Better Know When (Not) to Think Twice

Abstract

Before approaching situations, individuals frequently imagine “what would happen, if . . . .” Such prefactual thought can promote confidence and facilitate behavior preparation when the upcoming situation can benefit from forethought, but it also delays action. The present research tested how social power predicts prefactual thought when its benefits are clear versus ambiguous. Power enhances flexible behavior adaptation and action tendencies—presumably without much forethought. We therefore proposed that power diminishes prefactual thought, unless the situation suggests that such thought is adaptive (i.e., could benefit performance). Power-holders indeed generated less prefactuals than the powerless (Experiments 1 and 2), but only if benefits for performance were ambiguous rather than clear (Experiment 3). These findings indicate that social context factors related to confidence affect prefactual thought, and that power-holders’ flexible adaptation to the situation sometimes elicits inaction (i.e., prefactual thought) rather than spontaneous action.

Keywords

social power prefactual thinking mental simulation behavior adaptation

When approaching a task, individuals frequently think “what if . . . .” They imagine what could happen when applying a certain strategy, envision the likely consequences of that behavior, and deliberate on how to achieve an even better (or worse) outcome before taking the first step. In other words, they engage in prefactual thinking (McConnell et al., 2000; Petrocelli, Seta, & Seta, 2012; Sanna, 1996, 1998).

Many situations require action without extensive forethought (e.g., Gollwitzer, 1996). For instance, a firefighter might need to act without much thought in an emergency and a bank manager may decide about investments with only minimal information to ponder, to secure a profit for her company. Here, extensive prefactual thought may prevent success. In other situations, however, such forethought is required to guide subsequent behavior (cf. Anderson, 1974; Jones & Anderson, 1987; Morsella, Ben-Zeev, Lanska, & Bargh, 2010): The same investment banker may thoughtfully manage her clients’ funds in order not to put their pensions at risk. Similarly, organizational decision makers might ponder their expertise about employees’ needs before establishing a new company policy.

As these examples illustrate, many social contexts are structured in a way in which one individual has control over other persons’ resources. In other words, they are characterized by differences in social power (Fiske & Berdahl, 2007). This implies that the power-holders’ actions not only affect their own outcomes, but also have consequences for those lower in power. Due to this responsibility associated with power (Sassenberg, Ellemers, & Scheepers, 2012), flexibly adapting one’s engagement in prefactual thought to the situation seems crucial for power-holders.

Indeed, power has been shown to lead to the use of heuristics (i.e., less effortful cognition; Fiske, 1993) and uninhibited action but also to facilitate flexible adaptation to the situation at hand (Gervais, Guinote, Allen, & Slabu, 2013; Guinote, 2007c, 2008; Guinote, Weick, & Cai, 2012). Though evidence for these effects exists separately in different paradigms, a more direct demonstration that power-holders, who generally respond heuristically, are capable of discerning when to respond more systematically is lacking. Therefore, the current research set out to address this gap in the domain of prefactual thoughts. Are the powerful able to flexibly employ prefactual thinking, depending on whether such thoughts promise to be beneficial? As a first step toward an answer to this question, the present research tested the impact of high versus low social power on prefactual thought, and sought to identify preconditions under which such an effect of power occurs versus disappears.

Prefactual Thinking and the Role of the Situation

Prefactual thought implies phases of (apparent) inaction, during which individuals mentally simulate potential strategies and the likely outcomes. This mental simulation takes place before any action is taken and before the actual outcomes are known. For instance, one may generate prefactual thoughts before making a decision, solving a task, or participating in an exam (e.g., “If only I had more time to study, I might do better on the test”; “What if I spend the evening studying rather than going to this party?”; McConnell et al., 2000; Petrocelli et al., 2012; Sanna, 1996, 1998).

Depending on the upcoming situation, prefactual thought can be more or less (subjectively) beneficial. Some situations require prompt action (i.e., seizing good opportunities). In these contexts, prefactual thought only delays behavior, thereby posing a potential threat to task performance (cf. Armor & Taylor, 2003; Gollwitzer, 1996). In other situations, however, forethought can improve performance (del Valle & Mateos, 2008; Pham & Taylor, 1999; Sanna, 1996). More precisely, prefactual thoughts are beneficial for subsequent behavior when the decision or reaction that first comes to mind is unlikely to result in optimal performance. This is the case when a task requires the usage of prior knowledge or strategies that can be retrieved or developed prior to working on the task. As such, the retrieval of information from memory can improve subsequent performance, just as thinking about illustrating examples before class can increase the quality of a lecture. In these specific situations, forethought effectively guides performance (cf. Anderson, 1974; Jones & Anderson, 1987; Morsella et al., 2010). Taken together, these results underscore the relevance of understanding when individuals generate prefactual thoughts and whether they are able to adapt their level of prefactual thought across different situations.¹

Individuals particularly engage in forethought when they are, in some way, concerned about an anticipated outcome, such as striving toward making a good impression on others (Walther, 2007) or having low outcome expectations (i.e., defensive pessimists vs. optimists; del Valle & Mateos, 2008; Sanna, 1996). In addition, the potential benefit of forethought for an upcoming task (see above), indeed, determines how many thoughts individuals spontaneously generate: Tasks for which prefactual thought is likely beneficial induce most forethought (compared with tasks for which the benefit of prefactuals is ambiguous; Morsella et al., 2010). As social power promotes sensitivity to task-related cues (Guinote, 2007b), it is an obvious social contextual factor that is relevant for prefactual thinking.

How Social Power Affects Prefactual Thought

Social power is defined as having asymmetric control over one’s own and others’ outcomes (Fiske & Berdahl, 2007). In what follows, we will outline the implications of different approaches to power for the relation between social power and prefactual thought, before we derive our conclusive predictions.

