Does Power Help or Hurt? the Moderating Role of Self-Other Focus on Power and Perspective-Taking in Romantic Relationships

Reconciling competing viewpoints suggesting that power helps and hurts perspective-taking in close relationships,in two experiments and two daily experience studies we tested the hypothesis that power's effect on perspective-taking depends on the extent to which people are relatively self-versus other-focused. in study 1,recalling a time of high (vs. low) power over a romantic partner reduced inclinations to take the partner's perspective for relatively self-focused but not other-focused individuals. studies 2 and 3 replicated study 1 using daily variations in power and perspective-taking. in study 4,being the in-charge partner during a conflict conversation reduced empathic accuracy for more self-focused individuals. self-other focus was assessed with measures of gratitude,relational self-construal,and social value orientation. the current findings provide evidence that,particularly for the more self-focused,relationship power influences people's inclinations to take their romantic partner's perspective in daily life as well as their empathic accuracy during conflict. © 2013 by the society for personality and social psychology,inc.