Science confirms truism: Power Corrupts

[Formless]

I'm not going to quote the entire article (you guys know how to click on a link!) but the last bit I found particularly interesting:

A culture of entitlement

Half of 105 participants were asked to write about a past experience in which they had legitimately been given a role of high or low power. The others were asked to write about an experience of high or low power where they did not feel their power (or lack of it) was legitimate. All of the volunteers were then asked to rate how immoral it would be for someone to take an abandoned bicycle rather than report the bicycle to the police. They were also asked, if they were in real need of a bicycle, how likely they would be to take it themselves and not report it.

The “powerful” who had been primed to believe they were entitled to their power readily engaged in acts of moral hypocrisy. They assigned a value of 5.1 to others engaging in the theft of the bicycle while rating the action at 6.9 if they were to do it themselves [Formless notes: this is on a 9 point scale with 9 being for morally righteous behavior, and 1 being for douchbaggery]. Among participants in all of the low-power states, morally hypocritical behaviour inverted itself, as it had in the case of tax fraud. “Legitimate” low-power individuals assigned others a score of 5.1 if they stole a bicycle and gave themselves a 4.3. Those primed to feel that their lack of power was illegitimate behaved similarly, assigning values of 4.7 and 4.4 respectively.

However, an intriguing characteristic emerged among participants in high-power states who felt they did not deserve their elevated positions. These people showed a similar tendency to that found in low-power individuals—to be harsh on themselves and less harsh on others—but the effect was considerably more dramatic. They felt that others warranted a lenient 6.0 on the morality scale when stealing a bike but assigned a highly immoral 3.9 if they took it themselves. Dr Lammers and Dr Galinsky call this reversal “hypercrisy”.

They argue, therefore, that people with power that they think is justified break rules not only because they can get away with it, but also because they feel at some intuitive level that they are entitled to take what they want. This sense of entitlement is crucial to understanding why people misbehave in high office. In its absence, abuses will be less likely. The word “privilege” translates as “private law”. If Dr Lammers and Dr Galinsky are right, the sense which some powerful people seem to have that different rules apply to them is not just a convenient smoke screen. They genuinely believe it.

What explains hypercrisy is less obvious. It is known, though, from experiments on other species that if those at the bottom of a dominance hierarchy show signs of getting uppity, those at the top react both quickly and aggressively. Hypercrisy might thus be a signal of submissiveness—one that is exaggerated in creatures that feel themselves to be in the wrong place in the hierarchy. By applying reverse privileges to themselves, they hope to escape punishment from the real dominants. Perhaps the lesson, then, is that corruption and hypocrisy are the price that societies pay for being led by alpha males (and, in some cases, alpha females). The alternative, though cleaner, is leadership by wimps.

I'm not so sure that the only alternative is necessarily "leadership by wimps," but its an interesting look at what makes some people at the top act like the assholes we know and loathe. I wonder if this effect can be dispersed throughout a group or a society? If so, it would have some interesting implications about history, politics, and western civilization in general.

[aieeegrunt]

I've long felt that humans automatically abuse any power they get, so the solution is to spread it out as much as possible. Either that, or we need something like what happened in China recently where some little big man provincial party jerk got knifed in the heart, and the whole district turned out to plead for a lenient sentence for the assassin.

[Ariphaos]

I'm not going to quote the entire article (you guys know how to click on a link!) but the last bit I found particularly interesting:

I'm not so sure that the only alternative is necessarily "leadership by wimps," but its an interesting look at what makes some people at the top act like the assholes we know and loathe. I wonder if this effect can be dispersed throughout a group or a society? If so, it would have some interesting implications about history, politics, and western civilization in general.

It's not a leadership by wimps technique. It's more of people who realize that their needs are still finite, despite their power, and see the power as a form of responsibility rather than an entitlement. It's called 'public servant' for a reason - the concept is not new. I would not call e.g. Warren Buffet a wimp by any means. There is a difference between being shrewd and a douchebag.

I would have liked to see more numbers and a larger sample, however.

[Formless]

I've long felt that humans automatically abuse any power they get, so the solution is to spread it out as much as possible.

Part of the point of the article was that it showed the mechanism behind corruption, and that it is not necessarily automatic when you give a guy power. Unfortunately, your solution is only a stopgap, in that it limits the amount of damage any one person can do without actually preventing corruption. However, assuming for a moment that the effects of corruption can be dispersed (and considering that power itself can be dispersed I don't think that's unreasonable) if you don't address the sense of entitlement of society at large then this would do nothing at the largest scale except perhaps make all of society act... well, like America.

Either that, or we need something like what happened in China recently where some little big man provincial party jerk got knifed in the heart, and the whole district turned out to plead for a lenient sentence for the assassin.

So what you are saying is, assassination fixes everything. Do I have to point out what is wrong with that assessment?

It's not a leadership by wimps technique. It's more of people who realize that their needs are still finite, despite their power, and see the power as a form of responsibility rather than an entitlement. It's called 'public servant' for a reason - the concept is not new. I would not call e.g. Warren Buffet a wimp by any means. There is a difference between being shrewd and a douchebag.

Well, yes, "leadership by wimps" was the articles interpretation, not mine. The trick of course is finding such people who understand the full implications of the term "public servant."

I would have liked to see more numbers and a larger sample, however.

You can never have a large enough sample size. Especially with psychological studies.

[aieeegrunt]

I've long felt that humans automatically abuse any power they get, so the solution is to spread it out as much as possible.

Part of the point of the article was that it showed the mechanism behind corruption, and that it is not necessarily automatic when you give a guy power. Unfortunately, your solution is only a stopgap, in that it limits the amount of damage any one person can do without actually preventing corruption. However, assuming for a moment that the effects of corruption can be dispersed (and considering that power itself can be dispersed I don't think that's unreasonable) if you don't address the sense of entitlement of society at large then this would do nothing at the largest scale except perhaps make all of society act... well, like America.

How exactly do you distinguish between a genuine Cincinnatus, and some dick just trying to game the system? Well Cincinnatus does what he needs to do and returns to the farm, so perhaps the answer is very strict lifetime term limits; at the least this prevents the formation of a class of professional politicians, which is nothing but fertile breeding ground for corruption and abuse of power.

Either that, or we need something like what happened in China recently where some little big man provincial party jerk got knifed in the heart, and the whole district turned out to plead for a lenient sentence for the assassin.

So what you are saying is, assassination fixes everything. Do I have to point out what is wrong with that assessment?
[/quote]

That statement was more than a little tongue in cheek, I didn't think I'd need to bracket it with silly emoticons.

[Formless]

How exactly do you distinguish between a genuine Cincinnatus, and some dick just trying to game the system? Well Cincinnatus does what he needs to do and returns to the farm, so perhaps the answer is very strict lifetime term limits; at the least this prevents the formation of a class of professional politicians, which is nothing but fertile breeding ground for corruption and abuse of power.

Except that there are trade offs for term limits, like the effect of having politicians constantly campaigning rather than doing their jobs. And in fact it does NOT prevent the rise of professional politicians, because they can (and do!) just bounce from office to office, relying on their experience from one office to carry on to another. Ever noticed how every American president came from either another government position (like governors or the senators) or from the military? I don't know that you necessarily can know who will be susceptible to corruption or not until they are actually in office. But There are still ways to reduce the number who will be corrupt. Unfortunately, I suspect that what it takes would have to be a cultural change, which is not an easy thing to create.

That statement was more than a little tongue in cheek, I didn't think I'd need to bracket it with silly emoticons.

It would really help. (yes, I've heard people seriously argue that)