Early social cognition research on power (e.g., Fiske, 1993) suggested that power-holders are relatively independent from others, whereas powerless individuals vice versa largely depend on the power-holder. As a result, power-holders can afford to act spontaneously and rely more on using cognitive heuristics (e.g., stereotyping or the planning fallacy; Fiske, 1993; Weick & Guinote, 2010), whereas those low in power attend to information (e.g., about their social environment) more systematically. This suggests that power-holders may engage in less prefactual thought (but rather initiate spontaneous, less effortful reactions to solve a task) compared to those low in power. There is also some research that provides initial evidence for this conclusion: Prefactual thinking is often directed toward anticipating potential obstacles (i.e., how things may go wrong; cf. McCrea & Flamm, 2012; Sanna, 1996, 1998). As power—in line with the idea of heuristic processing—prevents the perception of obstacles (Whitson et al., 2013) and heightens confidence (Fast, Gruenfeld, Sivanathan, & Galinsky, 2009; Tost, Gino, & Larrick, 2012; Weick & Guinote, 2010), prefactual thought about these obstacles will most likely be altered by power.

Keltner, Gruenfeld, and Anderson (2003) proposed in their approach inhibition theory of power that due to the independence power provides, being powerful activates approach tendencies and a focus on rewards, whereas being powerless promotes inhibition tendencies and a focus on threats and punishments (Keltner et al., 2003). As a major consequence, power elicits a propensity to act (Galinsky, Gruenfeld, & Magee, 2003; Magee, Gruenfeld, Keltner, & Galinsky, 2005). For instance, power-holders talk and interrupt others more (Hall, Coats, & Smith LeBeau, 2005; Schmid Mast, 2002) and are more likely to make first offers in negotiations (Magee, Galinsky, & Gruenfeld, 2007), whereas the powerless might be more concerned about not making a bad impression along the way (cf. Galinsky, Magee, Gruenfeld, Whitson, & Liljenquist, 2008; Schmid Mast, Jonas, & Hall, 2009). Such effects occur even when only the experience or concept of power is activated (similar to when individuals hold actual power; for an overview see Smith & Galinsky, 2010). This suggests that power-holders should engage in less prefactual thought (i.e., show less inhibited action) than those low in power (who may try more extensively to anticipate others’ expectations or evaluations).

Finally, the situated focus theory of power (Guinote, 2007a), and recent evidence supporting it (Guinote, 2007c, 2008; Guinote et al., 2012), suggests that this prediction might be qualified by the situation (e.g., the characteristics of the upcoming task). According to this theory, power-holders’ independence enables them to focus more exclusively on their focal agenda (i.e., to adopt a situated focus). This agenda can be determined by person characteristics, long-term goals, or situational affordances (Gervais et al., 2013; Guinote et al., 2012). Power-holders, therefore, are better able to flexibly adapt their cognitions and behavior to the situation, whereas the powerless facing more constraints are more easily distracted and less adaptive across situations. This assumption is also in line with the social distance theory of power (Magee & Smith, 2013), which proposes that power facilitates goal-directed behavior by creating social distance (and thereby higher-level construals). Indeed, power promotes goal-directed attention (Guinote, 2007b; Overbeck & Park, 2006) and flexible adaptation to a given context (Gruenfeld, Inesi, Magee, & Galinsky, 2008; Guinote, 2007c, 2008; Overbeck & Park, 2001): For instance, Gervais et al. (2013) demonstrated that power usually facilitates creative thought, except when creativity is harmful—that is, in these situations, the usual effect of high versus low power disappears. In sum, this suggests that power-holders should be more sensitive to the potential benefit of prefactual thought in a situation.

The Current Research

Taken together, the first two approaches summarized above suggest that power reduces prefactuals, whereas situated focus theory implies that this effect should only occur when no indication is given that prefactual thought might be beneficial for performance (but not when such an indication is given). In line with the latter approach, we assume that without endangering subsequent performance, experiencing power will diminish prefactual thinking when there is no indication that such thought is beneficial for the upcoming task (e.g., when task details are unknown, or when it is uncertain whether one will actually ever work on the task).

However, due to their more flexible behavior adaptation, power-holders’ (rather than powerless individuals’) level of prefactual thinking should respond to cues concerning the potential beneficence of prefactuals (e.g., when a task requires retrieval of prior knowledge). In these situations, the effect of power on prefactuals should disappear, because power-holders respond to these cues by showing prefactual thought—which the powerless show in any case. Taken together, we expect that individuals experiencing low power engage in a high level of prefactual thinking across situations, whereas the powerful might engage in a high level of prefactual thinking only when potentially beneficial for a task.²

Findings in support of this prediction would contribute to both research on prefactual thought and research on social power. Extending previous findings on prefactual thought, the present research would highlight how features of the immediate social context—that is, power experienced in a situation—shape engagement in prefactual thought. Hence, the findings would illustrate that the same individual may engage in a differing amount of prefactual thought, depending on how much social power she/he is currently experiencing.

Moreover, the results would extend social power research in two important ways. First, former research indicates that power predicts the use of heuristics (i.e., “lazy” cognitive processing; Fiske, 1993) and whether, how promptly, and to which extent individuals will act (or not act; for example, Galinsky et al., 2003; Guinote, 2007b; Keltner et al., 2003). The present research, however, is the first to investigate whether power predicts how much individuals will engage in prefactual thought (i.e., how much they simulate subsequent action). Second and more importantly, such results would illustrate an important moderator to the well-established link between power, spontaneous action, and heuristics, namely the situation (cf. Guinote, 2007a): If power-holders indeed generate as much prefactual thoughts as the powerless to guide their behavior when it is potentially beneficial, the findings would demonstrate that having power can, at times, also imply showing inaction tendencies (i.e., thinking). On a more practical level, power-holders’ behavior has a wide range of potential consequences for themselves and others. Therefore, we argue that it is important to understand when especially those individuals holding power will (not) engage in forethought.

