The Perceived Social Power of a Prideful Person as a Function of the Reactive Emotions of the Addressee of the Pride

Abstract

Emotional expressions are an important source of social information since they contain information about the individual expressing them and the situation that brought them about. Recent research has found that expressions of emotions are used by observers to evaluate the social power of the person expressing these emotions. Social power is closely associated with factors such as dominance, ability, and social status. Considered together or in isolation, these factors can determine a person’s ability to influence and control others. Research has indicated, for example, that people who express anger are perceived as having a higher degree of social power than those who express sadness. However, the social perception of emotions is not determined uniquely by the type of emotion expressed but also by the context in which it is expressed. This is because the context often provides perceivers with additional relevant information on top of the information inherent in the emotion as a function of its type. One such important context is that of a social interaction, in which expressions of emotions are often exchanged between the parties involved in the interaction. Consistent with this claim, Hareli and David (2017) and Hareli et al. (2018) showed that the perceived social power of the person expressing an emotion first is determined not only by the emotion expressed but also by the response of the addressee of the expression: that is, the reactive emotion of the target. Specifically, the degree to which a person expressing a specific emotion is perceived as having high power is a combination of the degree to which the emotion expressed reflects high power and the type of emotion that the addressee of the initial emotion expresses in response. This effect of the emotions exchanged in the interaction is attributed to the fact that expressions of such emotions can be seen as claims on the part of the expressers regarding their relative social power. That is, the perceived effect of reactive emotions on the perceived social power of the person who was first to express the emotion is mediated by inferences of acceptance or rejection of the “claim” of having a specific degree of social power, as reflected by the reactive emotion of the addressee.

