Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 48 (2012) 329–334

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The powerful disregard social comparison information Camille S. Johnson a,⁎, 1, Joris Lammers b,⁎, 1 a b

College of Business, San Jose State University, One Washington Square, San Jose, California 95192-0070, United States Tilburg Institute for Behavioral Economics Research (TIBER), School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Tilburg University, Warandelaan 2, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 25 February 2011 Revised 14 September 2011 Available online 19 October 2011 Keywords: Power Social comparison Self-evaluations

a b s t r a c t Social comparisons are important because other people can serve as benchmarks to determine one's own capabilities and act as sources for inspiration. Despite this, people do not always fully utilize social comparison information. The present paper demonstrates that feelings of power may reduce use of social comparison information. In three experiments, participants were first induced to feel high or low in power, or were in a control condition. Then, they were exposed to either upward or downward comparison targets. In all three experiments, low power participants responded to targets with contrast or assimilation, whereas high power participants did not. This has important implications for our understanding of how people's positions in the social and organizational hierarchies affect their basic psychological functioning. © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Comparisons with similar others provide essential information for making judgments of one's standing and abilities (Festinger, 1954) and are important in guiding people toward making the right decisions and pursuing the right plans. In these ways, accurate and unbiased interpretations of social comparison information, particularly within goal-related domains, may be functional and adaptive (Wood, 1989). Despite their value to the individual, we propose that people are not always inclined to integrate social comparison information into their self views. In particular, we point to one important social variable that can impede the use of social comparison information: power. Power interferes with social comparison processes Power is often defined as the ability to exercise influence over others (Cartwright, 1959; Weber, 1914/1978) or as an ability to control resources, own and others’ (Emerson, 1962; Kipnis, 1976; Thibaut & Kelley, 1959). People who have power can do what they want, carry out their wishes, and overcome the restraints placed on them by others (Weber, 1914/1978). But power also has a second important effect at the individual level: The experience of power psychologically transforms people and changes individuals’ psychological state. People who feel powerful think differently about the world and

⁎ Corresponding authors. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (C.S. Johnson), [email protected] (J. Lammers). 1 Camille Johnson and Joris Lammers contributed equally to this project. All data were collected under the direct supervision of the authors or by the authors, personally. 0022-1031/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2011.10.010

their relation to it than do people who do not feel powerful (Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003; Kipnis, 1976). In the current paper, we argue that the psychological state that accompanies the experience of power interferes with responses to social comparison information. Specifically, we argue that because the self-concepts of high power people are less susceptible to external influence, people high in power are less affected by social comparison information. This hypothesis is based on two different observations. The first is that social comparison processes are more effective when people are open to such social information, in the sense that their self-concept is sensitive to such information, malleable and not rigid. The second is that power makes the individual inattentive and closed to social information. By combining these two observations, we propose that power also closes individuals to social comparison information, making it less likely that they are affected by such information when it is presented to them. We further explain these two observations below. The first observation, that social comparison is most effective and influential when individuals are open to comparison information is based on a variety of findings. Greater openness occurs when individuals are experiencing uncertainty, either due to dispositional or situational characteristics (Gibbons & Buunk, 1999). For example, individuals low in self-consistency are more affected by social comparisons than those high in self-consistency (Morse & Gergen, 1970), and those low in self-esteem or in a new situation are more likely to seek out and use social comparison information (Buunk, Zurriaga, Gonzalez-Roma, & Subirats, 2003). In addition, preferences for and seeking of social comparison information is associated with interpersonal orientation (Buunk & Gibbons, 2006; with an interest in others, and a tendency to be influenced by others (Swap & Rubin, 1983). Thus, people are most likely to attend to and integrate social

