How power influences moral thinking

How Power Influences Moral Thinking

Joris Lammers and Diederik A. StapelTilburg University

The authors conducted 5 studies to test the idea that both thinking about and having power affects the wayin which people resolve moral dilemmas. It is shown that high power increases the use of rule-based(deontological) moral thinking styles, whereas low power increases reliance on outcome-based (conse-quentialist) moral thinking. Stated differently, in determining whether an act is right or wrong, thepowerful focus on whether rules and principles are violated, whereas the powerless focus on theconsequences. For this reason, the powerful are also more inclined to stick to the rules, irrespective ofwhether this has positive or negative effects, whereas the powerless are more inclined to makeexceptions. The first 3 experiments show that thinking about power increases rule-based thinking anddecreases outcome-based thinking in participants’ moral decision making. A 4th experiment shows themediating role of moral orientation in the effect of power on moral decisions. The 5th experimentdemonstrates the role of self-interest by showing that the power–moral link is reversed when rule-baseddecisions threaten participants’ own self-interests.

Keywords: power and moral thinking, rule-based, outcome-based, deontological, consequentialism

In their professional lives, people are often in a position inwhich they have to make a judgment or a decision on some moralissue that affects other people. To give an example, imagine ateacher at a secondary school who is giving a course on writingskills that involves writing an essay. When the deadline ap-proaches, the teacher is confronted by a student who suffered froman attack of migraine over the weekend and did not have time tofinish the paper. The student therefore asks for a 24-hr extensionof the deadline. On the one hand, the teacher feels that the studentis sincere and that a small extension of the deadline would be in thebest interest of her education. On the other hand, the teacherworries that granting an extension will undermine the rules. Afterall, the deadline was clear to all students. If she grants an extensionto one student, more students might start asking for similar favors.

In our example, the teacher is faced by a moral dilemma, anissue in which she has to decide what is fair and choose betweenat least two options that have different consequences for someother person (Velasquez & Rostankowski, 1985). These moraldilemmas are quite common whenever people have to apply rulesand regulations. Although most rules are usually quite clear, weoften encounter some special cases that seem to fall out of theexpected scope of these rules. We are then faced with the moraldilemma of whether to apply the rule (and stick to the deadline) ornot (and grant an extension). In such cases, we are confronted bythe fact that there are two opposite types of moral thinking toresolve the dilemma (Anscombe, 1958; Beauchamp, 2001). On theone hand there is rule-based (deontological) moral thinking, in

which the rightness or wrongness of an act is judged on the basisof the degree to which the act complies with existing principles,laws, norms, and rules. If John steals my bike, it is immoral becauseit violates the principle that one should not steal (Kant, 1785/1997). Inrule-based moral thinking an act is inherently right or wrong, irre-spective of specifics of the circumstances. On the other hand, there isoutcome-based (consequentialist) moral thinking, in which the right-ness of an act is not determined by the degree to which it fits withprinciples, but by looking at the consequences of that act. If Johnsteals my bike, it is wrong because it would make me unhappy, but itmight also be right if it allows John to reach some higher goal, suchas racing to the doctor to save the life of his sick mother (Anscombe,1958; Beauchamp, 2001).1

Because of such opposing moral principles, moral reasoning canbe quite complex. We like to think that, in resolving such dilem-mas, we are not affected by seemingly trivial external influences.We like to think that, for example, our current social situation doesnot affect our moral reasoning. Older models of moral thinkingreflected this view on moral decision making (e.g., Kohlberg,1969; Piaget, 1932/1965, Turiel, 1983). In these models, moraljudgment was thought to be the product of a solid and thoroughprocess of internal moral reasoning and reflection. More recently,however, this claim has been questioned, and it has been shown

1 Although in philosophical literature, the terms deontological and con-sequentialist (or teleological) moral thinking are used more frequently, weuse the more comprehensible terms of rule-based versus outcome-basedmoral thinking. Utilitarianism should be seen as an extreme form ofoutcome-based thinking. Here it is held that an action is right if it yields thegreatest happiness to all individual actors, independent of whether or notthey start that action (Bentham, 1789; Mill, 1861/1991). From such autilitarian perspective, it would be right to steal my bike if the thief wouldget more pleasure from it than I would. As most people do not spontane-ously adopt such a utilitarian perspective, we only focus on more moderateforms of outcome-based moral thinking.

Joris Lammers and Diederik A. Stapel, Tilburg Institute of BehavioralEconomics Research (TIBER) and Department of Social Psychology,Tilburg University, Tilburg, the Netherlands.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed toJoris Lammers, Warandelaan 2, 5037 AB, Tilburg, the Netherlands.E-mail: [email protected]

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology © 2009 American Psychological Association2009, Vol. 97, No. 2, 279–289 0022-3514/09/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0015437

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that moral thinking is often strongly based on intuition (Haidt,2001; Valdesolo & DeSteno, 2006; Wheatley & Haidt, 2005).People do not reach a moral judgment as a result of private moralreasoning. Instead, they rely on some gut feeling that quickly andautomatically determines their moral decision and that is ofteninfluenced by contextual cues, such as social or cultural circum-stances.

The Effect of Power

In the current article, we want to cast light on the consequencesof one such social-cultural circumstance, namely power. In fact,power may very well be the most important form of social influ-ence (Russell, 1938). Following Galinsky and colleagues, wedefine power as the ability to control resources, own and others’(Galinsky, Gruenfeld, & Magee, 2003; Keltner, Gruenfeld, &Anderson, 2003; Thibaut & Kelley, 1959). This definition distin-guishes power from the related concept of status, which refers toa person’s standing in a social hierarchy (Anderson, John, Keltner,& Kring, 2001). Although power and status in practice often gohand in hand, the two are conceptually different (Weber, 1915/1947).

We aim to show that the subjective feeling of power, which maybe based on both the actual possession of power and on merethoughts about the possession of power, influences the way andstyle in which people think about and judge moral problems.Specifically, we expect that high and low power are, respectively,linked to rule-based and outcome-based moral thinking. That is,we expect that high-power individuals are more inclined to think inrule-based moral terms, whereas low-power individuals rely moreon outcome-based moral considerations.