We tested our hypotheses in three studies. Experiments 1 and 2 investigated the main effect of power, using different procedures and methods. Power was manipulated via role assignment (Experiment 1) or recall priming (Experiment 2). Prefactual thoughts were measured with explicit thought instructions (Experiments 1 and 3; cf. del Valle & Mateos, 2008; McConnell et al., 2000; Sanna, 1996, 1998) or without explicit instructions (Experiment 2; cf. McCrea & Flamm, 2012). In Experiments 1 and 2, the beneficence of prefactual thoughts was ambiguous (or unlikely): Participants in Experiment 1 received scarce information on and had barely any prior knowledge about the upcoming task. Thus, not many strategies how to effectively solve the task could be simulated here (for a similar argument see Petrocelli & Sherman, 2010). In Experiment 2, participants did not actually expect to perform the task. Therefore, they had low grounds for simulating strategies how to solve it in the first place (see Morsella et al., 2010).

Going beyond this main effect of power, Experiment 3 addressed the idea that power-holders more flexibly adapt their behavior to the task at hand than the powerless. It did so by testing the prediction that power-holders indeed only generate less prefactuals than the powerless when these thoughts are not likely to be beneficial for the subsequent task (i.e., the task does not build on prior knowledge), but that the powerful generate as many prefactuals as the powerless when such thoughts are beneficial (i.e., when the task does build upon prior knowledge; cf. Morsella et al., 2010). In other words, this study tested whether the effect of power on prefactuals is moderated by task type.

Sample size was determined in advance, prior to conducting the studies. We aimed at a minimum of 25 participants per condition. Lab sessions were scheduled for 1 week, with slightly higher Ns to compensate for potential cancellations (except when fewer participants signed up at this point during the semester). Hence, we obtained slightly more or less participants for some studies than planned (Experiment 1: n = 21; Experiment 2: n = 27 and 29; Experiment 3: one n = 23, other n = 26).

Experiment 1

This experiment sought to provide first evidence for the hypothesis that power diminishes prefactual thought. Here, participants were given a more or less powerful role and generated prefactual thoughts on how to approach an unrelated upcoming investment task, on which they had only little prior knowledge and information.

Method

Design and participants

Forty-five undergraduates participated in an experiment with two conditions (low vs. high power) as part of a 1-hr study.³ Three participants were excluded because they expressed strong suspicion regarding the purpose of the manipulation and hypotheses during funnel debriefing. Thus, data from 42 participants (33 female, 7 male, 2 did not indicate their gender, M_age = 24.37, range = 20-33) was analyzed.⁴

Procedure

On arrival, participants were seated in semi-private cubicles. Up to six individuals took part in a session and received all instructions on screen. This experiment was presented as two separate studies, comprising the (a) power manipulation and (b) prefactual thinking measure. Power was manipulated via role assignment with the procedure from Guinote (2007b; see also Galinsky et al., 2003; Guinote, 2007c). Participants anticipated solving a creativity task in dyads, comprised of one manager and one employee, with a partner from a second lab. Allegedly based on a leadership questionnaire, participants were randomly assigned to the powerful (“manager”) or powerless (“employee”) role inducing power as control over the partner’s outcomes. Employees, being especially capable of following instructions and solving tasks, learned they would generate solutions to problems. Managers, being good at giving instructions and telling others what to do, learned they would evaluate the employee’s ideas. Managers received a fixed amount of 3 Euro and employees received 2 Euro. The manager could supposedly let the employee earn up to 3 Euro depending on his/her evaluation. Afterwards, participants completed a manipulation check and were then updated, via the computer screen, on the ostensible connection to the other lab. Participants learned that their partner was still involved in another study, but would be available soon (cf. Guinote, 2007b).

While waiting for their partner, participants continued with a “pretest,” which actually assessed prefactual thought in decision making. Participants received short information on an investment task for which they would compare stock options, make decisions, and receive feedback (Markman & Tetlock, 2000). A pretest (n = 109) with a non-overlapping sample indicated that, as intended, this clearly involved an unfamiliar task to undergraduates (M = 3.24, SD = 0.77; 1 = low experience to 7 = high experience with the stock market). Right before starting this investment, we assessed prefactual thoughts with well-established instructions (cf. del Valle & Mateos, 2008; Goerke, Möller, Schulz-Hardt, Napiersky, & Frey, 2004; Sanna, 1996, 1998). Participants read that in situations like these, individuals sometimes experience thoughts such as “what if . . . ” or “if only . . . ” and imagine how they could approach the task or how it might turn out better or worse than expected. They were asked to list all upcoming thoughts on a blank screen. Then they proceeded to the investment, only at which point they learned that the investment would in fact not take place.

Measures

Manipulation check

Participants indicated, on two items, whether they would be in charge (1 = completely disagree to 7 = completely agree) and have relative influence over the outcome (compared with their partner, 1 = I have less influence to 7 = I have more influence), r(42) = .75, p < .001.