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comparison information into their self-concepts when they are open to external information, either due to dispositional or situational characteristics such as uncertainty or an orientation towards others. The second observation, that the experience of power makes people closed and inattentive to social information, is similarly based on a broad literature. Due to a very basic effect of power that leads people to be more certain about their own perspectives, the powerful adhere strongly to their own perspectives and fail to acknowledge alternative perspectives (Galinsky, Magee, Inesi, & Gruenfeld, 2006). As a result, the experience of power closes people to the opinion of others and leads them to adhere more strongly to their own, pre-existing opinions (Galinsky, Magee, Gruenfeld, Whitson, & Liljenquist, 2008; Overbeck, Tiedens, & Brion, 2006). The consequences of being closed to external information can be observed in a variety of domains. For example, in romantic relationships, partners with greater power tend to keep their original social identities and resist the identities that their spouses would otherwise impose on them (Cast, 2003). In intergroup relations, the powerful are less attentive to social information from other groups and are closed to information how others may see their identity (Lammers, Gordijn, & Otten, 2008). In moral settings, the powerful reveal their inattention to social information by violating moral standards, of which they are normally aware (Lammers, Stapel, & Galinsky, 2010). In addition, the powerful are less inclined to update their knowledge with social information provided by others (Briñol, Petty, Valle, Rucker, & Becerra, 2007) and may disregard social information and follow their own plans in the face of social cues that they should abandon those plans (Anderson & Galinsky, 2006; Galinsky, Gruenfeld, & Magee, 2003) As a result of all these effects, the power have more stable and unchanging self-concepts over time (Kraus, Chen, & Keltner, 2011; Visser & Krosnick, 1998). In summary, integration of social comparison information into the self-concept requires a certain level of openness to social information, but power closes individuals to that information. Together, these two tendencies suggest that the powerful are less likely to use social comparison information (Butzer & Kuiper, 2006). The current research explores this previously uninvestigated link between power and use of social comparison information. A basic effect People can respond to social comparisons in two opposing ways. First, they can assimilate to targets: their self-concepts can shift in the direction of the comparison partner. Conversely, they can contrast with targets: their self-concepts can move away from the comparison partner. A variety of situations that lead to contrast and assimilation effects have been identified (Mussweiler, 2003). For example, people usually assimilate their self-concepts towards to targets that are moderately more or less successful, whereas they contrast their selfconcepts away from more extreme targets (Lockwood & Kunda, 1997). One could speculate that power would affect responses to comparisons in self-benefitting ways. For example, power could increase happiness, pride, or self-esteem, which would make people prefer or respond to comparison information in ways that maintain positive selfevaluations. If this were the case, then the powerful would assimilate to upward (but not downward) comparison targets and contrast to downward (but not upward) comparison targets. Alternatively, one could speculate that power would influence responses to upward and downward comparisons in a similar way. For example, given that power is associated with increased social distance toward others (Lammers, Galinsky, Gordijn, & Otten, in press), it could be that high-power participants treat all targets as distant from the self, leading to greater contrast effects. However, given that power blocks people's attention to social information at a basic, general level, we argue that power blocks attention to all types of social comparison information. That is, we expect that power leads people to ignore and fail to integrate both upward and

downward comparison information into the self-concept, independent of the possible benefits or costs involved with that comparison. Thus, we argue that the powerful are not biased or selective in their processing of social comparison information, but simply fail to attend to it and therefore fail to integrate the information into their self-concepts. Overview of studies To summarize, we expect that the experience of power decreases all responses to social comparison information. Preliminary evidence for this was found in a pilot study conducted among 130 high- and low-power members of three organizations (an express mail service, local police, a military organization) in which we measured respondents’ levels of power (operationalized as number of subordinates) and chronic tendency to engage in social comparison, using the Iowa–Netherlands Social Comparison Orientation scale (Gibbons & Buunk, 1999) and found a significant negative correlation between the two, Pearson r = −0.28, p = b0.001. To test our predictions in a more controlled manner, we conducted three experiments in which power mindset was manipulated by priming high or low power. Such manipulations have been shown to reliably induce a feeling of power or powerlessness, have similar effects as real, existing differences in power, such as those measured in organizations (Lammers, Stoker, & Stapel, 2010), and allow for controlled examination of the effects of power on responses to stimuli. In the first two studies, we aimed to show that power blocks all forms of social comparison, independent of whether they are assimilative or contrastive. Specifically, in Study 1, participants viewed targets that typically lead to assimilation effects (moderately more or less successful targets). In Study 2, participants viewed targets that typically lead to contrast effects (younger or unattainable comparison targets, Lockwood & Kunda, 1997). Together, Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that the experience of power leads to disregard of all comparison information, regardless of whether the expected response would be to contrast self-evaluations with the target or to integrate target characteristics into the self. In Study 3 we departed from previous studies by inducing a sense of power outside of conscious awareness, to exclude the remote possibility of demand characteristics. In addition, Study 3 included a control condition in order to show that the effects of power on social comparison processes result from the powerful not responding to comparison information, rather than the powerless being more sensitive to such information. Study 1 In Study 1, we first induced a sense of power. Next, we presented participants with a comparison target, a moderately more or less successful student from the same university. We expected that lowpower participants who compared themselves with a moderately better student would feel better about themselves than low power participants who compared themselves with a moderately worse student. However, we expected that power would block these effects and that this difference would be absent among high-power participants. Method Participants One hundred and nine (48 female, 61 male) business students at an American university participated for course credit. Their average age was 24 years. The design of the experiment was a 2 (power: high vs. low) × 2 (social comparison target: upward vs. downward) between-subjects design. Procedure Participants were recruited to participate in several unrelated online studies. The first study was described as an examination of

