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“It doesn’t matter if you are in charge of the trees, you always miss the trees for the forest”: Power and the illusion of explanatory depth

Körner, Robert, Schütz, Astrid, Petersen, Lars-Eric·2024·PLOS ONE
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0297850PMC PMC11020624
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Abstract

Power can increase overconfidence and illusory thinking. We investigated whether power is also related to the illusion of explanatory depth (IOED), people’s tendency to think they understand the world in more detail, coherence, and depth than they actually do. Abstract thinking was reported as a reason for the IOED, and according to the social distance theory of power, power increases abstract thinking. We linked these literatures and tested construal style as a mediator. Further, predispositions can moderate effects of power and we considered narcissism as a candidate because narcissism leads to overconfidence and may thus increase the IOED especially in combination with high power. In three preregistered studies (total N = 607), we manipulated power or measured feelings of power. We found evidence for the IOED (regarding explanatory knowledge about devices). Power led to general overconfidence but had only a small impact on the IOED. Power and narcissism had a small interactive effect on the IOED. Meta-analytical techniques suggest that previous findings on the construal-style-IOED link show only weak evidential value. Implications refer to research on management, power, and overconfidence.

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  • For studying between-subjects effects in the IOED paradigm, a total of 62 participants, or about 31 per group (for two groups), is sufficient for power 0.8.

    “we relied on the calculation by Körner et al. (2024), who, after reviewing a set of previously published IOED experiments, concluded that for studying betweensubjects effects in the IOED paradigm, a total of 62 participants, or about 31 per group (for two groups), is sufficient for power 0.8.”

    From Overconfidence without Understanding: AI Explanations Increase the Illusion of Explanatory Depth (2025) · cites this paper as Körner et al. (2024)

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Metadata

Authors
Körner, R., Schütz, A., & Petersen, L.-E.
ORCID
Venue
PLOS ONE
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Published
2024-04-16
Volume
19
Issue
4
Pages
e0297850
ISSN
1932-6203
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0297850
PMC
PMC11020624
Cited by
0
References
9
Language
en
Licence
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (vor)

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