Running head: EFFECTS OF ACHIEVEMENT VS.

FAILURES ON FEELINGS OF POWER

1

Effects of Recalling Achievement vs. Failures on Feelings of Power

Helen Yang

University of Michigan

Keywords:​ achievement, power, recall, failure

RECALLING ACHIEVEMENTS AFFECTS POWER 2

Introduction

We hypothesized that asking participants to recall recent accomplishments instead of

recent failures would have a greater positive effect on the participant’s feeling of power. Recent

accomplishments may increase the individual’s current feeling of competence, which is similar

to and overlaps with feelings of power. This study on factors that affect power is partially based

on Carney, Cuddy, & Yap’s (2010) study, which measured the effects of high-power and

low-power nonverbal displays on increased feelings of power. Participants were provided with a

cover story and distractor tasks while they completed a survey, which prompted them to recall

recent accomplishments and failures, then asked them to indicate how powerful they felt.

Method

Design

This between-participants experiment was based off of Carney et al.’s (2010) study and

measured the same dependent variable, feelings of power. The dependent variable in this

experiment was measured with the two same scales used by Carney et al. (2010), which asked

participants to indicate how “powerful” and “in charge” they felt. However, instead of high or

low-power poses, the independent variable was the type of recent life events participants were

prompted to recall (Carney et al., 2010). Recalled recent life events had two levels:

accomplishments and failures. We hypothesized that participants asked to recall recent

accomplishments instead of failures would indicate higher feelings of power on the provided

scales. Recalling recent accomplishments should promote feelings of competence, which are

similar to and overlap with feelings of power.

RECALLING ACHIEVEMENTS AFFECTS POWER 3

Participants

Eighty-four participants participated in the study.​ ​The participant ages ranged from 18 to

23 (​M​ = 20.06, ​SD​ = 0.96). In terms of gender-identity, 54 (64.3%) participants were female, 29

(34.5%) were male, and 1 (1.2%) were non-binary. Fourteen (16.67%) of the participants were

Asian, 60 (71.43%) were White/Caucasian, and 10 (11.9%) were Other/Unknown.

All participants were undergraduates and chosen via convenience sampling. The

researchers individually conducted the experiment on four participants each. Participants were

not compensated for participating in the study.

Materials

Participants completed a survey that differed in one question based on which condition

they were assigned. This survey was administered in person using computers and Google Forms

to collect data. Participants were asked to recall accomplishments (condition 1) or failures

(condition 2). Participants in both conditions then indicated how “powerful” and “in charge” they

felt on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 4 (a lot) (Carney et al., 2010).​ ​Each participant’s overall power

feeling was calculated by averaging the participant’s responses to the “powerful” scale and “in

charge” scale.

Procedure

Participants were told they were taking a survey intended to gauge the interests and life

of University of Michigan students.​ ​Of the four participants tested by each researcher, two were

assigned to condition 1 and two were assigned to condition 2. Assignment was done randomly by

flipping a coin to decide the condition of the first participant (heads is 1, tails is 2), then

alternated back and forth between conditions for later participants. After the researcher assigned
RECALLING ACHIEVEMENTS AFFECTS POWER 4

conditions, participants were given the survey, which differed in the first prompt based on which

condition they were assigned. In condition 1 participants were first prompted with: “List 3 things

you have accomplished in the past 6 months.” In condition 2, participants were first prompted

with: “List 3 things you have failed at in the past 6 months.” Participants were then given

distractor tasks that supported the cover story, such as answering “what’s your major?” and

“what’s your favorite sport?” After distractor tasks, participants responded to the “powerful” and

“in charge” scales. At the end of the survey, participants answered demographic questions. Every

participant received the survey with questions in the same order.

Participants were given a cover story. At the start of the survey, they were told through

text that they were taking a survey intended to gauge the interests and life of University of

Michigan students. This cover story was given at the beginning to prevent participants from

inferring what relationship the researchers were trying to study. If participants were able to infer

what relationship was being studied, they may have responded differently than if they were

unaware, due to incentives like social desirability and demand characteristics. Immediately after

participants were prompted to recall accomplishments or failures and before they were asked to

rate their power feelings, distractor tasks were given that corresponded with the cover story. This

placement of distractor tasks in the survey order further prevent participants from inferring the

relationship being studied. Obviously, the recall task was given before the power scales, as for a

causal effect to be established, the independent variable must occur first in time.

Results

In order to compare power feelings between participants who recalled accomplishments

or failure, a 2 sample t-test was conducted. There was a significant difference between groups
RECALLING ACHIEVEMENTS AFFECTS POWER 5

(​t(​ 82) = 2.03, ​p​ = .045)​ ​such that feeling of power for participants who recalled accomplishment

(Group 1 ​M​ = 2.90 ​SD​ = 0.63) was rated 0.29 higher than that of participants who recalled failure

(Group 2 ​M​ = 2.61, ​SD​ = 0.66). Thus, participants who recalled achievements showed a

statistically significant difference in feelings of power from those who recalled failures.