It is important to note that we study the effect of power on the“style” of moral thinking, not on morality itself. That is, we do notwant to show that power makes people more or less evil. Althoughit is certainly true that some forms of power have corruptive andundermining effects on morality (Kipnis, 1972, 1976), recently, ithas been argued that the effects of power are not simply positiveor negative. A better view on power is that it has general trans-formative effects on the individual, that can be both negative(corruptive) and positive (commendable) for the individual, de-pending on the person, situation, and context (e.g., Chen, Lee-Chai, & Bargh, 2001; Galinsky et al., 2003; Keltner et al., 2003;Lammers & Galinsky, 2009; Lammers, Galinsky, Gordijn, &Otten, 2008; Lammers & Stapel, 2009). In the current article, wewant to continue this line of thinking. We do not aim to show thatpower makes people less or more moral but, rather, that it affectstheir style of moral thinking. High-power individuals are moreinclined to think in rule-based moral terms, whereas low-powerindividuals rely more on outcome-based moral considerations.

Our prediction on this effect of power is based on the idea thatstability is appealing for high-power people, because their high-power position allows them control of resources, own and others’(Emerson, 1962; Fiske, 1993; Galinsky et al., 2003; Thibaut &Kelley, 1959). As a result, we expect that high-power people willbe drawn and attracted to moral principles that stabilize the powerhierarchy. Rules are inherently more stabilizing. If one relies onoutcome-based principles, then moral decisions will strongly de-pend on the specific characteristics of the situation. But rules andprinciples always yield the same moral response, independent of

the place or situation (Kelman, 1969, 2001). If it is wrong to stealbecause the rule says so, then it will be wrong today and it will bewrong tomorrow, whether it rains or whether it snows. Also, inmore social terms, the generating of norms, values, ideologies, andother abstract rule-based principles can be seen as the primarymeans by which power relations are stabilized (Foucault & Gor-don, 1980; Sidanius & Pratto, 1993; Sidanius, Pratto, van Laar, &Levin, 2004; Sidanius, van Laar, Levin, & Sinclair, 2003). A set ofsystem rules, norms, and values allows the powerful to securecompliance with the system among the powerless and, thus, de-fends the status quo (Gramsci, 1971; Habermas, 1975). Hence,because it is to the benefit of the powerful to maintain the statusquo, and because rule-based moral thinking stabilizes the statusquo, high-power people should be strongly inclined to rule-basedmorality.2

The powerless are likely to have an opposite motivation.Whereas the powerful are oriented at defending the status quo andtend to focus on the principles that support the system, the pow-erless are instead oriented at detecting possible negative effects ofthat power relationship. As a consequence, they adopt an outcome-based moral system, because by focusing on the unfairness of theoutcome of the power relation, the powerless can quickly detectany negative effects it may have for them (Gramsci, 1971; Haber-mas, 1975; Tyler & McGraw, 1986; Weber, 1922/1968). Theunfairness of an unequal distribution can always be concealed andcloaked by abstract rule-based moral principles, such as the idea ofmeritocracy, but by focusing on the outcomes, any unfairness thatmay be there is immediately exposed and revealed (Sidanius,1992).

These opposing forces of rule-based and outcome-based think-ing can be witnessed when social conflicts arise between a pow-erless group who desires social change and a powerful clique whoaims to maintain the status quo. In such situations, the powerfulpoint to the importance and validity of rules, laws, and principlesand use this rule-based morality in an attempt to close off the routeto change. The powerless, on the other hand, focus on the practical,material effects of a system and appeal for change by arguing thatthe outcomes of the system are immoral (Eisinger, 1973; McAdam,Tarrow, & Tilly, 2001; Tarrow, 1998). For example, capitalism canbe said to be legitimate and fair because the same rules of supplyand demand apply to all, but it can be said to be unfair because itleads to large inequalities between haves and have-nots. The richhaves (i.e., the powerful) are inclined to this first, rule-based moralstance, whereas the poor have-nots (i.e., the powerless) take theopposite outcome-based position.

We aim to show this effect, that high power leads to rule-basedand low power to outcome-based moral thinking in more con-trolled settings. In showing this effect of power on moral reason-ing, we add to existing research that has shown the impact ofpower on people’s modes of thinking. For example, power leads tomore abstract (Smith & Trope, 2006), more flexible (Guinote,2007a), less conventional (Galinsky, Magee, Gruenfeld, Whitson,& Liljenquist, 2008), and more goal-directed (Guinote, 2007b;

2 Note that outcome-based moral thinking can also take the shape ofnorms or principles, but these refer to the morality of the distribution,rather than of the process. The principle that no one should be paid lessthan the minimum wage, for example, is outcome-based moral thinking.

280 LAMMERS AND STAPEL

Smith, Jostmann, Galinsky, & van Dijk, 2008) thinking. However,no research has yet studied the effect of power on moral thinkingstyles. Yet showing that power has an effect on moral thinking isimportant, because such an effect of power would suggest astructural threat to people’s impartiality, as it may turn out that themoral decisions people make are highly dependent on their loca-tion in existing power structure. The effect of power on moralthinking is especially important, because in practice, moral deci-sions are often made in relations of unequal power. Teachers (suchas in our example) have to decide on a daily basis whether studentsare right or wrong and whether they pass or fail. Managers fre-quently have to make similar decisions concerning their employ-ees. Judges decide on defendants’ guilt. If we find that high-powerpeople think differently about moral issues and reach differentdecisions, then they may have to be made aware or even try tocorrect for this effect.

Overview

To summarize, we propose that power affects the way in whichpeople think about moral dilemmas and that high-power partici-pants rely more on rule-based morality because this serves theirinterests, whereas low-power participants rely more on outcome-based moral considerations. We test this prediction in a series offive experiments, which can roughly be divided in two parts. In thefirst three experiments, we focus only on moral thinking in anabstract setting. That is, participants play the role of neutral ob-server and are not party to the dilemma itself. This has theadvantage that we can test the pure effect of power on moralthinking, undisturbed by personal implications and considerations.We manipulate power by priming the concept, leading participantsto think about high or low power. We show that priming highpower increases rule-based (decreases outcome-based) moralthinking, compared with priming low power.

In the second part of our article, we generalize our findings tomoral dilemmas in which the perceiver is not a neutral party but ispersonally involved in the dilemma. Specifically, in Experiment 4,participants play either a high- or a low-power position in asimulated company. Here, we aim to show that the effect of poweron moral thinking can be generalized from settings in whichparticipants are merely observers to settings in which they areactors. By asking participants to play high- or low-power roles inorganizations, Experiment 4 also directly manipulates havingpower. We also show that this effect on moral decisions is medi-ated by an increased rule-based moral orientation. In Experiment5, we show an important moderator, namely compatibility withself-interest. In this experiment, participants are either in an ex-perimental condition in which rule-based thinking does not runagainst their own interest or one in which it does. We expect thatif rule-based morality is incompatible with participants’ self-interest, then high-power participants will, instead, be more fo-cused on their self-interest and will hence make an outcome-basedmoral decision.