Prefactual thinking

To determine how many prefactual thoughts each participant had generated, two blind raters coded all listed thoughts following standard procedures (cf. del Valle & Mateos, 2008; Goerke et al., 2004; McCrea & Flamm, 2012; Sanna, 1996, 1998). First, each thought was coded as either prefactual or non-prefactual. Per definition, prefactuals include the mental simulation of a potential (future) action and/or outcome (e.g., imagining what would happen if one applied this strategy, weighing the potential benefits of different actions, or simulating potential obstacles and solutions). This mental simulation can be identified via phrases such as “if only . . ., ” “what if . . ., ” “I could . . ., ” and so on (cf. Roese & Olson, 1995; Sanna, 1996). Accordingly, thoughts involving such mental simulation were coded as prefactuals (e.g., prefactuals participants listed were “If I were to manage investing in previously less successful stocks with a good prognosis, then it could heighten my profit”; “If only I remain on the safe side, then results shouldn’t become too bad”; 94% interrater agreement rate; 87% of all thoughts were prefactuals). All other thoughts were coded as non-prefactual (i.e., those not involving mental simulation of potential actions/outcomes, but rather factual statements, opinions, or present states; for example, participants wrote “I do not know much about stock investment”; “The development of stocks is unpredictable”; 13% of all thoughts were non-prefactuals).

For exploratory purposes, we also coded the direction of each prefactual thought—that is, whether each thought was directed upward or downward. Upward prefactuals imply the simulation of potential better outcomes than individuals expect (e.g., an upward thought was “If I were to manage making the right choice, then I would make some profit.”), whereas downward prefactuals involve the simulation of potential worse outcomes than expected (e.g., a downward thought was “If I make the wrong choice, then I could lose a lot of money”; 87% of all prefactuals were upward). This was done because power-holders are more confident and perceive less obstacles than the powerless (Tost et al., 2012; Whitson et al., 2013), and the concern about obstacles facilitates upward prefactuals (i.e., how to overcome such obstacles; Sanna, 1996). Hence, one may expect the powerful to especially generate less upward prefactuals. Disagreements in coding were resolved by the first author (cf. Roese & Olson, 1995; Sanna, 1996). This coding procedure was identical across Experiments 1 to 3.

Results and Discussion

Low power participants experienced less power (M = 3.17, SD = 1.08) than high power participants (M = 5.69, SD = 0.83), t(40) = 8.51, p < .001, d = 2.68, indicating that the power manipulation was successful.

As predicted, high power led to less prefactual thoughts (M = 1.52, SD = 0.60) than low power (M = 2.24, SD = 1.41), t(27.04) = 2.13, p = .042, d = 0.68, mean difference (MD) = .71, 95% confidence interval (CI) = [0.03, 1.40] (degrees of freedom with decimals result from the correction applied in the case of a significant Levene’s test for homogeneity of variance). Hence, the hypothesis was supported.

We also performed a set of additional analyses. First, we checked whether this result also holds for the more specific upward prefactual thoughts that participants mostly generated. Indeed, power reduced upward prefactual thinking (M_{high power} = 1.29, SD = 0.78; M_{low power} = 1.95, SD = 1.16), t(40) = 2.18, p = .035, d = 0.68. Furthermore, we tested if this pattern evoked by power is specific for prefactual thought, or if it also includes non-prefactual thought and the total number of thoughts generated (i.e., prefactual and non-prefactual thoughts summed up). Power indeed reduced the total number of thoughts (M_{high power} = 1.71, SD = 0.72; M_{low power} = 2.67, SD = 1.46), t(29.11) = 2.68, p = .012, d = 0.85, but did not affect the number of non-prefactual thoughts (M_{high power} = 0.19, SD = 0.51; M_{low power} = 0.43, SD = 0.68), t(37.253) = 1.29, p = .206, d = 0.41.⁵

This experiment thus demonstrated that power-holders, indeed, generate fewer thoughts before solving a task, especially in terms of (upward) prefactual thoughts. This effect of power occurred across two separate contexts, indicating that the subjective experience of high versus low power (i.e., on the creativity task) was sufficient to alter how much individuals subsequently engaged in prefactual thinking (i.e., on the investment task).

Notably, this experiment used a well-established, but rather explicit, prefactual thought instruction including thought examples, which may have prompted prefactual thinking in the first place. Hence, the present findings cannot rule out the possibility that the effects of Experiment 1 were—at least partly—driven by demand effects (e.g., making low power participants more likely to follow instructions and conform to salient examples; cf. Galinsky et al., 2008). Alternatively, one could argue that if such prompting of prefactual thought occurred, the powerful (rather than the powerless) should have behaved more in line with the situation (e.g., Guinote, 2008) and, in this case, should thus have generated more prefactuals. To resolve this issue empirically, we sought to rule out this alternative explanation in Experiment 2 by means of an alternative prefactual thought instruction.

Experiment 2

This experiment had two objectives. First, we aimed at replicating the previous findings in a different context, that is, with a different power manipulation (i.e., a well-established experiential power priming; Galinsky et al., 2003) and a different non-beneficial task induction (i.e., measuring thought about a task that will not be performed). Second, this study assessed participants’ thoughts with a non-directive measure for prefactual thinking (McCrea & Flamm, 2012; see also McConnell et al., 2000) to minimize potential demand effects due to prefactual thinking prompts.

Method

Design and participants

Fifty-six undergraduates (47 female, 9 male, M_age = 23.64 years, age = 18-33) participated in an online experiment with two conditions (low vs. high power) in exchange for taking part in a lottery of amazon vouchers.⁶

Procedure

Participants were invited via e-mail to complete a 5- to 10-min online survey on the “perception of study situations,” presumably comprising of pretest materials for unrelated studies. The first part followed the power priming from Galinsky et al. (2003), assigning participants randomly to power conditions. Participants in the high power condition wrote an essay about an incident where they had power over somebody, that is, when they could control another person’s outcomes or evaluate others. In the low power condition, participants wrote an essay about an incident where someone else had power over them and had controlled their outcomes or evaluated them. Participants then completed a power manipulation check.

