Power Changes How the Brain Responds to Others Jeremy Hogeveen Wilfrid Laurier University Michael Inzlicht University of Toronto Scarborough Sukhvinder S. Obhi Wilfrid Laurier University Power dynamics are a ubiquitous feature of human social life, yet little is known about how power is implemented in the brain. Motor resonance is the activation of similar brain networks when acting and when watching someone else act, and is thought to be implemented, in part, by the human mirror system. We investigated the effects of power on motor resonance during an action observation task. Separate groups of participants underwent a high-, neutral, or low-power induction priming procedure, prior to observing the actions of another person. During observation, motor resonance was determined with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) via measures of motor cortical output. High-power participants demonstrated lower levels of resonance than low-power participants, suggesting reduced mirroring of other people in those with power. These differences suggest that decreased motor resonance to others’ actions might be one of the neural mechanisms underlying power-induced asymmetries in processing our social interaction partners. Keywords: power, motor resonance, human mirror system, TMS, social cognitive neuroscience The profound evolution of primate neocortex was influenced by the computational demands of living in a complex social environ- ment ( Dunbar & Shultz, 2007 ). For primates, a key factor creating structure within the social environment is power. In nonhuman primates, an animal’s power is partly determined by the degree to which they dominate conspecifics. Those that are able to exert dominance over others gain greater access to valuable resources like food and potential mates ( Dunbar, 1980 ; Lewis, 2002 ; Watts, 2010 ). In human societies, power similarly creates “dependence asymmetries,” wherein the powerless depend heavily on the pow- erful for resources, whereas the powerful enjoy relatively unabated access to resources ( Russell & Fiske, 2010 ). This asymmetry results in differences in how the powerful and the powerless process other individuals. Despite what we know about the effects of power on social information processing, the majority of the evidence is indirect, and the mechanisms underlying power’s in- fluence remain a mystery. To begin to address this issue, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to provide a direct and online measure of power’s impact on how the brain responds to observed action. The Psychological Impact of Power The psychological literature on power indicates a reliable rela- tionship between power and information processing style ( Ames, Rose, & Anderson, 2006 ; Fiske, 1993 ; Fiske & Dépret, 1996 ; Guinote, 2007a , 2007b ; Obhi, Swiderski, & Brubacher, 2012 ; Smith & Trope, 2006 ; van Kleef et al., 2008 ). High-power indi- viduals are able to ignore peripheral information and focus on task relevant details, thereby improving goal pursuit ( Guinote, 2007a , 2007b ), cognitive flexibility ( Smith & Trope, 2006 ), and executive functioning ( Smith, Jostmann, Galinsky, & van Dijk, 2008 ). Therefore, when powerful individuals ignore peripheral informa- tion during a nonsocial task, it may improve their performance. Conversely, when the powerful ignore “peripheral” information in social settings, the outcome can be quite negative from the per- spective of the powerless. The powerful, because they already control resources, tend not to process individuating information about the less powerful. In contrast, the powerless, because they do not control resources, are motivated to process individuating information about the powerful ( Fiske & Dépret, 1996 ; Goodwin, Gubin, Fiske, & Yzerbyt, 2000 ). Power-driven differences in the processing of others are also evident in the inability of high-power-primed participants to take the visual, cognitive, and emotional perspectives of others, relative to participants who feel relatively powerless ( Anderson, Keltner, Editor’s Note. Mauricio Delgado served as the action editor for this article.—IG This article was published Online First July 1, 2013. Jeremy Hogeveen, Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience and Department of Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada; Michael Inzlicht, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Scar- borough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Sukhvinder S. Obhi, Centre for Cog- nitive Neuroscience and Department of Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier Uni- versity. This research was made possible by research grants from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), held by Sukhvinder S. Obhi, and an SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship awarded to Jeremy Hogeveen. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Sukhvin- der S. Obhi, Department of Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University, 75 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3C5, Canada. E-mail: sobhi@wlu.ca This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General © 2013 American Psychological Association 2014, Vol. 143, No. 2, 755–762 0096-3445/14/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0033477 755
