Work Life
Social Psychology: a scientific attempt to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings, and
behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other human beings.
Social situations affect individuals and individuals affect social situations.
Social/Organisational Research Themes
Research Themes:
1. How individual employees perceive organisations and organisational phenomena and how their
perceptions provide a basis for understanding their organisation-related behaviour.
2. How individual organisational members interact in highly interdependent settings, resulting in
competitive, cooperative or conflict relationships.
3. The social context and the culture of the work place.
General Points from Rest of Chapters:
Ø People are fundamentally affected by whether they feel powerful.
Ø Although the leadership and procedural justice literatures have much in common, little exchange and
communication has taken place between both research fields.
Ø Understanding the organisational implications of confidence depends fundamentally on
understanding the three different forms of overconfidence:
o Overestimation
o Over-placement
o Over-precision
Ø One of the short comings of past conflict research is that it often assumes that all group members
perceive the same amount of conflict.
Ø Helping behaviour is the main key to personal and organisational effectiveness.
Ø Workgroups are central to organisational behaviour and, as a result, must also be central to ethical
behaviour at work.
Ø Little research has explored the relationship between national culture and innovativeness in the work
place.
Ø The influence of national culture is at least two-fold:
o Culture can influence the definition of innovativeness.
o Some cultural elements pay promote innovativeness, while others may discourage it.
Ø Culture is assumed to influence the definition of innovativeness, creativity, self-efficacy, and the
importance attached to a creative role, which in turn influence the intention to be innovative.
,Chapter 2: Power
The dispersion of power within and between organisations can emerge from formal systems or through
the process of informal interaction and is typically conveyed through organisational charts or network maps.
Power: asymmetric control over valued resources in social relations.
It has been argued that power and its effects can become a psychological property of the individual,
allowing the effects of power to endure beyond the particular social context where it was initially
experienced.
Power’s psychological effects can be activated by:
Ø Having actual control over resources
Ø Recalling a time when one had power over others
Ø Being exposed to words related to power
Power-Approach Theory
States: Power triggers the behavioural approach system (which is posited to increase sensitivity to
rewards). Whereas powerlessness activates the behavioural inhibition system (an alarm system that
triggers anxiety, avoidance and response inhibition).
Power increases a focus on goal-directed behaviour.
This power-induced focus on goals explains how the powerful ignore the perspectives of others while
shifting their attention to instrumental others who will allow the powerful to achieve their goals.
Power Affects Social Attentiveness
Those who hold the reins of power are less dependent on others.
The powerful are less concerned with how others see them or judge their actions and are less attentive to
others’ internal experiences.
Those who lack social control are motivated to understand the needs of their more powerful counterparts
and the shifting sands of their environment, which leads them to systematically consider the factors and
forces that compel others to act as they do.
Power has been associated with two broad effects on social attention:
1. Power decreases the tendency to step into others’ shoes and view the world from their vantage
point or identify and connect with their emotions.
2. Power increases instrumental attention to others, leading the powerful to view their social interaction
partners through a lens of self-interest.
Power Reduces Perspective Taking, Compassion and Conformity
Power seems to lock individuals into their own myopic perspective.
In studies, the powerful were less likely than the powerless to spontaneously take the visual perspective of
others, to take others’ background knowledge into account and to correctly identify others’ emotional
expressions.
Power also leads to increased difficulty recognising and adjusting for the fact that others do not share their
privileged perspective.
A study showed that because the powerful are less concerned with taking others’ perspectives and
understanding what other think about them, they are less likely to activate and use metastereotypes in
intergroup situations.
Metastereotypes: stereotypical assessments about an out-group’s perception of the in-group. Used to
understand and make sense of others’ behaviours and intentions.
Power also impairs emotional identification and social connection.
Power creates a psychological distance from others.
Power protects negotiators from being swayed by the strategic displays of emotions that are designed to
induce concessions.
, In a study, high-power participant’s task ratings were less favourable than low-power participants, suggesting
that the powerful can successfully resist the pernicious pressure to act like the rest of the “herd”.
Power Increases Instrumental Attention
Power makes people more inclined to view others in an instrumental manner, as a tool toward the
achievement of their own goals.
A series of studies showed that when the powerful are pursuing “people-centred” goals they individuate
their targets by paying increased attention to and remembering more unique information about them.
However, if they are pursuing “product-centred” goals they recall less correct unique information about
their subordinates. This demonstrates that the goals of the powerful directed their social attention.
Greater personal power was associated with greater objectification independent of relationship type. In
essence, power increases the tendency to view others through an instrumental lens and focuses one’s
attention on those aspects of others that serve one’s salient interests or goals.
Positives:
Ø A study found that power-induced tendencies toward objectification can increase organisational
efficiency.
Ø Because the powerful have a more object-like focus on other people, they are also better able to
ignore individual idiosyncrasies that people have to deviate from pre-established rules and to make
exceptions.
Power Makes the Person
Power Increases Assertive Action
High-power negotiators were more likely to both initiate a negotiation and to make a first offer compared
with their less powerful partners.
This action orientation can lead to good outcomes for others and for communities.
Whitson: found that high power participants were more likely to spring into action and rush to the help of
a confederate that had fallen off a ladder in contrast to their low-power counterparts.
Galinsky: found that the powerful were more likely to contribute to and therefore preserve a public good
and community shared resource compared with powerless or control participants.
The tendency toward action has constructive and destructive consequences depending on the goals of the
powerful.
Power Increase Optimism and Risk Taking
The psychological experience of power increases a general sense of optimism.
It was found that more powerful individuals tended to believe that their futures help both more positive and
less negative events.
The powerful are more likely not only to see their own futures clad in opportunities and devoid of danger
but also to see the world as less dangerous and filled with fewer risks. It also increases their attraction to
risk.
When they are presented with a risky choice they are more likely to “see” the potential gains and to turn a
blind eye to the potential losses associated with the risky course of action.
Power Increases Illusions of Control
Possessing or experiencing power not only transforms individuals into optimistic assertive doers but also
increases their general sense of control, even in situations where their control is illusionary.
It has been found that powerful people are more optimistic and take more assertive action because they
experience a heightened sense of control.
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