In the second part of the survey, we assessed prefactual thinking on a classroom scenario adapted from Roese and Olson (1993). Participants imagined that they needed to complete a group assignment with a fellow student named “Micha” (applying to both genders in the German language):

You have been given an assignment in one of your classes. It is a group project and you have been paired up with another student, Micha, who will work on the assignment with you. The project is due in 3 weeks. You get together in advance to distribute tasks between each other: You will focus on book chapters and Micha will focus on journal articles. Unfortunately, the first week will be wasted because Micha cannot meet with you again to make plans (because of a surgery of a family member). In the course of your background reading, you are planning to look for books that summarize your topic well. Micha will spend the second week learning how to use a computer program that checks for grammar and creates a reference list, which will improve the style and readability of your project. During the last week before the project is due, you will be spending very little time on it yourself because you have to prepare for an exam in another course. You both are planning to hand in the project on the assigned due date. You will receive the project and your grades back several weeks later.

We then assessed prefactual thoughts with instructions from McCrea and Flamm (2012). Participants were asked to list any thoughts that came to their minds about this situation. Hence, they were neither instructed to list prefactual thoughts nor provided any thought examples.

Measures

As power manipulation check, participants indicated their agreement to two items regarding the recalled situation (“I had a leading role,” “I had influence,” from 1 = disagree completely to 7 = agree completely), r(56) = .80, p < .001. To determine the number of prefactual thoughts for each participant, two blind raters again coded all listed thoughts following the procedure from Experiment 1. Raters identified, for each thought, whether or not it represented a prefactual (e.g., “If only Micha were to put as much effort into the project as me, then we might do well”; “If there is some time left in the end, then I would also take over some of his tasks”; “Maybe if we could meet via skype in between, then we might perform better,” as examples for participants’ prefactuals); all other thoughts, which were again mostly statements of opinions or current state, were coded as non-prefactual (e.g., participants wrote: “I do not like group assignments,” “This time pressure is unpleasant,” “My priority is keeping the deadline”; 82% interrater agreement rate). Even with this less explicit prefactual measure, 67% of all listed thoughts were prefactuals (with 73% of all prefactuals being upward).

Results and Discussion

Results indicated that high power participants (M = 4.38, SD = 0.72) reported having more power in the recalled situation than low power participants (M = 2.19, SD = 1.06), t(54) = 9.15, p < .001, d = 2.48. Hence, the power priming appeared successful.⁷

We predicted that power reduces prefactual thought. Supporting the hypothesis, again, participants primed with high power generated less prefactuals on the upcoming group assignment (M = 1.90, SD = 1.15) than participants primed with low power (M = 3.37, SD = 1.74), t(54) = 3.78, p < .001, d = 1.02, MD = 1.47, 95% CI = [0.69, 2.26].

As in Experiments 1 and 2, we explored whether this effect also holds for upward prefactuals. Power indeed diminished upward prefactual thoughts (M_{high power} = 1.45, SD = 1.27; M_{low power} = 2.26, SD = 1.66), t(54) = 2.07, p = .044, d = 0.56. Similarly, power reduced the total number of thoughts participants generated (M_{high power} = 3.31, SD = 1.89; M_{low power} = 4.41, SD = 2.12), t(54) = 2.05, p = .045, d = 0.56, but not the number of non-prefactual thoughts (M_{high power} = 1.41, SD = 1.64; M_{low power} = 1.04, SD = 1.06), t(54) = 1.02, p = .315, d = 0.27.

The results, again, rendered support for the hypothesis that high versus low power diminishes engagement in prefactual thought (but not non-prefactual thought). Experiment 2 replicated the findings with a well-established power priming, which was even more clearly unrelated to the situation participants generated prefactuals about. Again, this indicates that the subjective experience of power affected prefactual thinking. Importantly, the results minimized the possibility that, in the previous study, the effect of power might have been caused only by prefactual thought instructions: Even when no references to prefactual thinking were made, low power individuals engaged in more prefactual thought than high power individuals. To examine the potential limiting factors of these findings, Experiment 3 investigated a condition under which this effect of power on prefactual thought might disappear.

Experiment 3

Experiments 1 and 2 showed that power diminishes prefactual thought when such forethought is not required—that is, when prefactual thought is not likely to promote performance because of insufficient (task) knowledge or one does not expect to perform the task in the first place. Experiment 3 aimed to demonstrate that the powerful do not always think less ahead than the powerless, but generate as many prefactuals as the powerless when such thoughts are likely to be useful in an upcoming situation (due to their more flexible adaptation to the situation; for example, Gervais et al., 2013; Guinote, 2007c, 2008). Hence, we predicted that power-holders facing a task that is not likely to benefit from forethought would generate less prefactuals than power-holders facing a task for which prefactuals are likely beneficial and than low power individuals (independent of whether or not the subsequent task can benefit from prefactual thought). We again manipulated power and assessed prefactual thoughts on a task that, due to its structure, was either unlikely (see Experiment 1) or likely to benefit from prefactual thinking (cf. Morsella et al., 2010). The power manipulation and thought instructions followed Experiment 1, that is, the “standard” (more explicit) prefactual thinking instructions. As the effects for the less explicit prefactual thinking instructions in Experiment 2 were even stronger than in Experiment 1, one could even argue this to be the potentially more conservative test.

