Never Too Young for Power: Effects of Social Power on Cognitive Processing and Social Competence in Preschoolers

Are we ever too young for power? Social hierarchies begin to form as children attend preschool and increasingly interact with peers; a time of rapid biological, cognitive and social development.

This thesis investigated the effects of social power – a ubiquitous element in social interactions – on cognition and social skills, specifically:

1. attention-executive functions (inhibition)
2. socio-emotional cognition (moral reasoning)
3. social skills (helping)

Based on the socio-cognitive integration of abilities model (SOCIAL, Beauchamp & Anderson, 2010).

Social power is defined as the ability to influence others (French & Raven, 1959) and access and control resources (Galinsky, Gruenfeld & Magee, 2003).

The Review Paper systematically examined the relationship between social power and cognitive functions in children.

Positive correlations were noted between morality and social power in older children. In preschoolers, moral rule cognitions and selective moral engagement correlated positively while internalised conscience correlated negatively with social power.

A tentative link with perspective-taking was found. A small tendency for power to decrease inhibition ability but increase persistence was noted.

The empirical study involved two conditions and employed a quasi-experimental design which resulted in two groups that changed power (loss or gain from T1 to T2) and two groups that maintained the same power position (high or low) at both T1 and T2.

Social power was studied both naturalistically (arising from trait dominance at T1) and quasi-experimentally (T2 manipulation).

Results suggested that high social power affects inhibitory control differentially: it decreases prepotent response inhibition but increases resistance to distractor inhibition.

Moral reasoning showed little variability, except for moral cognitions which increased with power loss.

Both intrinsic power and changes in power suggested that low power increases helping.