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Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Advance Access published online on March 20, 2009
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, doi:10.1093/scan/nsp006
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© The Author (2009). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Social power and approach-related neural activity

Maarten A. S. Boksem, Ruud Smolders and David De Cremer

Department of Social Psychology, Tilburg University, P.O. Box 90153, 5000 LE, Tilburg, The Netherlands

It has been argued that power activates a general tendency to approach whereas powerlessness activates a tendency to inhibit. The assumption is that elevated power involves reward-rich environments, freedom and, as a consequence, triggers an approach-related motivational orientation and attention to rewards. In contrast, reduced power is associated with increased threat, punishment and social constraint and thereby activates inhibition-related motivation. Moreover, approach motivation has been found to be associated with increased relative left-sided frontal brain activity, while withdrawal motivation has been associated with increased right sided activations. We measured EEG activity while subjects engaged in a task priming either high or low social power. Results show that high social power is indeed associated with greater left-frontal brain activity compared to low social power, providing the first neural evidence for the theory that high power is associated with approach-related motivation. We propose a framework accounting for differences in both approach motivation and goal-directed behaviour associated with different levels of power.

Keywords: power; EEG; asymmetry; approach; inhibition

Correspondence should be addressed to Maarten A. S. Boksem, P.O. Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands. Email: maarten{at}boksem.nl

Received September 23, 2008. Accepted December 31, 2008.


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