How power shapes judgments of culpability: Shield or liability?

Abstract

Powerholders can be the object of great respect and admiration, but they may also be distrusted and "canceled" in the court of public opinion. This raises the question of whether power is an asset or a detriment when one is implicated in wrongdoing. Different theoretical perspectives informed competing hypotheses, suggesting power may either decrease (shielding hypothesis) or increase (liability hypothesis) judgments of culpability. Here, we report four main studies and 10 supplemental studies that addressed this conundrum, using diverse transgressions, methods, and samples. In Study 1, participants judged higher power individuals to be likelier sources of deceitful die-rolling reports than lower power individuals, and they trusted them less in an incentivized behavioral trust game. In Study 2, participants rated higher power people as more probable perpetrators of financial fraud than lower power people, and this effect was mediated by perceived impunity (i.e., powerholders seemingly believing they can get away with anything). Study 3 was an archival study of 97,628 forum posts about diverse transgressions where there was ambiguity about who was the culprit, and users rendered judgments. We found that higher power posters were about twice as likely to be deemed guilty than lower power posters. Finally, Study 4 excluded generic power saliency as an alternative explanation and replicated the mediation via perceived impunity. These findings indicate that, besides many perks, power comes with perils in the form of ascribed culpability. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).