Awareness of Power as a Moderator of Expectancy Confirmation: Who's the Boss Around Here?

Perceiver and target awareness of perceiver power were manipulated orthogonally to examine their roles as potential moderators of expectancy confirmation. Perceivers were given an expectancy manipulation that their partners in an upcoming interaction were either high or low in creativity. In addition, perceivers were either told or not told that they were assigned to role-play the boss in this interaction; targets' beliefs that the perceiver would be the boss were also orthogonally manipulated. Analyses indicated that perceiver awareness of power was a more important predictor of expectancy confirmation than was target awareness of perceiver power. Implications for understanding the dynamics underlying power relations are discussed.