In the present article, we investigate how a person’s power affects the way we infer traits from their behavior. In Experiment 1, our results suggest that, when faced with behavioral descriptions about others, participants infer both positive and negative traits about powerless actors, whereas for powerful and control (power irrelevant) actors, only positive but no negative traits are inferred, an effect we call the benevolence bias. In the second experiment, (a) we replicate this effect, (b) we show that it does not depend on the specific traits used in Experiment 1, and (c) we show that it is also detected when an implicit measure of inferences is used. Experiment 3 further shows that this effect generalizes to a more generic power manipulation. Theoretical explanations for these findings are discussed.
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