Pilot Studies

Before we conducted our main experiments, we first tested thegeneral idea in two pilot studies. In a first correlation study (N � 179),we computed the effect of participants’ chronic feelings of personal

power (see Anderson & Galinsky, 2006; Anderson, John, & Keltner,2005) on their moral preference, which we measured with one itemthat pitted a rule-based moral principle (“treating everyone the same”)against an outcome-based moral principle (“sometimes making ex-ceptions”). We found that power strongly decreased outcome-basedthinking (increased rule-based thinking) B � �0.69, SE � .25, p �.006.

A second pilot study (N � 35) replicated this, but now bypriming participants with the experience of high or low power(Galinsky et al., 2003) and by measuring the importance of arule-based moral principle (“I usually find it important to upholdlaws”) and an outcome-based moral principle (“I usually find itimportant to be able to make exceptions to rules, if that is neces-sary”) with two separate items, both on 9-point scales. We foundan interaction effect, F(1, 31) � 4.61, p � .04, �p

2 � .13, showingthat high power marginally increased the importance attached tothe first, rule-based moral principles ( p � .08) but marginallydecreased the importance attached to outcome-based morality( p � .09).

Experiment 1

Compared with our pilot studies, where we found that poweraffected intuitive preference for rule-based over outcome-basedmoral thinking, we now wanted to test the effect of power onactual decisions in moral dilemmas. A problem with using suchdilemmas, however, is that it is less clear whether effects areactually due to differences in moral thinking styles. They mightalso be due to the direct influence of power on participants’preferences for a certain outcome. To address this issue, wecontrolled for the influence of the decision by orthogonally ma-nipulating power and the actual decision. Stated differently, wepresented participants with a moral dilemma in which they had toeither reject or accept an invitation and asked them what theythought was the best moral consideration, given the decision toreject (or to accept, in the other conditions). We expected that,independent of the actual decision, high power would increase thepreference for rule-based versus outcome-based considerations,compared with low power.

Method

Participants and Design

Participants were 69 university students who took part in theexperiment in partial fulfillment of a course requirement. Partici-pants were randomly assigned to one of the conditions of a 2(Power: high vs. low) � 2 (Decision: reject vs. accept) between-participants design.

Procedure

We first presented participants with an interpersonal dilemma,adapted from Donenberg and Hoffman (1988). In this dilemma,participants are presented with a high-school girl, who makes acertain moral decision. Participants are presented with that deci-sion and are asked to decide whether a rule-based or an outcome-based argument is better. Specifically, they read this dilemma: “Ahigh school girl called Carol has promised to help her girlfriendCorinne with a personal problem, when she is asked by Tina, a

281POWER AND MORAL THINKING

new girl in her class, to go to the theater with her, at that sametime. Carol then has to decide between being loyal to her old friendand being nice to a new girl.”

Power manipulation. After reading the dilemma, but beforemaking a decision, participants first completed a seemingly unre-lated word-search puzzle. Participants were instructed to encircleeight words, laid out vertically or horizontally in a grid of 132letters. Half of these words were fillers, and half were related toeither high power (control, influence, power, and authority) or lowpower (subordinate, powerless, dependent, and submissive), de-pending on experimental condition (see Chen et al., 2001).

Decision manipulation and measures. After completing thepower prime, the participants returned to the moral dilemma. Inone condition, participants read that Carol had decided to rejectTina’s offer and kept her promise to Corinne. In the other condi-tion, they read the opposite: Carol rescheduled her appointmentwith Corinne to visit the theater with Tina. It is important to notethat this dilemma suits our design, because for both decisions—that is, in both conditions—there are both rule-based and outcome-based moral arguments that support that decision.

Participants in the reject conditions were asked, “Suppose youwould advise Carol to reject Tina’s offer to visit the theater andkeep her promise to visit her friend Corinne, what would in thatcase be the best argument?” Participants made their choice byencircling a number on a 9-point scale, anchored by an outcome-based (1 � Corinne needs someone to help her with her problems)and a rule-based (9 � A promise is a debt) moral argument.

Participants in the accept conditions were asked, “Suppose youwould advise Carol to accept Tina’s invitation to the theater andreschedule her appointment with Corinne, what would in that casebe the best argument?” Here, too, participants made their choice ona 9-point scale, anchored by an outcome-based (1 � Tina needsnew friends on her new school, because else she will feel lonely)and a rule-based (9 � It is generally a good rule to welcome in andbe friendly to new people) moral argument. Finally, participantswere asked for their thoughts on the aim of the research.

Results and Discussion

None of the participants guessed the true aim of the experiment.A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) testing the effect ofpower and decision on participant’s moral decision showed thepredicted significant main effect of power, F(1, 65) � 4.91, p �.03, �p

2 � .07, and, as predicted, no main or interaction effect of thedecision (Fs � 1). Independent of decision type, participants in thehigh-power conditions had a stronger preference for the rule-basedmoral considerations (M � 5.16, SD � 2.49), compared withparticipants in the low-power conditions, who had a strongerpreference for the outcome-based moral considerations (M � 3.34,SD � 2.36).

These results again support the hypothesis that high power leadsto a stronger preference for rule-based moral considerations,whereas low power leads to a stronger preference for outcome-based moral considerations. Compared with the pilot study, theseresults show the effect of moral thinking on an actual moraldilemma, rather than on abstract descriptions of moral principles.It is important to note that we found this effect while randomlyallocating participants to one of two moral decisions. That is, weshowed that power affects moral thinking and that this is not

caused by a preference for one outcome (e.g., to visit the theaterwith Tina) over the other. Finally, we showed this effect after anunobtrusive lexical power prime. Participants were merely ex-posed to power-related words, which influence their moral orien-tation. None of the participants guessed the true aim of the re-search. This suggests that this effect of power is at least partiallyautomatic.

Experiment 2

In Experiment 1, we showed that power affects moral thinking,independent of the actual decisions that people make. A disadvan-tage of the design of this experiment, however, is that, in a way, italso threw away the baby with the bathwater. After all, althoughwe showed that power affects moral thinking, and although thisgives insight into how people arrive at certain moral decision, weare primarily interested in how power influences the actual deci-sions that people make.

