UC Berkeley

Recent research indicates that power breeds authenticity, suggesting that people associate power with behaving authentically. Extending this notion, we hypothesized that the converse is also true—that the experience of authenticity enhances power. Five experiments (total N = 703) yielded support for this hypothesis. Specifically, participants who recalled an authentic, versus inauthentic, experience reported greater state power (Studies 1-3). Studies 2 and 3 showed further that this authenticity-to-power link was mediated by a reduced fear of rejection for expressing one’s true self. Fear of rejection was manipulated in Study 4 to document the causal impact of a reduced fear of rejection on feelings of power. Finally, Study 5 extended the prior studies into the realm of social perception, demonstrating that people infer others’ power from their acts of authenticity. Our findings could not be explained by pre-existing power differences that may have led to the authentic or inauthentic behavior in the first place (Studies 1, 2, & 5), nor by authenticity eliciting positive affect (Studies 3 & 5). Implications for the maintenance of power hierarchies, and the use of authenticity as a strategic means through which power can be obtained, are discussed.