Method

Design and participants

One-hundred and four undergraduates participated in an experiment with a 2 (Power: low vs. high) × 2 (Task type: no benefit vs. benefit from prefactual thought) between-subjects design as part of a 1-hr study. Three participants were excluded due to strong suspicion about the purpose of the manipulation and hypotheses. A sample of 101 participants remained (62 female, 39 male, M_age = 24.92, range = 18-44).

Procedure

Participants were randomly assigned to conditions. The power manipulation followed the procedure from Experiment 1, up to the point where participants read that their partner was not yet available. They then completed an unrelated geographical knowledge study, including knowledge tests and letter speed counting. This part comprised the task type manipulation and prefactual thought measure.

Following a paradigm from Morsella et al. (2010), participants in the low power–no benefit and high power–no benefit conditions read that the first task required speed-counting letters of the names of states of the United States (e.g., WISCONSIN = 9, ALABAMA = 7). This type of task does not build on prior knowledge, but implies actions to be performed on-line as soon as the relevant objects (i.e., the names of the states) appear—thus, performance on this task cannot substantially benefit from forethought (Morsella et al., 2010). In contrast, the first task in the low power–benefit and high power–benefit conditions required participants to recall, to the best of their knowledge, the names of the states of the United States within a certain time. Note that this task does comprise retrieval of prior knowledge, that is, searching for the names stored in long-term memory, for which forethought is indeed beneficial (cf. Anderson, 1974; Morsella et al., 2010). Thus, participants in all conditions expected to solve a task on the same topic and of similar anticipated difficulty (cf. Morsella et al., 2010). Right before starting it, participants listed their prefactual thoughts on this first geography task following Experiments 1 and 2 (i.e., how they might approach the task and how their task performance might turn out differently than expected). Only after listing their thoughts and proceeding to the next page, they were told that these geography tasks would not actually take place.

Measures

The manipulation check items were the same as in Experiment 1, r(101) = .67, p < .001. The coding of participants’ thoughts for prefactuals (yes/no, upward/downward) followed the same procedure as before (e.g., prefactuals listed by participants: “Maybe I could count two letters in a row, then I might find the correct solution even faster,” “If I were to go from West to East, or from A to Z, then I might do better,” “If only I will manage to remember all the states I know, then I could perform better”; non-prefactuals that participants generated: “It has been a while since I learned these names,” “The USA do have a lot of states”; 84% interrater agreement rate; 25% of all thoughts were non-prefactuals).⁸ Again, the majority (81%) of all prefactuals were upward.

Results and Discussion

A contrast analysis (contrast: −1 −1 1 1) indicated that individuals in the low power–no benefit and low power–benefit conditions reported less power (M_{low power–no benefit} = 3.22, SD = 0.90; M_{low power–benefit} = 3.12, SD = 1.03) than participants in the high power–no benefit and high power–benefit conditions (M_{high power–no benefit} = 5.33, SD = 0.96; M_{high power–benefit} = 5.48, SD = 1.03), F(3, 97) = 43.58, p < .001. The manipulation of power thus appeared successful.

We predicted that high versus low power diminishes prefactual thinking when it is unlikely to be beneficial (replicating Experiments 1 and 2), but that there would be no difference between power conditions for prefactual thought if such thought is likely to be beneficial. Moreover, we expected the powerful to adapt their prefactual thinking according to task type, but did not expect such an adaptation for the powerless. In sum, we expected only the high power–no benefit condition to differ from the other three conditions (i.e., with participants in this condition generating less prefactuals than in the low power–no benefit, high power–benefit, and low power–benefit condition).

This prediction was tested with orthogonal contrast analyses. Following the procedure suggested by Abelson and Prentice (1997), we not only tested the predicted contrast (focal contrast: 1 –3 1 1, for the low power–no benefit, high power–no benefit, low power–benefit, and high power–benefit condition, respectively), we also included orthogonal contrasts capturing the other two degrees of freedom of the design in the analysis (first residual contrast: 2 0 –1 –1; second residual contrast: 0 0 –1 1). According to Abelson and Prentice (1997), this procedure allows for a focused test of the prediction (i.e., a significant focal contrast indicates that the results support the theorizing). In addition, it provides an indication of whether the hypothesis captures all systematic effects in the data (i.e., a non-significant amount of variance explained by the two residual contrasts indicates that the hypothesis is the most parsimonious description of the results; cf. Niedenthal, Brauer, Robin, & Innes-Ker, 2002).

Supporting our hypothesis, the focal contrast was significant, t(96) = 3.32, p = .001, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .10, whereas the first and second residual contrasts were not, both ts < 1, ps > .531, $η_{p}^{2}$ s < .01. High power–no benefit participants generated less prefactuals (M = 1.16, SD = 0.99) than participants in all other three conditions (ps < .03; M_{low power–no benefit} = 2.30, SD = 1.46; M_{high power–benefit} = 2.00, SD = 1.23; M_{low power–benefit} = 2.23, SD = 1.56), MD_{focal contrast} = 1.02, 95% CI = [0.41, 1.63], MD_{1.residual contrast} = 0.19, 95% CI = [−0.47, 0.85], MD_{2.residual contrast} = −0.23, 95% CI = [−0.96, 0.50] (see Figure 1).⁹

Figure 1.

Mean number of prefactual thoughts (error bars ± 1 standard error) as a function of condition in Experiment 3 (N = 101).