In our second experiment, we therefore used an experimentaldesign that allows for showing an effect of power on moraldecisions while at the same time ruling out that this is due tooutcome preference. In this design, we again manipulated powerand orthogonally manipulated whether rule-based versus outcome-based moral decisions have positive versus negative consequencesfor the person in the dilemma, respectively. Stated differently, halfof the participants were in an experimental condition in whichfollowing rule-based morality meant something bad (punishing)and following outcome-based morality meant something good (notpunishing) for the person in the dilemma. The other half of theparticipants were in a condition in which the opposite was the case;following rule-based morality meant a positive (rewarding) andfollowing outcome-based morality a negative thing (not reward-ing) for that person. We expected that, independent of what theconsequences were for the target, high-power participants wouldalways tend to make the rule-based moral decision, whereas low-power participants would favor outcome-based moral thinking.

Method


Participants were 68 university students who took part in theexperiment in partial fulfillment of a course requirement. Partici-pants were randomly assigned to one condition of a 2 (Power: highvs. low) � 2 (Dilemma Type: punish vs. reward) between-participants design.

Procedure

Participants first completed an experiential power prime (Ga-linsky et al., 2003). Participants were asked to recall an episode ofhigh or low power (depending on condition) and to describe on anblank sheet of paper what happened and how this made them feel.Next, participants read one of two moral dilemmas. In the punishframe condition, participants read the following:

A teacher maintains the following rule: If a child in class behavesbadly the teacher punishes him or her. Heinz is one of the children.Heinz did not behave well today and has been fighting with other kids.The rule dictates therefore that he needs to be punished. The teacher,


however, suspects that Heinz has been provoked by other kids. So, theteacher thinks about not punishing Heinz. On the other hand, notpunishing Heinz may undermine the rules and create disorder. Whatshould the teacher do? (1 � make an exception [i.e., do not punish],9 � follow the rules [i.e., punish]).

In the reward frame condition, participants read the following:

A teacher maintains the following rule: If a child in class behaveswell, the teacher rewards him or her. Heinz has done his homeworkand therefore, following the rules, he needs to be rewarded. Theteacher, however, suspects that Heinz has cheated in doing his home-work and therefore does not deserve a reward. Yet, the teacher is notsure and worries that breaking the rule might lead to disorder. Whatshould the teacher do? (1 � make an exception [i.e., do not reward],9 � follow the rules [i.e., reward]).

We framed the two dilemmas such that in one condition, arule-based moral decision (following the rules) means a negativething for Heinz (punishing) and an outcome-based moral decision(making an exception) means a positive thing (not-punishing) forHeinz, whereas in the other condition, the rule-based and theoutcome-based decisions have opposite implications (i.e., posi-tive � rewarding, and negative � not-rewarding). That is, thesetwo conditions orthogonally manipulate morality (rule- vs.outcome-based) and valence of the decision (positive vs. negativefor the target).


None of the participants accurately guessed the relation betweenthe priming task and the later moral dilemma task. One participantwas dropped because she did not fill out the power prime, althoughthis made no difference to the effects. A 2 (Power) � 2 (DilemmaType) ANOVA on participants’ moral decision yielded a maineffect of power, showing that participants in the high-power con-ditions were more inclined to follow rule-based moral consider-ation (M � 7.65, SD � 1.32) than were participants in thelow-power conditions (M � 6.48, SD � 2.11), F(1, 63) � 7.36,p � .009, �p

2 � .11. As predicted, this significant main effect wasnot moderated by the dilemma type (F � .09, p � .77). We alsofound a less interesting main effect of dilemma frame, F(1, 63) �18.61, p � .001, �p

2 � .24, showing that participants were moreinclined to follow the rules if that meant rewarding Heinz (M �7.97, SD � 1.49) than if it meant punishing him (M � 6.21, SD �1.74).

These results replicate the finding that high power encouragesrule-based moral thinking, whereas low power triggers outcome-based moral thinking. This effect is not caused by an influence ofpower on outcome preference but, rather, is caused directly by aneffect on the two styles of moral thinking. After all, in both typesof dilemmas, high-power participants were more likely to adoptrule-based and less likely to adopt outcome-based moral consid-erations, independent of the consequences for the person affectedby that decision.

Experiments 3a and 3b

Having established the effect of power on moral thinking stylewith two experimental designs that maximize reliability, we thendecided to focus more on testing the robustness of the effect. The

past studies tested the effect in relatively moderate moral dilem-mas. Why high-school girl Carol visits which one of her twogirlfriends (Experiment 1), or whether Heinz gets punished orrewarded (Experiment 2) is relatively inconsequential. In Experi-ment 3, we wanted to test the same effect of power in moreextreme moral dilemmas, where the actual decision concerns mat-ters of life and death. In Experiment 3a, we used a medicaldilemma, in which the actual decision has a great impact on apatient’s quality of life. In Experiment 3b, we focused on adilemma about the permissibility of illegal interrogation tech-niques. Moreover, we present these two experiments together,because, like in Experiment 2, in one dilemma, a rule-baseddecision means something positive, whereas in the other, it meanssomething negative for the target. That is, these two experimentstogether show that this effect is not driven by the valence of thedecision.

Method


Participants were 31 (Experiment 3a) and 24 (Experiment 3b)university students who took part in the experiment in partialfulfillment of a course requirement. Participants were randomlyassigned to one of two conditions (low power, high power).

Procedure

The experiment was conducted in individual cubicles, usingpaper and pencil. All participants first completed the same expe-riential power prime manipulation (Galinsky et al., 2003) that weused in Experiment 2. Next, they read one of two moral dilemmasthat both pitted a rule-based and an outcome-based moral consid-eration against each other.

Dilemma Experiment 3a. In one moral dilemma, it was de-scribed how Lawrence, a medical doctor, diagnoses a young manwith an incurable disease:

Although the man will not notice any problem or suffer any incon-veniences from the disease, it is sure that he will die within 6 to 9months. No cure is possible and nothing can be done to help the man.Accidentally, the girlfriend of the young man hears the diagnosisbefore her boyfriend. She begs doctor Lawrence to wait with inform-ing her friend. She explains that her friend always wanted to visitAfrica and that they recently booked a trip together. Given that theman will die anyway, that no cure exists and that he will not sufferfrom it, the girlfriend insists that her boyfriend is better off if thedoctor informs him after the holiday. The rules and regulations of thehospital however require doctors to inform patients as soon as possi-ble. What should doctor Lawrence do?

Participants then indicated what they thought doctor Lawrenceshould do, on a 9-point scale, anchored between 1 (wait until afterthe holiday; outcome-based) and 9 (inform the patient directly;rule-based). Waiting until after the holiday is better from anoutcome-based perspective, as this could make the patient happy inhis last days. Telling the patient right away is better from arule-based perspective, as this complies with the rules and regu-lations of the hospital. Finally, participants were thanked forparticipation.