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employee experiences and included the power prime that was based on the experience of power by Galinsky et al. (2003). Specifically, in the high-power condition, participants were asked to recall a time in which they had power over another individual. In the low-power condition, participants were asked to recall a time in which another person had power over them. In both conditions, participants were asked to describe the situation in writing and then were asked to give four thoughts about that situation. After completing the power prime, participants were asked to read a profile of a recent university graduate from the career services office. This story included the manipulation of a comparison target. In the upward comparison condition the story detailed the experiences of a successful university student and in the downward comparison condition the story detailed the experiences of an unsuccessful student. After reading the story, participants rated themselves on six traits (bright, competent, good-student, hard-working, likeable, and successful) on 5 point scales (1 = not at all and 5 = extremely descriptive). These were averaged, creating an index of positive selfevaluations (Cronbach's alpha = 0.65). Finally, participants were debriefed regarding the hypotheses. Results and discussion To test our hypothesis that there would be a significant assimilation effect among low-power participants but no effect among highpower participants, we conducted a 2(power: high vs. low power) × 2(target of comparison: upward vs. downward) ANOVA on participant self-ratings. As expected, no main effects emerged as significant and only the interaction effect of power and direction significantly influenced self-ratings, F(1, 104) = 4.45, p = 0.037, η² = 0.04. Planned comparison tests revealed that participants in the low power condition assimilated to the comparison targets. Among these low power participants, those exposed to the upward comparison target reported more positive self-evaluations (M = 4.02, SD = 0.41) than those exposed to the downward comparison target (M = 3.67, SD = 0.47), F(1,106) = 8.94, p = 0.003. However, among the participants in the high power condition, target of comparison had no significant effect, F(1, 106) = 0.01, p > 0.9). The reported selfevaluations of participants exposed to the upward comparison partners (M = 3.88, SD= 0.44) did not differ from those of participants exposed to the downward comparison partners (M = 3.89, SD= 0.45). Additional analyses revealed that this effect was not moderated by gender. There was no main effect of gender, F b 0.1, p > 0.9. Also, the critical two-way interaction effect between power and direction of comparison was not moderated by gender, F(1,106) = 1.5, p b 0.23. Study 1 demonstrated that the powerful do not respond to social comparison information. When low-power participants were presented with comparison targets, they integrated comparison information into their self-concepts through assimilation processes. However, when high-power individuals were presented with comparison targets, they showed no response and their self-concepts remained unaffected. Study 2 Study 1 provides initial support for our hypotheses, but only demonstrates that power blocks assimilative social comparison processes. It could be that people high in power still use information about others as benchmarks or standards of comparison and show contrast effects. Therefore, in Study 2 we used the same procedure as Study 1, but presented participants with a social comparison target that was extreme and similar in age, and therefore likely to elicit a contrast effect as opposed to an assimilation effect (Lockwood & Kunda, 1997).