As in Experiments 1 and 2, we also performed additional analyses to check whether this pattern holds if just the more useful upward prefactuals are entered into the analysis. Again, only the focal contrast was significant, t(96) = 3.14, p = .002 (first and second contrasts: both ts < .41, ps > .689), indicating high power–no benefit participants also generated less upward prefactuals (M = 0.92, SD = 0.86) compared with all other conditions (all ps < .02; M_{low power–no benefit} = 1.83, SD = 1.27; M_{high power–benefit} = 1.69, SD = 1.19; M_{low power–benefit} = 1.73, SD = 1.22). Hence, high power individuals thought less about upcoming situations than low power individuals only when such prefactual thinking was not beneficial, whereas they engaged in as much thought as the powerless when it was likely to be beneficial for the upcoming task. This was also true in terms of the more useful upward prefactual thinking.

Moreover, we again examined whether the same pattern of power occurred for the total number of thoughts (i.e., again the sum of prefactual and non-prefactual thoughts) and the number of non-prefactual thoughts. For these additional analyses, we also used contrast analysis following the above described procedure (even though we did not have a specific prediction for these outcomes), because the standard omnibus tests are more conservative and would thus less likely detect unpredicted effects. Regarding the total number of thoughts, the focal contrast was significant, t(96) = 2.14, p = .035 (first and second contrasts: both ts < 1.61, ps > .11): similar to prefactual thoughts, high power–no benefit participants (M = 2.08, SD = 1.00) tended to generate less thoughts overall than participants in the other conditions (M_{low power–no benefit} = 2.74, SD = 1.54; M_{high power–benefit} = 2.42, SD = 1.30; M_{low power–benefit} = 3.00, SD = 1.30). Similar analyses for non-prefactual thoughts showed a trend for the focal contrast, t(96) = 1.91, p = .059 (first and second contrasts: both ts < 1.46, ps > .147); however, the pattern here pointed in the opposite direction than for prefactuals, upward prefactuals, and thoughts overall (i.e., with the high power–no benefit condition generating, descriptively, the most rather than the least non-prefactuals; M_{high power–no benefit} = 0.92, SD = 1.00; M_{low power–no benefit} = 0.43, SD = 0.73; M_{high power–benefit} = 0.42, SD = 0.64; M_{low power–benefit} = 0.77, SD = 0.99).

This pattern of results indicated that the effects of power and the type of task participants expected to solve were specific to prefactual thinking: Though power-holders also engaged in less overall thought than the powerless if such forethought was unlikely to be beneficial (i.e., on the speed-counting task), this pattern only occurred for (upward) prefactual thought, not for non-prefactual thought. Similarly, when being potentially beneficial (i.e., on the knowledge recall), power-holders and low power individuals engaged in a similar amount of thought overall and of (upward) prefactual thinking in particular—but not of non-prefactual thinking.

Taken together, Experiments 1, 2, and 3 thus consistently demonstrated that power usually reduces prefactual thinking before solving a task. Furthermore, Experiment 3 indicated that this is the case only when prefactual thought is unlikely (vs. likely) to guide performance in the upcoming situation.

General Discussion

The current research studied how power influences prefactual thinking. We expected that individuals high (vs. low) in power would think ahead less in terms of prefactual thought, except if such thinking would likely be beneficial for the upcoming task. Findings from three experiments supported this hypothesis. As major strengths, this set of studies included both thought listing as the most established measure (del Valle & Mateos, 2008; Sanna, 1996, 1998) and non-explicit instructions for prefactual thought (McConnell et al., 2000; McCrea & Flamm, 2012). We investigated the hypothesis across different task contexts, using power priming as well as an established power role assignment procedure to support the causality of the effects.

However, what exactly is the content of prefactual thoughts that individuals have in the context of power? As indicated in the additional analyses across Experiments 1 to 3, we also explored participants’ thoughts in more detail by coding the direction of thoughts. Across studies and conditions, prefactuals especially focused on potentials for improvement (i.e., were mostly upward). Previous research indicates that chronically expecting obstacles (i.e., being a defensive pessimist vs. an optimist) predicts upward prefactual thinking (del Valle & Mateos, 2008; Sanna, 1996). Recent findings on power suggest that power reduces the perception of obstacles (Whitson et al., 2013). Linking these two results to the present findings, power may reduce the perception of obstacles (see Whitson et al., 2013) and thereby also diminish thinking about these obstacles and how to overcome them (i.e., upward prefactual thought). However, as this was not our main focus, future research should follow up on this idea within richer contexts.

The results have implications for power research. Power promotes the use of heuristics (Fiske, 1993; Weick & Guinote, 2010) and approach-oriented, action-related behavior (Galinsky et al., 2003; Guinote, 2007b; Keltner et al., 2003). The present research is in line with this notion, but for the first time empirically tests how power affects (prefactual) forethought. Thereby, they contribute to our understanding of what those low versus high in power actually, more or less, do before initiating action. This propensity to act is often useful to seize good opportunities (cf. Galinsky et al., 2003; Gollwitzer, 1996; Guinote, 2007b) and the use of heuristics can save time and energy (Fiske, 1993). Thus, power-holders’ lowered engagement in prefactual thought is likely to promote performance in most situations.

These benefits notwithstanding, some situations do require forethought rather than taking a spontaneous or rushed step (cf. Anderson, 1974; Morsella et al., 2010). Power-holders appeared to better detect when prefactual thought could likely (not) be useful than the powerless, therefore adapting their engagement in prefactual thought to the situation at hand (see Experiment 3). Importantly, this finding adds to previous research that power promotes flexible behavior adaptation (Guinote, 2007c; Overbeck & Park, 2001; Smith & Galinsky, 2010). That is, it demonstrates that power-holders are not only more ready to spontaneously act than the powerless, but do engage in as much prefactual thought (“inaction”) when potentially useful. This extends previous research on the power–action link: at certain times, those high in power might no longer act more spontaneously than the powerless, but rather engage in forethought.