Dilemma Experiment 3b. A second moral dilemma was basedon a true story that happened in Germany in 2002. In that year, the11-year-old son of a banker was kidnapped on his way home fromschool. Three days later, the police arrested a suspect after he hadpicked up the ransom money. The suspect did confess to be thekidnapper, said he knew where the boy was, but refused to disclosehis whereabouts. His lack of cooperation made the police chief fearthat the boy was locked up somewhere without food or water andwould die if not found quickly. The chief therefore decided tothreaten the suspect with physical torture. The subject then quicklyyielded and took the police to the boy, who, as it turned out, wasalready dead.

The case sparked a debate in Germany about what is permissiblein the interrogation of suspects. We chose this dilemma because,from a rule-based perspective, the action of the police chief waswrong. After all, it breaks the principle of the inviolability of thehuman body and the ban on torture, a fundamental aspect of ourlegal system. From an outcome-based perspective, however, it wasthe right thing to do if it could have prevented something muchworse. Participants read the described moral dilemma and wereasked to judge the permissibility of three interrogation techniquesin the above situation. Specifically, participants rated the permis-sibility of “psychological pressure,” “the withholding of food andsleep,” and “physical violence (not leading to permanent dam-age).” All three techniques were rated on a 9-point scale (1 �unacceptable, 9 � acceptable).


We analyzed Experiments 3a and 3b separately. A one-wayANOVA testing the effect of power on participant’s moral deci-sion in the medical dilemma (Experiment 3a) showed a significanteffect of power, F(1, 29) � 10.86, p � .003, �p

2 � .27, showingthat participants in the high-power condition were more rule ori-ented (M � 6.65, SD � 2.34) and, hence, more likely to directlytell the patient about his illness than were participants in thelow-power condition (M � 3.86, SD � 2.35), who were morelikely to agree with the girlfriend and wait with telling the patient.3

A 2 (Between: power) � 3 (Within: acceptability of threetechniques) ANOVA on the dilemma about the permissibility oftorture (Experiment 3b) revealed the expected main effect ofpower, F(1, 22) � 5.42, p � .03, �p

2 � .20, showing that partic-ipants in the high-power condition deemed the various techniquesless permissible (M � 6.31, SD � 1.07) than did participants in thelow-power condition (M � 7.33, SD � 1.09). Stated otherwise,participants in the high-power condition were more inclined to usea rule-based moral decision and stick to the rules, whereas partic-ipants in the low-power condition were more inclined to make anoutcome-based moral decision and allow illegal interrogation tech-niques.

Experiments 3a and 3b show that the effect of power on moralthinking is robust and that it can also be found in dilemmas inwhich the decision is not trivial at all but concerns matters of lifeand death. Moreover, Experiments 3a and 3b also combine well todemonstrate in a different way the point that we demonstrated inExperiment 2. In Experiment 3a, low-power participants werekinder to the patient than were high-power participants. After all,they risked breaking the rules to increase the patient’s quality oflife. In Experiment 3b, however, low-power participants showed

unkind behavior, as they thought various interrogation techniquesto be more admissible. This shows that high (or low) power doesnot influence moral thinking because it affects the outcome thatpeople prefer (whether they want to be nice or cruel to the target).Rather, independent of the consequences of the choices made, highpower does lead to more rule-based and low power to moreoutcome-based moral thinking.

Experiment 4

Across three experiments, we have found robust evidence thatpower affects people’s intuitive preference for rule-based versusoutcome-based moral decisions. In each of these studies, we fo-cused on showing the effect of power on moral thinking in arelatively abstract manner. Participants were merely neutral ob-servers and were not personally involved in the dilemmas. Fur-thermore, our manipulation of power was unrelated to the dilemmaand consisted of mere primes of the experience (Experiments 2 and3) or the concept (Experiment 1) of power. Although this allowedus to demonstrate the pure and clean effect of power on moralthinking, in the next experiment, we wanted to depart from thisapproach and increase ecological validity in three ways.

First, we wanted to manipulate power itself in a more realisticmanner. In the previous experiments, we relied on priming power.A lingering concern is therefore that these results may differ fromhow people would behave if they were in a real position of high orlow power, in which they actually control and influence others(Galinsky et al., 2003; Lammers, Stoker, & Stapel, 2009). Conse-quently, in Experiment 4 we aimed to manipulate power by allo-cating participants to high- or low-power roles (following Ander-son & Berdahl, 2002).

Second, and related, in the past studies, we used vignettes topresent participants with moral dilemmas. Participants read abouthypothetical cases and gave their opinion about what is right. InExperiment 4, we wanted to go beyond these vignettes and showan effect of power on a real decision. That is, in Experiment 4participants have real power in a real interaction with other peopleand make a real decision with real implications for the partici-pant’s environment. The participant does not merely decide on anabstract moral dilemma but is a protagonist in the moral dilemmahim- or herself. This allows us to generalize our findings to moraldilemmas in which the perceiver is not a neutral party but ispersonally involved in the dilemma.

Third, we wanted to show in this experiment that power affectsmoral decisions because it affects moral thinking. That is, weaimed to show that the effect of power on the moral decision(rule-based versus outcome-based) is mediated by participants’moral orientation. This combines the findings of our pilot studyand the previous experiments by showing that power affects peo-ple’s intuitive preference for rule-based versus outcome-based

3 In Experiment 4a, we also ran a control condition, in which participantswere not primed with an experience of high or low power but, instead, wereasked to recall and write about their last night out. Control participants(M � 5.36, SD � 2.06) were less rule-oriented than were high-powerparticipants, t(42) � 1.58, p � .12, and were more rule-oriented thanlow-power participants, t(42) � 1.76, p � .09. This suggests the effect ofpower on moral thinking is caused by equally strong and opposite effectsof low and high power.


moral considerations (pilot studies) and, as a consequence, leadsthem to make a corresponding choice on a moral dilemma (Ex-periments 1–3).

