Social and Personal Power: A Closer Examination: An Invited Commentary to Mayiwar and Lai (2019)

We thank Mayiwar and Lai (2019) for conducting a replication of Study 1 in Lammers, Stoker, and Stapel (2009) but disagree with their conclusions. Instead, we conclude that their results largely support ours. The results replicate the theoretical distinction between social and personal power, replicate that recalling social versus personal power produces dissimilar levels of stereotyping, and replicate that they produce similar levels of behavioral approach orientation. We discuss the weaker results on stereotyping as the result of the use of an unreliable measure and conclude that despite this, the data are consistent with the possibility of medium-sized effects. We discuss the null-effects on behavioral approach (compared to control) as the result of a change in instructions. We end with a discussion on the implications for the social-personal power distinction and the power literature in general, with a particular focus on how future replication efforts may provide even greater insight.