The Influence of Different Types of Power and Status on Advice-Taking

Duan Jinyun; Wu Jueyu; Xu Tingting; Liang Fenghua

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240418

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2024, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (4) : 910-917. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240418

Social, Personality & Organizational Psychology

The Influence of Different Types of Power and Status on Advice-Taking

Duan Jinyun¹, Wu Jueyu², Xu Tingting³, Liang Fenghua^{1, 4}

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Abstract

Power and status are two prevalent bases of social hierarchy. Power and status share important similarities but also differ from each other. Power means the extent to which an individual can control others' outcomes by granting or withholding socially valued resources. Status refers to the extent to which an individual is respected, admired, and highly regarded in the eyes of others. Previous empirical studies on how power and status influence individuals' motives and behaviors have primarily focused on individuals with power and/or status. Scant studies have explored how the other party responded to individuals who have power and/or status, especially in the field of advice-taking area. This study attempts to explore how advisors' power and status influence the advice recipients' following powerful and/or high-status people's advice and the underlying mechanism.
Drawing from the literature on social hierarchy and interpersonal judgments, we propose that power and status have distinct effects on advice recipients' advice-taking. Four experiments were designed to test the hypotheses. Based on the scenario method, Study 1 separately examined the effects of high power and high status on advice-taking compared with the control group. Study 2 combined power and status into four conditions, that are, high power and high status, high power and low status, low power and high status, and low power and low status, to explore how advisors with different kinds of power and status influence acceptors' advice-taking by using scenario-based power/status manipulation and a preference decision-making task. Study 2 also explored whether the perceived competence and warmth of the advice providers mediated the relationship between the advisor's power and status with advice recipients' advice-taking. Based on Study 2, Study 3 further explored the effects of power/status on advice-taking and the mediating role of perceived competence and warmth by using social occupation-based power/status manipulation and a perceptual decision-making task. In study 4, a large sample was used to verify the results of the previous three studies based on social occupational power/status manipulation and the preference decision-making task.
The results showed that advisors who have higher power or status can promote advice recipients' advice-taking behavior. The positive relationship between power and advice-taking is contingent on the status of the advisor. When the status of the advisor is high, power is positively correlated with advice recipients' advice-taking; when the status is low, the positive relationship between power and advice-taking is weakened or even disappeared. Perception of the advisor's competence mediates the relationship between the position of the advisor's power/status and the recipients' advice-taking behavior, while the perception of warmth does not have a consistent mediating effect on the relationship.
To conclude, the power and status position of the advisor positively predict advice recipients' advice-taking. The positive relationship between advisors' power and the acceptor's advice-taking is moderated by the advisor's status. That is, when the status of the advisor is high, the relationship is positive; when the status is low, the relationship is weakened or even disappeared. And the relationship between the power/status of the advisor and the acceptor's advice-taking is mediated by the perception of the advisor's competence.

Key words

advice-taking / the power of the advisor / status of the advisor / perception of competence / perception of warmth

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Duan Jinyun, Wu Jueyu, Xu Tingting, Liang Fenghua. The Influence of Different Types of Power and Status on Advice-Taking[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2024, 47(4): 910-917 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240418

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