Finally, we wanted to exclude some alternative explanations.Because role manipulations might affect mood (high-power par-ticipants might feel more proud and happy), we wanted to measuremood and check its effect. Second, we also wanted to control forthe effect of perspective taking. Previous research suggests thathigh power is associated with decreased perspective taking(Galinsky, Magee, Inesi, & Gruenfeld, 2006). It might, however,be that perspective taking leads to more outcome-based morality,because the latter requires one to focus on the implications foranother person. We therefore measure perspective taking to controlfor it. Last, we wanted to rule out that the effect may occur becausesticking to the rules is perhaps cognitively easier, and perhapshigh-power people—who are said to be more cognitively lazy(Fiske, 1993; Weick & Guinote, 2008)—may choose the morecognitively easy option. Although we did not have any predictionwhy this could explain the effects, we also wanted to make surethat power did not affect the perceived difficulty of making arule-based or an outcome-based moral decision.

Method


Participants were 50 university students who took part in theexperiment in return for €4 ($5.44). Participants were randomlyassigned to one of two conditions (low power, high power).

Procedure

Participants entered the lab and were seated in individual cubi-cles, behind personal computers that administered the entire ex-periment. They were instructed that in this experiment, they wouldbe part of a company, together with other students. It was told thattogether the employees of this company would make so-calledTanagrams, a series of puzzle-like tasks. Furthermore, they weretold that one of the participants would be manager (the high-powerrole), whereas the other participants would be employees (lowpower). Consistent with Anderson and Berdahl (2002; see alsoGalinsky et al., 2003), it was explained that the manager wouldhave complete control over the employees and the work processand would, at the end, direct and evaluate the employees.

Manipulation. Also consistent with Anderson and Berdahl(2002), participants then read that they would complete a leader-ship aptitude test that would determine which of the participantswould be manager. Hence, participants completed an 18-itemleadership questionnaire. In reality, half of the participants wererandomly assigned the leader position, and the other half wereassigned employees. The high-power participants were told thatthey would direct and lead the low-power employees; the low-power participants were told that they would be led and controlledby the high-power leader.

Measures. After hearing their power position, participants re-ceived an incoming e-mail-like message in which they were toldthat before participants could actually start to work on the Tana-gram tasks, it had to be decided how the company’s employeeswould be rewarded. Participants were presented with two reward

systems, of which one was outcome-based and another rule-based,and were asked to indicate which of the two criteria they thoughtwas the fairest. In the outcome-based criterion, employees wererewarded according to the final quality of their Tanagram (theoutcome of their work), whereas in the rule-based criterion, theywere rewarded according to the degree to which they had followedthe rules of the company. Although it was suggested that only thehigh-power participant would make the actual choice, all partici-pants were asked for their opinion. Participants made their choiceon a 9-point scale, indicating whether the first (1) or the secondcriterion (9) was the fairest.

After an unrelated filler task (taking about 5 min), we thenmeasured participants’ moral orientation using twelve 9-point(1 � fully disagree, 9 � fully agree) items. Specifically, six itemsmeasured a rule-based moral orientation, (e.g., “Generally, I find itimportant that everyone is treated according to the rules”) and sixitems measured an outcome-based moral orientation, (e.g., “I thinkthat one should always be able to make exceptions to the rules”).The 12 items (outcome-based items recoded) were combined in a12-item moral-orientation scale (� � .86; high � rule-based,low � outcome-based; e.g., “I think it is important that the rulesare followed strictly,” “I believe that everyone should be treatedaccording to the same rules,” and “I think rules should be second-ary to people”; reverse coded).

Next, we administered a series of control measures, all on9-point scales (1 � fully disagree, 9 � fully agree). Specifically,we first administered a six-item manipulation check (� � .89; e.g.,“In my position I am controlling other people,” “In my position Iam influencing others”). Next, we administered a six-item moodscale (� � .91; e.g., “At the moment I feel happy”), and a six-itemperspective taking scale (� � .84; e.g., “At the moment, I thinkabout what other employees in this experiment might be think-ing”).

Finally, we checked how hard or difficult participants thought itmight be to make a rule-based versus an outcome-based moraldecision, by asking participants two questions: “If an employeewould violate a rule but this would lead to a better outcome, thenpunishing him/her would be” 1 (very easy) to 9 (very hard), and“then rewarding him would be” 1 (very easy) to 9 (very hard).Finally, we checked participants for suspicion and debriefed them.

Results

A one-way ANOVA on the effect of power (experimentalcondition) on the manipulation check of power showed that par-ticipants in the high-power condition felt more powerful, in thesense that they believed they had real influence and couldexercise actual control over other participants (M � 6.97, SD �1.26) than did low-power participants, who felt they werecontrolled by others (M � 3.83, SD � 1.23), F(1, 48) � 79.72,p � .001, �p

2 � .62.A similar one-way ANOVA showed that high-power partici-

pants were more inclined to vote for a rule-based reward criterion(M � 6.38, SD � 2.62), compared with low-power participants,who voted for an outcome-based criterion (M � 4.35, SD � 2.17),F(1, 48) � 8.59, p � .004, �p

2 � .16. Neither the covariateperspective taking, F(1, 45) � 0.73, p � .40, nor affect, F(1, 49) �0.01, p � .97, had any effect on the dependent variable.


A similar one-way ANOVA showed that high-power partici-pants also had a more rule-based moral orientation (M � 5.76,SD � 1.41), compared with low-power people (M � 4.88, SD �0.74), F(1, 48) � 7.98, p � .007, �p

2 � .14. Again, neitherperspective taking, F(1, 45) � 0.10, p � .75, nor affect, F(1, 45) �0.27, p � .61, had any effect on the dependent variable and did notaffect the predictive power of the manipulation.

We then checked whether the former effect, that high-powerparticipants were more inclined to think the rule-based versusoutcome-based criterion was fairer, was mediated by high-powerparticipants’ moral thinking style. As can be seen in Figure 1, wefound that moral orientation fully mediated the direct effect ofpower on participants’ preference for a rule-based moral criterion,decreasing the direct effect from B � 2.03, SE � .68, � � .40, p �.004, to a nonsignificant B � 1.07, SE � .64, � � .21, ns. Theobtained indirect effect B � .96, SE � .41, is significant in anormal theory test for indirect effects, Sobel’s Z � 2.33, p � .02.

Next, we wanted to rule out that any effect that occurred becauseperhaps making a rule-based decision was cognitively easier thanmaking an outcome-based decision. A paired t test, however,showed that a rule-based decision was, in fact, seen as marginallymore difficult, t(49) � 1.74, p � .09, than an outcome-baseddecision. Power did not affect the perceived difficulty of makingeither rule-based, F(1, 48) � 0.01, p � .92, or outcome-baseddecisions, F(1, 48) � 0.61, p � .44.

