A Power Perspective Research Paper

Social Psychology Research Paper

“A Power Perspective”

A.J. Weick

Ramapo College of New Jersey

Author Note

This paper was prepared for Psychology 226, Section 06, taught by Professor Warner

Social Psychology Research Paper: “A Power Perspective”

This composition is both an examination and summarization of the research provided in Marlon Mooijman, Wilco W. van Dijk, Naomi Elmers, and Eric van Dijk’s study, “Why Leaders Punish: A Power Perspective”. In this study, researchers suggest that power changes the reasoning behind leader’s motives for punishment. Mooijman et al. (2015) make the proposal that power increases distrust, which in essence, increases one’s reliance on deterrence as their preferred method of discipline.

Furthermore,

Mooijman et al.’s (2015) results were supportive of their hypothesis that power has an association with one’s reliance on deterrence. However, Mooijman et al. (2015) had not established causality in whether power has an effect on one’s trust. To establish causality, Mooijman et al. (2015) conducted the remainder of their research specifically with experimental observations. The remainder of Mooijman et al.’s (2015) observations found consistently that power erodes trust. This lack of trust then increases one’s reliance on deterrence as a punishment motive. The results of Mooijman et al.’s (2015) conclude that across the series of studies conducted, there was the consistent observation wherein power underscores trust. However, it cannot be asserted that there is a causal relation that power has an increase on one’s reliance on deterrence as a punishment motive. The researchers in this study were predicting that power has increases one’s reliance on deterrence as a punishment method. It is that prediction, and lack of establishing causality that renders this research correlational in

(2015) that “power fosters distrust as a resource-protection strategy” (Mooijman et al., 76). The aforementioned leaders often resort to deterrence as a punishment method. In the case of Vladimir Putin the most recognizable instance of deterrence as a punishment method would be his incarceration of outspoken political critics “Pussy Riot”. With Victor Yanukovich, it was his overzealous pursuit of power in taking Ukraine’s Presidential powers and merging them with his own power as prime minister. Bassar al-Assad’s persecution and gassing of Syrian citizens is also supportive of Mooijman et al’s