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Unfortunately,even good brands fail.From Wells Fargos opening new accounts without customersconsent to Volkswagens emission cheating scandal,corporate crises caused the companies in question serious consequences,including but not limited to negative perceptions among consumers(Coombs 2012),reputational damage to the organization(Coombs 2007),and uncertainty among stakeholders(Sandman 2006).How should the firms respond in corporate crises? Or more specifically,how should the spokesperson of a firm better communicate the message and connect with the customers under such circumstances? To address these questions,this research investigates why and how one predominant cue in communication,the spokespersons expression of power,will affect consumer responses to brand failure.Human nonverbal expressions of power frequently involve demonstrations of physical potency(e.g.,erect postures,firm stances,and animated gesturing,Hamstra 2014)and expressivity(e.g.,more expansive and emphatic postures Harper 1985; Burgoon and Dunbar 2006).Ethology and evolutionary psychology view nonverbal displays of power as a critical adaptive feature in response to survival-related challenges(Burgoon and Dunbar 2006).690 Similarly,after encountering stimuli in their environment,to foster survival in the evolutionary process(Winston et al.2002),individuals can choose to approach that stimuli for further interaction or avoid that stimuli to foster self-preservation(Holland et al.2017; Small and Verrochi 2009; Terburg,Aarts,and van Honk 2012).We propose that,when exposed to a nonverbal power display,consumers will have a negative affective reaction that triggers avoidance tendencies,which reduce the consumers willingness for subsequent interactions with the communication source and ultimately reduce attitudes toward the message.Conversely,when marketers incorporate powerless nonverbal messages into their communications,consumers will respond more favorably to these signals and adopt an approach orientation towards the source.Subsequent attitudes and behavioral responses will be more favorable as a result.We conduct two empirical studies to test these propositions.In Study 1,we examined customerstimely reactions to a real corporate scandal.A total of 444 participants(56.1#female; mean age = 41)were recruited from an online panel.They read a news article featuring a photo of United AirlinesCEO apologizing for the incident with either a powerful or a powerless pose.All other content was kept consistent across conditions.Manipulation check confirms that the CEO displaying a powerful pose was actually perceived to be more powerful(Mpowerful = 4.85 vs.Mpowerless = 3.16,t(442)=-11.08,p =.01).As predicted,participants in the powerful condition indicate a higher willingness to punish the company(M = 5.35,SD = 1.81)than participants in the powerless condition(M = 4.76,SD = 2.08,t(442)=-3.20,p<.01).In Study 2,we aim to provide support for the hypothesized underlying mechanism by conducting the Approach-Avoidance Task(AAT)(Rinck and Becker 2007).The AAT involves a push-pull function using the program Inquisit(Wiers et al.2009)to measure 691 motoric approach and avoidance reaction time to powerful and powerless displays.This study is currently in progress.Preliminary findings have provided empirical support to our main propositions.