Discussion

The current experiment added to the previous four experimentsin several ways. First, our mediation analysis shows that high-power leads people to make more rule-based moral decisions,because high-power people have an increased rule-based moralorientation. Moral orientation acted as a strongly significant me-diator, and after addition of the mediator, the direct effect of theindependent variable was no longer significant, which indicatescomplete mediation (Baron & Kenny, 1986). Thus, we concludethat the effect of power on the actual rule-based decision can beexplained very well by high-power participants’ increased rule-based moral orientation. Second, this conclusion is strengthenedby the fact that we ruled out any effect of mood, perspectivetaking, or participants’ perception of the difficulty of making arule-based or outcome-based decision. Third, we used a realisticmanipulation of power, which made participants believe that theyhad actual influence over other participants or believe that another

participant had influence over them, and a realistic moral decision,which participants believed had actual consequences for the pro-cedure and outcomes of the experiment. That is, the participantwas him- or herself either a powerful or a powerless protagonist inthe moral dilemma. This not only adds strongly to the ecologicalvalidity of our findings but also allows us to generalize ourfindings to moral dilemmas in which the perceiver is personallyinvolved in the dilemma, rather than being a neutral party.

Experiment 5

In Experiment 5, we further extend the results of the previousexperiments by introducing the moderating role of self-relevance.We aim to show that although power increases rule-based moralthinking, this is not the case when rule-based thinking is not to theadvantage of the powerful. This occurs when the powerful is aprotagonist in the experiment her- or himself (like in Experiment4) but also pursues goals that clash with those rules. In such aconflicting situation, we expect that the powerful—in followingtheir own interests—will break their rule-based moral orientation(cf. Keltner et al., 2003; see also Galinsky et al., 2003; Guinote,2007b; Smith & Bargh, 2008).

We therefore used a similar design as in the first three experi-ments and first administered a power priming task, followed by amoral dilemma. It is important to note, however, for half of theparticipants, the dilemma was framed in the third person (as inprevious experiments). That is, the dilemma was about a hypo-thetical person and had no personal implications for the partici-pant. For the other half, however, it was framed in the secondperson. The dilemma was about the participant him- or herself(“What would you do?”), and participants’ answer hence hadpersonal implications. We expected that, in the former case, wewould replicate the effects of previous experiments, whereas in thelatter, we would not.

In Experiment 5, we again administered measures of mood andperspective taking, as in the previous experiment. Although pre-vious research has shown that priming power using an experientialpriming task does not affect mood (Galinsky et al., 2003, Exper-iment 3), we rechecked this for additional methodological safety.

Method


Participants were 60 university students who took part in theexperiment in partial fulfillment of a course requirement. Partici-pants were randomly assigned to one condition of a 2 (Power: highvs. low) � 2 (Frame: third person, personal) between-participantsdesign.

Procedure

Participants first completed the same experiential power primethat we used before. Next, participants read a moral dilemma thatwas either framed in the abstract third person or in the personalsecond person:

Suppose someone is (you are) now looking for a new apartment afterhis (your) landlord has terminated the tenancy. Yet, the only afford-able option is public housing, for which there is a three year waiting

rule-based

moral orientation

.38∗ .50∗∗

power .40∗ (.21) rule-based decision

Figure 1. Standardized regression coefficients for the relationship be-tween power (manipulated) and voting for rule-based (as opposed tooutcome-based) reward criterion, mediated by moral orientation. (Thestandardized regression coefficient for the relationship between power andsupport for a rule-based reward criterion, controlling for moral orientation,is in parentheses.) �p � .01. ��p � .001.


list. There is however a trick that allows one (you) to bypass thewaiting list and immediately obtain a house.

We expected that among participants who read the dilemma inthe third person, without personal considerations, we would findthe same effect as in the previous experiments. High-power par-ticipants would find using this trick less acceptable than wouldlow-power participants, as it violates rule-based morality andbreaks a rule. Among the other half of the participants, who readthe text in the personal second person, however, we expected thiseffect not to occur, because here, sticking to the rules runs counterto the interests of the powerful.

After having read the dilemma, participants answered whetherusing this trick was acceptable, on a 9-point scale, between 1(definitely not) and 9 (definitely yes). Next, participants completedan identical six-item manipulation check of power (� � .87) andan identical six-item measure of mood (� � .89) as used in theprevious experiment. Finally, we administered a four-item mea-sure of perspective taking, asking how easy or hard participantsthought it was to take the perspective of the protagonist (� � .89),to rule out that any effect of power was caused by differences inperspective taking.


A 2 (Power) � 2 (Implication) ANOVA on the manipulationcheck of power showed the predicted main effect of power, F(1,56) � 55.41, p � .001, �p � .49, and no other main or interactioneffects (Fs � 1.7, ps � .20). Participants in the high-powerconditions felt more powerful (M � 7.06, SD � 0.97) thanparticipants in the low-power conditions (M � 4.52, SD � 1.64).

A 2 (Power) � 2 (Implication) ANOVA on participants’ moraldecision first showed a noninteresting main effect of framing, F(1,56) � 114.38, p � .001, �p � .67, meaning that participants wereoverall more inclined to find it acceptable to use the trick them-selves (M � 7.56, SD � 1.88) but less acceptable for others to useit (M � 3.07, SD � 1.58). More interesting, we also found asignificant interaction effect between power and framing, F(1,56) � 10.86, p � .002, �p � .16. Simple comparisons showed thatin the absence of personal implications, high-power participantswere more inclined to rule-based moral thinking, as they approvedless of the plan (M � 2.50, SD � 1.02) than did low-powerparticipants (M � 3.64, SD � 1.86), t(56) � �2.83, p � .006. Thisreplicates the findings of the previous experiments. However, inthe presence of personal implications, this effect disappeared. Infact, high-power participants were marginally less inclined torule-based moral thinking and approved marginally more of theplan (M � 8.38, SD � .81) than did low-power participants (M �6.75, SD � 2.29), t(56) � 1.86, p � .07. That is, high powerincreases rule-based moral thinking, but only when this has nopersonal implications. If it does have personal implications, andkeeping to the rule is detrimental to participants’ own interests,then the effect is blocked.

We also checked for the effects of mood and perspective takingon our dependent measure. Like Galinsky et al. (2003), we foundno effect of the experimental conditions on mood (Fs � 1.5, ps �.25) and found only an unsurprising effect on perspective taking,showing that participants found it easier to take their own perspec-tive (M � 7.32, SD � 1.3) than the perspective of the unidentified

renter (M � 6.54, SD � 1.34), F(1, 56) � 5.13, p � .03. Moreimportant, however, adding mood or perspective taking as predic-tors to the model showed neither an effect of mood, F(1, 55) � .84,p � .36, nor of perspective taking, F(1, 55) � 1.36, p � .25.