Discussion

An analysis of the data suggests that asking participants to recall recent accomplishments

instead of recent failures has a greater positive effect on the participant’s feeling of power. These

findings support the predicted hypothesis.

Similarly, Carney et al.’s (2010) study found that high-power posers reported feeling

significantly more “powerful” and “in charge” (​M​ = 2.57, ​SD​ = 0.81) than low-power posers did

(​M​ = 1.83, ​SD​ = 0.81). While recalling achievement and nonverbal high-power posing both

appear to positively affect reported feelings of power, Carney et al. (2010) found a difference of

0.74 in power ratings, compared to our 0.29 difference. This more pronounced difference may be

attributed to a number of factors. Carney et al. (2010) ensured that the high or low-power poses

assigned to participants were very similar by lightly touching participants’ bodies and using

verbal cues to manipulate them into the correct poses. Participants were also asked to rate the

power level of the poses they held, and consistently rated high-power poses as significantly

higher than low-power poses. Both high and low-power poses also had no differences in comfort,

difficulty, or painfulness. In comparison, this study asked participants to recall recent life events,

a more subjective and non-physical task (Carney et al., 2010). Participants thus may have had

greater variation in how vividly or how accurately they were able to recall recent

accomplishments or failures. If this study is repeated, this variability should be reduced by

RECALLING ACHIEVEMENTS AFFECTS POWER 6

coding open-ended responses to determine if participants were able to accurately recall events

that could be clearly classified as accomplishments or failures.

This study had several additional limitations. Firstly, each researcher in this study

conducted the experiment remotely on four participants, which meant that there was high

variability between the environments in which the experiment was conducted, decreasing the

experiment’s internal validity. Due to the lack of a professional lab setting or other external

factors, some participants failed to demonstrate sufficient reflection on past life events; for

example, a one-word answer such as “interviews” does not provide strong evidence of reflection.

Another limitation is that participants may have suspected the hypothesis, perhaps from

experimenter cues, and responded accordingly. Finally, participants were asked how “powerful”

and “in charge” they felt, but the terms “powerful” and “in charge” were not clearly defined.

Variations in participants’ definitions of the terms may have contributed to further inaccuracy in

measuring feelings of power.

The findings from this experiment can be applied in scenarios where higher feelings of

power are beneficial by using questions such as the one posed by experimenters to invoke a

feeling of high achievement in participants. Additionally, while Carney et al.’s (2010) study

observed physical causes of increased feelings of power, it should be noted that mental causes of

increased feelings of power such as recalling recent achievements may be easier to implement as

they require less direct manipulation of participants. This study did not address other possible

confounding or third variables that may have been present, such as time of day and environment.

Future studies should be conducted with external factors like these taken into account, and

should also explore other non-physical variables that may cause higher feelings of power.
RECALLING ACHIEVEMENTS AFFECTS POWER 7

References

Carney, D. R., Cuddy, A. J., & Yap, A. J. (2010). Power posing: Brief nonverbal displays affect

neuroendocrine levels and risk tolerance. ​Psychological Science,​ 21(10), 1363-1368.

doi:10.1177/0956797610383437
RECALLING ACHIEVEMENTS AFFECTS POWER 8

​ omparison of feeling of power between participants asked to recall accomplishment

Figure 1. C

or failure, based on results from an experiment conducted on University of Michigan

undergraduate students (2018).

RECALLING ACHIEVEMENTS AFFECTS POWER 9

Appendix

Survey Used in the Research

This survey is intended to gauge the interests and life of University of Michigan students.

For condition 1, question 1 was the following.

1. List 3 things you have accomplished in the past 6 months

For condition 2, question 1 was the following.

1. List 3 things you have failed at in the past 6 months

2. What's your favorite sport?

3. What's your favorite music genre?

4. What's your major?

For questions 5 and 6, use the following scale.

Not at all 1 2 3 4 A lot

5. How powerful do you feel?

6. How much do you feel "in charge?"

The following questions are demographic questions.

7. Age

8. Gender

○ Female

○ Male

○ Non-binary
RECALLING ACHIEVEMENTS AFFECTS POWER
10

○ Gender-Queer

○ Prefer not to say

○ Other

9. Year in School

○ Freshman

○ Sophomore

○ Junior

○ Senior

10. Race

○ American Indian/Alaska Native

○ Asian

○ Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander

○ Black or African American

○ White/Caucasian

○ Other/Unknown