Ranking low, feeling high: how hierarchical position and experienced power promote prosocial behavior in response to procedural justice

Van Dijke, M ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9974-5050, De Cremer, D, Langendijk, G and Anderson, C, 2018. Ranking low, feeling high: how hierarchical position and experienced power promote prosocial behavior in response to procedural justice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 103 (2), pp. 164-181. ISSN 0021-9010

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Abstract

Research shows that power can lead to prosocial behavior by facilitating the behavioral expression of dispositional prosocial motivation. However, it is not clear how power may facilitate responses to contextual factors that promote prosocial motivation. Integrating Fairness Heuristic Theory and the Situated Focus Theory of Power, we argue that in particular, organization members in lower (vs. higher) hierarchical positions who simultaneously experience a high (vs. low) sense of power respond with prosocial behavior to one important antecedent of prosocial motivation, that is, the enactment of procedural justice. The results from a multisource survey among employees and their leaders from various organizations (Study 1) and an experiment using a public goods dilemma (Study 2) support this prediction. Three subsequent experiments (Studies 3-5) show that this effect is mediated by perceptions of authority trustworthiness. Taken together, this research (a) helps resolve the debate regarding whether power promotes or undermines prosocial behavior, (b) demonstrates that hierarchical position and the sense of power can have very different effects on processes that are vital to the functioning of an organization, and (c) helps solve ambiguity regarding the roles of hierarchical position and power in Fairness Heuristic Theory.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Journal of Applied Psychology
Creators:	Van Dijke, M., De Cremer, D., Langendijk, G. and Anderson, C.
Publisher:	American Psychological Association
Date:	2018
Volume:	103
Number:	2
ISSN:	0021-9010
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1037/apl0000260 DOI
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Business School
Record created by:	Jill Tomkinson
Date Added:	21 Nov 2017 15:12
Last Modified:	16 Apr 2018 10:27
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/32071

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