What does it take to gain and maintain power? Aristotle believed that power was afforded to individuals that acted in virtuous ways that promote the greater good. Machiavelli, nearly 2,000 years later, argued to great effect that power could be taken through the use of manipulation, coercion, and strategic violence. With these historical perspectives as a conceptual foundation, we validate a 2-factor measure of theories of power (TOPS; Study 1), which captures lay theories of how power is gained and maintained among family members, at work, and in international politics (Study 2). We differentiate TOPS from other established measures of power, highlighting that these beliefs about power are conceptually distinct from widely used measures of dominance and prestige, and uniquely predict social outcomes. Turning to social class, we find that participants who make upward social comparisons perceive themselves to be of lower class and endorse less collaborative and more coercive theories of power, relative to those who make downward comparisons and report themselves to be higher in the class hierarchy (Studies 3a and 3b). Building upon these findings, we identify theory of power endorsement as a correlate of interpersonal trust, and a mediator of how lower class individuals, who endorse less collaborative views of power, report less trust of institutions and individuals (Study 4). Theories of power provide a novel construct for understanding power dynamics at multiple levels of analysis. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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权力理论：获得和维持权力的感知策略。

获得和维持权力需要什么？亚里士多德认为，以促进更大利益的美德方式行事的个人获得了权力。将近 2,000 年后，马基雅维利（Machiavelli）有力地论证了可以通过使用操纵、胁迫和战略暴力来获取权力。以这些历史观点为概念基础，我们验证了权力理论的 2 因素衡量标准（TOPS；研究 1），它捕捉了关于权力如何在家庭成员、工作和国际政治中获得和维持的非专业理论（研究 2)。我们将 TOPS 与其他既定的权力衡量标准区分开来，强调这些关于权力的信念在概念上与广泛使用的支配地位和声望衡量标准不同，并且可以独特地预测社会结果。转向社会阶层，我们发现，与那些进行向下比较并报告自己在阶级等级中较高的参与者相比，进行向上社会比较的参与者认为自己属于下层阶级，并认可较少合作和更具强制性的权力理论（研究 3a 和 3b） . 在这些发现的基础上，我们将权力认可理论确定为与人际信任相关的因素，以及支持较少合作的权力观点的下层个人如何报告对机构和个人的信任较少的中介（研究 4）。权力理论为在多个分析层次上理解权力动态提供了一种新颖的结构。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2020 APA，保留所有权利）。