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Method Participants Seventy-eight participants (40 male, 37 female, 1 unknown), all masters students at a Dutch university, participated for course credit. Their average age was 22 years. The design of the experiment was 2 (power: high vs. low) × 2 (social comparison target: upward vs. downward) between-subjects design. Procedure The procedure was identical to that of Study 1, except for the presented comparison targets. The targets were described as freshmen, who—with a typical age of 18 years old—would be much younger than the master's student participants. This typically leads to contrast with the comparison targets (Lockwood & Kunda, 1997). Participants rated how they felt about their academic performance on 4 items: happy, satisfied, unhappy, and dissatisfied, on a 7-point scale (1 = fully disagree and 7 = fully agree) (Cronbach's alpha = 0.90). Results and discussion To test our hypothesis, that there would be a significant contrast effect among low-power participants but no effect among highpower participants, we conducted a 2(power: high vs. low power) × 2(target of comparison: upward vs. downward) ANOVA on participant self-ratings. As expected, no main effects were significant. However, the interaction effect of power and direction on self-ratings was marginally significant, F(1, 74) = 3.75, p = 0.06, η² = 0.05. Among participants in the low power condition, significant contrasts with the comparison targets occurred; those exposed to the upward comparison target reported less positive self-evaluations (M = 4.96, SD = 1.08) than those exposed to the downward comparison target (M = 5.70, SD = 0.83), F(1,76) = 7.62, p = 0.007. No such pattern was detected among participants in the high power condition. Among these participants, those exposed to the upward comparison target (M = 5.55, SD = 0.64) reported self-evaluations similar to those exposed to the downward comparison target (M = 5.56, SD = 0.70), F(1,76) = 0.00, p = 0.96. As in previous studies, we tested whether this effect might be moderated by gender. We found neither a main effect of gender (F b 0.1, p > 0.9) nor an interaction with conditions (F b 1.7, p > 0.2). The results of Study 2 show that, as in Study 1, low-power participants responded to social comparison information, but high-power participants did not. In Study 1, low-power participants assimilated their self-evaluations to comparison targets, but high-power participants did not. In Study 2, low-power participants contrasted their self-evaluations with comparison targets, but high-power participants did not. In tandem, the two studies paint a compelling picture in which power blocks social comparison processes. Study 3 Although the previous studies provide evidence supporting our central hypothesis, three concerns may remain. First, one could argue that the effects in previous studies were driven more by those low in power being particularly sensitive to it rather than those high in power ignoring comparison information. Although the use of previously validated materials, and the fact that social comparison effects have been found in previous studies without manipulations of powerlessness (Wood, 1996) suggests that this alternative hypothesis is unlikely, Study 3 tests this question empirically by including a control condition. Second, we aim to rule out demand characteristics by using a lexical power prime, which has the advantage of activating feelings of power without the participant being aware of the manipulation or its effects (Chen, Lee-Chai, & Bargh, 2001). Third and finally, one might be concerned that the comparison effects might be