On the conceptual level, the findings suggest that though power-holders generally tend to rely on heuristic processes, they do not do so indiscriminately; rather, the powerful seem capable of discerning when to respond heuristically and when to respond more systematically, here in terms of prefactual thinking. In sum, the powerful better adapt to what is called for by the task at hand than the powerless.

In this regard, future research should investigate more extensively, for instance, under which specific cues the benefits of prefactual thoughts are (subjectively) likely. There is also some indication in the current data that such prefactual thought might be advantageous for later performance, namely that mainly upward prefactuals are generated (which are, at least for some individuals, beneficial for task performance; del Valle & Mateos, 2008; Sanna, 1996). Nonetheless, further studies should test such implications for subsequent performance more directly.

A remaining question is whether our effects are driven by high or low power (or both). Our findings from Experiment 3 indicate that the overall effect may be driven by low power: The powerless did not adapt their prefactuals to the situation, whereas those high in power showed a pattern one would normally expect (i.e., more prefactual thought when beneficial than when non-beneficial; cf. Morsella et al., 2010). Nonetheless, future research should include an adequate control condition (e.g., an equal power condition) to allow for more direct conclusions.

On a more abstract level, the results contribute to the upcoming trend in power research not to demonstrate mere main effects of power, but to rather start targeting moderators (e.g., Guinote et al., 2012). In the current case, like in the example of Guinote et al.’s work, such an advanced research question was originally developed out of theorizing predicting main effects of power—namely, that power promotes effective adaptation of behavior. The present research rendered empirical support for this idea by examining both conditions under which the “behavior” in question (here, prefactual thought) was likely to be more or less useful.

Following up on this idea, there might be conditions under which elevated power could even promote forethought—that is, when those high in power may actually think more than the powerless. This could be the case in situations explicitly calling for revised strategies (e.g., after prior failure; Epstude & Roese, 2008; Markman & McMullen, 2003) or signaling that the stakes are exceptionally high (cf. Scheepers, Ellemers, & Sassenberg, 2013). In contexts like these, when thinking ahead is crucial, power-holders may deliberate even more extensively on their actions than the powerless—for instance, to learn from their mistakes or to reach desired outcomes in an adequate, responsible manner. Indeed, recent evidence indicates that the impact of power on mental simulation (i.e., prefactual thought) reverses after failure: after failure, power-holders engage in even more counterfactual thought on how they could have improved an outcome than the powerless (Scholl & Sassenberg, 2014). More precisely, power especially altered whether thoughts focused on the self (rather than other circumstances) when investigated in an interactive context (e.g., when a powerful and powerless individual collaborated; cf. Scholl & Sassenberg, 2014). On the side of those lower in power, future research should explore if, even in hierarchical contexts, the powerless learn to reduce their forethought—for instance, closely collaborating in a team over a longer period of time may heighten their confidence regarding potential outcomes.

On a cautionary note, those high in power do not at all times seem to behave more effectively than the powerless (e.g., when disregarding others’ helpful advice due to overconfidence or underestimating the time to finish a task; Tost et al., 2012; Weick & Guinote, 2010). In such cases of overconfidence, the powerful (vs. powerless) may, on the one hand, overlook the need to think ahead. On the other hand, prefactual thoughts especially guide subsequent reactions when they have high potency (i.e., when individuals are confident that the imagined alternative will take place and lead to the desired outcome; Petrocelli et al., 2012). Hence, if overconfident power-holders engage in prefactual thought, they may believe their prefactuals to be especially potent and let these thoughts guide subsequent decision making (cf. Petrocelli et al., 2012). Hence, it is important to identify limiting conditions under which the powerful may also fail to engage in sufficient (realistic) forethought. Related to this idea, prefactual thought may constitute a way for the powerless to enhance predictability and restore some perceived control (see Sanna, 1996, for a similar argument for pessimists vs. optimists). Consequently, preventing prefactual thinking may have detrimental consequences especially for the powerless, outlining fruitful avenues for future research.

The present work also contributes to research on prefactual thinking. While previous findings demonstrated that engagement in prefactual thought affects anticipatory affect (McConnell et al., 2000; Sanna, 1996) and performance (del Valle & Mateos, 2008; Sanna, 1996, 1998), the preconditions of such thoughts remain largely unclear. In fact, prior research has mostly focused on stable predictors (e.g., del Valle & Mateos, 2008; Sanna, 1996, 1998). We argued and demonstrated that the amount to which individuals will engage in prefactual thought can also vary situationally. Prefactual thought not only depends on the likely benefits of these thoughts in the given situation, but also on the social power individuals experience in social context. The results thus demonstrate that even within one person, his/her engagement in prefactual thought may vary across social contexts.

Such effects might also apply to other aspects of the immediate context. Likely candidates in this respect are characteristics of the social context relating to perceived control or confidence, such as interdependence or up-/downward social comparisons. Research on prefactual thought, but also on counterfactual thinking, might benefit from considering these determinants, in the sense that a more socially grounded approach of mental simulation might evolve. Our research certainly only made a first step into that direction, but should inspire avenues for future research.

To conclude, thinking ahead about potential strategies to solve a task and the likely consequences is a common human tendency. This tendency is particularly common for individuals low rather than high in power. Put differently, in most situations, those low in power look before they leap and think twice before they act—even when such forethought may not be very beneficial for the upcoming situation. In contrast, the powerful seem to better adapt their level of forethought when it is likely (not) useful and, otherwise, focus more on taking the first step.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We thank Angelika Bertsche, Lea Ellinger, Lara Schuler, and Hannah Wolf for their support in data collection and coding, and Adam Fetterman for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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