General Discussion

Across different experiments, we have shown that feelings ofsubjective power influence people’s intuitive preference for rule-versus outcome-based moral thinking styles and moral judgments.In a set of pilot studies, we found initial evidence that high powerincreases the importance that participants attach to rule-basedmoral arguments and decreases the importance they attach tooutcome-based moral arguments. We then conducted three exper-iments to test whether this translates into decisions in moraldilemmas, using three different ways to exclude the possibility thatthey were caused by high-power people being crueler or kinder tothe targets in the dilemma. In these three experiments, participantswere not themselves party to the dilemma; they played the role ofneutral observers. In the next two experiments, we changed that. InExperiment 4, we used a realistic power manipulation, in whichthe participant’s power was related to the dilemma, and the par-ticipant was personally involved. We again found that high powercauses more rule-based/less outcome-based moral decisions andshowed that this was explained by a more rule-based/less outcome-based moral orientation. Finally, in Experiment 5, we showed themoderating effect of personal relevance. When a rule-based moraldecision goes against the interest of the participant, high power nolonger leads to rule-based moral decisions. These last two studiesalso showed that mood and perspective taking do not affect ourresults.

Our research thus shows that power affects the style of moralthinking, and not morality itself (cf. Kipnis, 1972, 1976). Powerhas general transformative effects that can be benevolent as well asmalevolent: It all depends on the context in which rule-based oroutcome-based moral thinking occurs. Our research shows thatwhat people think is right and wrong is not simply a function of thevarious aspects of the moral dilemma but also of people’s subjec-tive feelings of power.

Throughout these studies, we tapped into moral thought pro-cesses by asking participants what moral principles they thoughtwere more and less important and by presenting them with moraldilemmas. Readers might wonder why we did not simply askpeople how they arrived at their decisions and why they made thedecisions they did. We note, however, that although people canreport the products of their cognition—that is, make a moraldecision—they cannot reliably report the mental operations theyengage to arrive there (Haidt, 2001, 2007; Nisbett & Wilson, 1977;Uleman & Bargh, 1989). We therefore chose to reliably measureparticipants’ moral decisions and moral orientations and to derivefrom it those mental operations that underlie moral thinking.

We explained our findings by noting that rule-based thinking isattractive to the powerful because stability is in their interest andis therefore cognitively appealing. This explanation is strengthenedby Experiment 5, which showed that when rules go against theirinterest, this effect of power is broken. Yet there might also beother reasons for the here-identified power–morality link. Smithand Trope (2006) showed that power leads to more global pro-cessing and prevents distraction by details. This might also in-


crease rule-based thinking because, to make an outcome-basedmoral decision, one is required to focus on the specific details ofthe situation and ignore the bigger picture. A related explanationmight be that if people represent a moral issue as more abstract,they will also perceive it as more stable (Liberman & Trope, 2008;Wigboldus, Semin, & Spears, 2000). It seems plausible that be-cause stable problems need stable answers, this could also increaserule-based thinking. We will explore such alternative mediators infuture research.

Limitations and Implications

Of course, the present work also has a number of limitations andshortcomings. First, in most experiments, we measured moralthinking as efficiently as possible, with only one item that pittedrule-based and outcome-based moral thinking against each other.Although often, as in our medical dilemma or in the interrogationscenario, the two go against each other, there might also be caseswhere the two are more in line. Power might affect those decisionsdifferently. Our measure would not be able to tap this effectively.Second, we restricted ourselves to relatively limited examples ofoutcome-based thinking and did not study a more extreme form ofoutcome-based thinking: utilitarianism. It might be that power hasa different effect on utilitarian thinking than it has on outcome-based thinking. Utilitarianism requires taking distance from thepeople involved (to sacrifice one person for the benefit of 10).Because power has been associated with increased interpersonaldistance (Lee & Tiedens, 2001), decreased perspective taking(Galinsky et al., 2006), and decreased compassion (Van Kleef etal., 2008), it might be that power facilitates utilitarian thinking. Athird and final shortcoming is that, except for Experiment 4, mostof our studies manipulated the experience of power, rather than theactual possession of power over others. In future research, we aimto study whether our effect also holds in existing power differ-ences, for example by studying power in organizations. Pendingthose results, we conclude that our research has three importantimplications.

First, our results allow us to better understand conflicts aboutmoral issues between parties with unequal power. In such settings,high-power parties may (because of the importance they lay onrule-based moral thinking) appear rigid and unbending to low-power parties. At the same time, low-power parties may appearirresponsible and too much focused on immediate implications(rather than a more stable and responsible adherence to norms) inthe eyes of the powerful. Furthermore, if rule-based and outcome-based moral principles lead to different decisions, a conflict be-tween the low- and high-power party is likely to arise. Mediatorscan profit from this insight because it allows them to understandthe root cause for such a conflict and helps them solve suchconflicts. A compromise will probably be most acceptable to bothparties if it combines both outcome- and rule-based elements. Thatis, it should be framed to both follow general principles, and havea positive outcome for the parties involved.

Second, our results also suggest strategies for influencing othersin negotiations. Specifically, they suggest that when low-powerpeople want to get their way through influencing high-powerpeople, they should not do so by asking for a special treatment orto make an exception. After all, this is inconsistent with thepowerful way of moral thinking: rule-based moral thinking. It is

better to first explicitly acknowledge the importance of rules,principles and regulations, and then to try to fit one’s request inexisting rules.

Third, one should realize that the above is only true when one isdealing with a high-power authority that has no personal stake inthe outcomes. When such a request is relevant for and runs counterto the personal interests of the powerful party, then this effect isreversed, because then the powerful are likely to abandon theirrule-based moral orientation and adopt a self-enhancing, moreoutcome-based thinking style. This suggests that in negotiationswith a powerful person, one may focus on either personal orcollective terms, depending on the decision that one prefers. Whenone desires a rule-based decision, it is better to frame the requestby appealing to broader, collective terms. When one desires anoutcome-based decision, however, it is better to frame one’s re-quest in terms that emphasize how the powerful themselves maybenefit from such a decision.

Future research may test these tentative predictions in morespecialized contributions and more controlled experiments. In do-ing so, such research can build on the firm base that we providedin this article: High power increases rule-based moral thinking, andlow power increases outcome-based moral thinking.

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Received February 8, 2008Revision received January 22, 2009

Accepted January 26, 2009 �


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How power influences moral thinking