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constrained to dimensions of competence and ability, which might be related to power or influence. To demonstrate that the comparison effects (or lack thereof) are not constrained to these dimensions, Study 3 utilizes another important domain: social popularity. Participants were exposed to either a highly popular comparison target or an unpopular comparison target. Method Participants and design Participants were 109 Dutch students (45 male, 64 women) who voluntarily participated in this research. Their average age was 21 years. The study employed had a 3 (power: high vs. low vs. control) x 2 (social comparison target: upward vs. downward) between-subjects design. Procedure Participants were recruited for a series of studies supposedly focused on how people solve puzzles and their ability to identify newspaper articles. First, participants completed a word-search puzzle (adapted from Chen et al., 2001), that served as a lexical power prime. Participants were instructed to seek and circle ten words, laid out vertically or horizontally in a grid of 132 letters. In the high power condition, six words were related to a position of increased power (powerful, influence, control, authority, leader, and manager). In the low power condition, six words were related to a position of decreased power (powerless, dependent, submissive, subjected, subordinate, and follower). The remaining words were filler words. In the control condition, the puzzles contained only filler words. Next, participants were asked to read a newspaper articles and to guess from which of 8 different Dutch newspapers the article was taken. In reality, the article served as a manipulation of the comparison partner. The article was presented as one in a series of articles that interviewed students about their lives and included information about either an upward comparison target or a downward comparison target. As in Study 3, the targets were described as being similar in age and gender (matched to participant) and as extreme in their level of social popularity, so that contrast with the targets was expected (Lockwood & Kunda, 1997; Mussweiler, 2003). In the upward comparison conditions, the target was described as extremely popular, having many friends, having a romantic partner, and as especially popular among students from the opposite gender. In the downward comparison conditions, the target was described as an extreme loner, single, having few friends, and not popular among the opposite gender. To prevent students from making the connection between the newspaper article and the dependent measures, participants completed a filler task consisting of six geography questions asking participants to identify country capitals. Finally, participants completed a 6-item measure of their current satisfaction with their social lives. Items included “Currently I am happy with how often I see my friends.” All items were administered on 7-point scales (1 = fully disagree and 7 = fully agree) (Cronbach's alpha = 0.81). Finally, to demonstrate that participants were unaware of predictions we asked participants to note down their thoughts about the puzzle they completed earlier and their thoughts regarding the hypothesis. Results and discussion None of the participants recognized the puzzle as a priming manipulation or guessed our hypothesis. To test our hypothesis, that there would be a significant contrast effect among low-power participants but no effect among high-power participants, we conducted a 3 (power: high vs. low vs. control) × 2 (social comparison target: upward vs. downward) ANOVA on respondents’ current satisfaction

with their social life. The analysis revealed a significant main effect of target such that those viewing the upward comparison target reported less positive self-evaluations (M = 4.71, SD = 1.07) than those viewing the downward comparison target (M = 5.45, SD = 0.74), F(1, 103) = 16.78, p b 0.001, η² = 0.14. More interestingly, this main effect was moderated by the interaction effect of power and target, F(2, 103) = 2.48, p = 0.09, η² = 0.05. No other main effects were significant. As in the previous studies, we interpreted the interaction effect of power and target of comparison by examining responses within the power conditions (low power, control, high power) separately. Replicating previous studies, we found that participants in the low power conditions showed the expected contrast effect with the comparison targets. Among these participants, those exposed to the upward comparison target reported lower self-evaluations (M = 4.60, SD = 0.66) than those exposed to the downward comparison target (M = 5.77, SD = 0.77), F(1, 107) = 13.72, p b 0.001. Participants in the control condition responded in the same way to the comparison targets; those exposed to the upward comparison target reported lower self-evaluations (M = 4.48, SD = 1.40) than those exposed to the downward comparison target (M = 5.25, SD = 0.78), F(1, 107) = 6.49, p = 0.01. However, as in previous studies, this effect completely disappeared among the participants in the high power condition. Among them, target of comparison had no significant effects and participants exposed to the upward comparison target (M = 5.13, SD = 0.90) reported self-evaluations similar to those exposed to the downward comparison target (M = 5.37, SD = 0.60), F(1, 107) = 0.44, p = 0.51. As in previous studies, we checked whether this effect might be moderated by gender. We found neither a main effect of gender (F b 0.1, p > 0.9) nor an interaction with conditions (F b 1.1, p > 0.35). General discussion Based on the complementary ideas that self-concepts are most influenced by social comparison information to which people attend and are open to, and that power reduces the openness to such social information, we predicted those high in power would not respond to social comparisons. We expected that this would affect both assimilative and contrastive responses. Three studies tested this prediction, each showing that exposing high-power participants to social comparison targets did not affect their self-concepts, whereas such exposure did affect the self-concepts of low-power and control condition participants. Furthermore, we showed this with comparison targets that typically induce assimilation (Study 1) or contrast effects (Studies 2–3). Together, these results robustly show that the powerful do not respond to social comparisons. These effects were found with well-validated power primes that and reliably induce feelings of power (for an overview, see Smith & Galinsky, 2010) and lead to effects that are highly comparable with actual differences between high- and low-power people (Lammers, Stoker, & Stapel, 2010). While, one might be concerned that our manipulation of power may have exercised its effects not (only) through elevating a sense of power, but also inducing positive mood, this is unlikely. Many studies have shown that these priming manipulations do not affect mood (e.g. Galinsky et al., 2003, Experiment 3; Slabu & Guinote, 2010, Experiment 1; Smith & Bargh, 2008 Experiments 1–4; Smith & Trope, 2006, Experiments 1, 5, 6, 7; Weick & Guinote, 2008, Studies 1b, 2, 3). Implications This research has both theoretical and practical implications. Previous research on power has demonstrated how it affects people's thinking about themselves. For example, power increases approach behavior (Keltner et al., 2003) and makes people more self-assured

