Hierarchy is such a defining feature of organizations that its forms and basic functions are often taken for granted in organizational research. In this chapter, we revisit some basic sociological and psychological elements of hierarchy to explain why hierarchy is so pervasive across groups and...

Individuals often honor their own sunk costs, increasing their commitment to failing courses of action, from financial investments to wars. Because honoring sunk costs is driven by self justification processes, a widely offered prescription for preventing escalation of commitment is to have a...

A large body of research suggests that many high-stakes decisions made by powerful organizational actors are plagued by overconfidence (Hayward & Hanbrick, 1997; Zajac & Bazerman, 1991). Extant research on power has demonstrated that the sense of power has wide-ranging psychological consequences...

Galinsky, Ku, & Wang (2005) discuss the implications of perspective-taking induced self-other overlap for stereotyping and prejudice and suggested that whereas perspective-taking decreases stereotyping of others (through application of the self to the other), it increases stereotypicality of...