When You Can't Get Power off Your Mind: The Countervailing Effects of Workplace Power on At‐Home Rumination

Abstract

Previous research has generally taken a fragmented approach to understanding the outcomes of psychological power for powerholders. Specifically, psychological power has been predominantly linked to either positive or negative outcomes for powerholders, underscoring the need for a unified framework that captures its simultaneous beneficial as well as detrimental effects. Accordingly, we integrate the approach‐inhibition theory of power with the goal progress theory of rumination to better understand the complex effects that psychological power has on powerholders at work and at home. Our framework identifies state competitiveness as a key mechanism via which psychological power may manifest in both adaptive (goal progress) and maladaptive (bottom‐line pursuit) goal pursuit at work that subsequently impact rumination at home. To test this framework, we conducted two experience sampling studies—a field study in which we experimentally induced a mindset of power and a replication study in which we observed naturally occurring levels of power at work. As expected, across both studies, we found that psychological power was associated with increased goal progress as well as bottom‐line pursuit via state competitiveness at work. We also found some evidence that these associations depended on powerholders’ level of self‐monitoring. Furthermore, psychological power had both positive and negative indirect effects on powerholders’ rumination at home, via state competitiveness, goal progress, and bottom‐line pursuit. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.