STATUS, POWER, AND ACCOUNTS

We report the results of three experiments studying the effects of sta tus, power; and validity of justifications on the propriety of acts by an actor who violated expectations, with untoward consequences for an other In the first experiment we varied status and the validity of ju stifications for violating expectations; we found that propriety was p roportional to validity and status interacted with validity. Status wa s an advantage when justifications were unambiguously valid, and even more so when they were ambiguously valid but a liability when they wer e unambiguously invalid. In the second experiment we varied power, and found that it strongly affected public but not private acceptance of invalid justifications. In the third experiment we also studied accept ance of invalid justifications, varying both status and power We found that status legitimated power giving high status and high power an ef fect on private acceptance of justifications that power lacked without status.