Similar to anger, pride is an emotion that signals high social power and related constructs such as high status, high rank, skills, and knowledge. Further, the high power associated with pride is grounded on different bases than the high power associated with anger. Specifically, anger is perceived as a signal of high social power because it signals an attempt to coerce and intimidate others. Pride, in contrast, signals high power based on abilities and knowledge. This is the case insofar as pride is perceived as authentic and not as hubristic. When pride is perceived to be hubristic, it is seen as reflecting the same basis of power as does anger. However, perceivers of expressions of pride as such cannot distinguish between these two facets of pride without additional information, such as that provided by the context. Based on these ideas, the primary goal of the present research was to examine how reactive emotions in response to expressions of pride affect the perceived power of the prideful person. It was assumed that, as in the case of expressions of anger, reactive emotions to pride, as a function of their type, would be perceived as acceptance or rejection of the claim inherent in pride, suggesting that the prideful person has high power. As a result, the perceived power of the prideful person would be adjusted accordingly. Furthermore, the present research tested the possibility that reactive emotions can also serve as contextual information in determining whether pride is authentic or hubristic. Since the social perception of emotions does not necessarily end with inferences about the expressers, it can also influence observers’ intended behaviors toward these expressers, such as the willingness of the observer to cooperate with the expresser in the future. This is because a person’s willingness to work with another person may be determined, in part, by the degree to which there are benefits to such cooperation. Accordingly, reactive emotions, via their effect on the perceived social power of the prideful person and the perceived authenticity of the signal inherent in pride, were also expected to determine the degree to which observers are willing to cooperate with the expresser of the emotions. In accordance with the main research hypotheses described above, three studies in the present research showed that the perceived social power of the prideful person was determined by the reactive emotions, which served as signals of acceptance or rejection of the social power claim inherent in pride. In all three studies, when pride was responded to with shame, the perceived power of the prideful person was higher than when pride was responded to with contempt. The effect of the reactive emotions on perceived power was mediated by the degree to which perceivers thought the addressees accepted the claim of power inherent in the expression of pride. In this context, shame was perceived as a signal of acceptance of the power claim and contempt as a signal of its rejection. In Study 2, the effect of reactive emotions to pride was compared to their effect when they served as responses to shame. This was done in order to assess the degree to which the reactive emotions contributed to the perceived power of a person even when that person does not signal high power, such as when showing pride. The results of Study 2 showed that the perceived social power of the shameful person was impacted by the reactive emotions in the same way that this occurred for the prideful person. The effect of the reactive emotions on perceived power was mediated by the degree to which perceivers thought the addressee accepted that the shameful person was powerful. These findings underline the important role that the combination of the emotions expressed in a social interaction has for perceivers. In Study 3, the effect of the reactive emotions to pride was compared to their effect when they served as responses to anger. This was done since anger, similar to pride, is a signal of high power. The mediation analysis conducted in this study found that, whereas shame increased the acceptance of power of both the prideful and the angry person, it did so to a larger degree for the angry person. In contrast, contempt reduced the acceptance of power of the prideful person but had no effect on the acceptance of power of the angry person. However, the results of an analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated a somewhat different picture. Contempt reduced the perceived power of the angry person but not of the prideful person. Taken together, this suggests that the effect of contempt on perceived social power is not mediated by the acceptance of power in the case of anger. The results also suggest that the perceived power of the prideful person is more immune to the impact of contempt than the perceived power of the angry person. This conclusion stands in line with previous findings, which also suggested that pride is a stronger signal of social power than anger when they stand in the face of contradictory information. The assumption that reactive emotions may serve as a means of distinguishing between authentic and hubristic pride was not supported. Across all three studies, perceived authenticity and perceived arrogance were not correlated. The assumption was that these measures would reflect the degree to which the expression by the first emoter would be seen as authentic or hubristic. However, the perceived authenticity of the first expression, regardless of whether it was pride, shame, or anger, was not affected by the reactive emotions. In contrast, the perceived arrogance of the expressers of pride was consistently determined by the reactive emotions across the three studies. However, the direction of this effect was opposite to what was expected. Specifically, whereas the expression of shame was expected to reduce the perceived arrogance of the expresser of the initial emotion, it instead increased it. This suggests that when someone is perceived as causing another person to feel ashamed, this is considered arrogant. The effect of the reactive emotion of contempt on perceived arrogance was somewhat more complex. First, as revealed by the ANOVA, contempt made the prideful person seem more arrogant and to the same degree as shame when this expression was not responded to. However, in the mediation analysis, contempt reduced perceived arrogance relative to shame. Taken together, this reflects the possibility that a negative emotional response toward the expresser of pride increases perceived arrogance. In all three studies, as expected, observers’ intentions to cooperate with expressers of pride were indirectly determined by the reactive emotions. However, contrary to expectations, for the prideful person, this effect was mostly not mediated by perceived power but rather by perceived arrogance. Specifically, shame, by increasing perceived arrogance, lowered intentions to cooperate with the prideful person (Studies 1–3). In contrast, contempt, by decreasing perceived arrogance, increased intentions to cooperate with the prideful person (Studies 2 and 3 only). Only in Study 1 was the perceived power of the prideful person, which was decreased by contempt, linked to intentions to cooperate with the prideful person. Specifically, perceived power positively predicted intentions to cooperate with the prideful person. When the first emotion was either shame or pride, perceived power was the only factor that mediated the effect of the reactive emotions on willingness to cooperate with the first emoter. A reactive emotion of shame increased the willingness of the participants to cooperate with both the shameful and angry person, and contempt decreased it via its effect on perceived power in the case of the shameful person but not the angry one. Finally, the perceived authenticity of expressions of pride (Studies 1 and 2) and anger (Study 3) positively predicted intentions to cooperate with the first expresser. However, this effect was unrelated to the reactive emotions. This is more likely a reflection of the degree to which the expressions seem authentic. With the exception of the results of Study 1, the intentions to cooperate with the prideful person were mediated only by the perceived arrogance of the prideful person.

Overall, the present research contributes to the line of research studying how the social perception of emotions is affected by contextual factors: in this case, reactive emotions of the addressee of another’s emotions during a social interaction. This research, focused on judgments of social power. It will be important in future research to explore how other judgments that are drawn from emotional expressions such as affiliation or trustworthiness are affected by the emotional response of a person who is the addressee of the emotions of the target person.