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(Anderson & Galinsky, 2006). Other research has demonstrated that power affects how people think about others. In particular, people tend to invest less in trying to understand others (Galinsky et al., 2006) and rely instead on stereotypes (Fiske, 1993; Lammers et al., 2009). The present research bridges these two literatures. It demonstrates that the reduced attentiveness to others has consequences for how the powerful see themselves (by blocking social comparison processing). No other research on power—to our knowledge—has yet studied such “third order” effects of power. Together, these results paint a picture of self-views of those high in power as relatively invulnerable to social comparison information. This may have negative consequences for the powerful. Given that comparison information provides useful information about one's abilities, risks, and potential outcomes, neglecting comparison information may lead to inaccurate estimations of success and biased selfevaluations (Martin, Suls, & Wheeler, 2002). This lack of attentiveness may contribute to the power-related optimism bias and greater willingness to engage in high-risk behaviors (Anderson & Galinsky, 2006). That is, individuals high in power may not be taking full advantage of all the diagnostic information available to them when making judgments of their own abilities, and therefore, their judgments of their potential outcomes. But these effects do not necessarily mean that the powerful never take social comparison information into account. It may be that the powerful simply use comparison information for different reasons or under different circumstances. For example, when the powerful are strongly oriented toward attaining active goals (Galinsky et al., 2003; Guinote, 2007c) they tend to be very good in selectively focusing on information that is relevant for those goals, while suppressing information that is irrelevant (Guinote, 2007a, 2007b). In the current studies, we did not give participants any goal instructions and it therefore can be assumed that they were not strongly oriented to make or avoid social comparison. Yet there are settings where the powerful may have an active goal to engage in social comparison. For example, when people are given an opportunity to apply for a promotion they may often evaluate their position relative to their competitors in different domains, and use that in creating strategies for success. Future research may want to investigate how the powerful react to social comparison information when they do have an active goal that requires comparative information. In that light, follow-up research might also explore whether the nature of one's power can moderate these effects. In particular, it seems likely that illegitimate power may not decrease, but may even increase social comparison. If the powerful feel that their power is illegitimate, they become motivated to determine the likelihood of a loss of power and what can be done to prevent it (Lammers, Galinsky, Gordijn, & Otten, 2008). Or social comparison information may be used to provide reassurance (Wood, Michela, & Giordano, 2000). For example, a professor who feels that his position is undeserved might seek out comparison information in order to see how clever he is compared to other professors. Or a politician who is worried about re-election might want to reassurance of how popular he is compared to other candidates. That is, illegitimate power may increase social comparison processes, in order to gain information about competitors, if not about their own self-concepts. It might appear counterintuitive that the powerful are less likely to engage in social comparison. A popular stereotype of the more powerful members of our society—the CEOS and politicians—is that they are willing to spend millions on luxury goods to signal their status and improve how others see them (Belk, Mayer, & Bahn, 1982). This obsession with demonstrating their status would suggest that the powerful are also strongly affected by social comparison information. After all, if having more than others were not important, why would they spend so much money demonstrating it? Yet, our research and data reveal that the opposite can also be true. Rather than being more concerned about others or having self-evaluations

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more influenced by others, the powerful ignored and disregarded social comparison information to which the less powerful attended. This is in-line with earlier research that shows that feelings of power do not increase but rather decrease conspicuous consumption (Rucker & Galinsky, 2009). Our findings converge with that paper to suggest that conspicuous consumption among the powerful in our society does not reflect uncertainty and a willingness to express a desired image, but rather expresses dominance and certainty about the self.

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