SSS 2009-12-31

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So 2009 was, in part, a year of powerful people behaving badly. 

We had Kanye West stealing Taylor Swift’s moment at the VMA awards, South Carolina governor Mark Sanford disappearing to, ahem, hike the Appalachian trail, and of course David Letterman, Tiger Woods…

Well new research published in Psychological Science supports the old notion that power corrupts¹.  Specifically, power can breed hypocrisy²: the powerful can feel entitled not to obey the moral rules they demand others to follow.

Researchers assigned 172 subjects high-power roles (like prime minister) and low-power roles (like civil servant.) The subjects had to consider a series of moral dilemmas³ involving stolen bikes, breaking traffic rules, and instituting taxes.

In each of the five experiments the more powerful characters consistently showed moral hypocrisy.  They disapproved⁴ of immoral⁵ behavior (like…for instance the over-reporting of expenses) and yet behaved badly themselves. For instance, when powerful people were given an opportunity to self-report their success in a dice⁶ game, they cheated reporting that they had won more times than actually did. The others note that a sense of entitlement is key here. Those who believe they are entitled to a high status position tended to be more hypocritical than those who feel they are not deserving of power.

In fact, this latter group held themselves to a higher standard than they did others. The powerful who did not feel entitled behaved similarly to powerless characters who tend to be harder on themselves than they are on others. And another note here is to honesty and integrity in 2010.