How much power do we have as individuals Psychology

Financial executives who bend the rules until they break. Politicians who lie about sexual affairs. CEOs who embezzle funds. Reports of abuses of power are common enough to be cliché. But it's not just government leaders and head honchos who are subject to the influence of power.

Power dynamics are present in nearly every human social interaction—between workers and managers, parents and children, romantic partners and friends. "Power is everywhere," says Ana Guinote, PhD, an experimental psychologist at University College, London, who studies social hierarchies.

In recent years, Guinote and other researchers have made strides toward figuring out how power—or a lack of it—affects the way we think and behave. And for good reason: Understanding the effects of power can help us select stronger leaders, design better organizations and make healthier choices in our personal lives.

Living in different worlds

Power comes in many flavors: wealth, social status and influence over others, just to name a few. Scientifically speaking, power is defined as asymmetric control over valued resources in a social relationship, says Adam Galinsky, PhD, a social psychologist who studies power at Columbia Business School. "When I have all the resources I need, I'm not dependent on others, therefore they don't have power over me. But if I have resources other people want, then I have power over them," he explains.

The scientific study of power has blossomed in the last decade and a half, since University of California, Berkeley, professor of psychology Dacher Keltner, PhD, and colleagues published a paper exploring the ways power influences behavior (Psychological Review, 2003). That paper detailed how the powerful and the powerless live side by side in different worlds. People who feel powerless are more likely to experience negative emotions, pay more attention to threats than to rewards, and behave in more inhibited ways. People in positions of greater power, on the other hand, are more likely to experience positive moods, pay attention to social rewards, make quick decisions and act in uninhibited ways.

Unsurprisingly, it can feel good to have power. A variety of studies suggest, for instance, that people who feel powerful feel freer to be themselves. In a series of experiments, Keltner and colleagues found that compared to low-power participants, those who felt powerful were more consistent in the way they described themselves over time. They also had less variability in the way they rated their personal traits in various contexts (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2011).

Powerful people are also goal-oriented, as Guinote described in a review of the literature that spanned a number of disciplines, including animal studies, social psychology, neuroscience and management (Annual Review of Psychology, 2017). "The powerful are more keen on obtaining things they think are important, but they're also willing to work more toward their objectives," she says. "Power has a motivational influence on people."

In one classic illustration of that influence, Galinsky and his colleagues found that participants who felt more powerful were much more likely than their powerless peers to turn off a fan when left alone in a chilly room (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2003).

"The powerful tend to be more likely to act," says Whitson. But until recently, it wasn't clear what was motivating them to take charge. Are the powerful better at seeing the advantages of taking action? Or do they just do a better job ignoring the risks?

To find out, Whitson, Galinsky and their colleagues assigned college students hypothetical goals: either starting a flower- selling business or traveling to the Amazon. Then participants read statements describing information that might help them or hold them back as they worked toward that goal.

The researchers found that participants were equally good at remembering advantages related to reaching their goal, regardless of whether they felt powerful or powerless. But those who felt powerful were more likely to forget the constraints they'd read about that could hold them back (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2013). In other words, while the powerless saw a series of hurdles to reach their goal, those in positions of power saw a clear path to success.

"The powerful seem to be action-oriented because the world they see is less threatening," Whitson says. "It's easier for them to take risks because they just don't seem that risky."

But in the real world, people with less power might ­actually have a more accurate view, Whitson adds. For the powerful, having a false sense of their capabilities could come back to bite them. "When you see stories of politicians who have done really ludicrous things, and you think, ‘Did it not occur to them this would end up on the front page!?'—I think this is part of the reason why," she says. "If you're not aware of the risks, you can create situations that are very problematic for yourself."

Using power for good

What's worse, powerful people also have the ability to create situations that are problematic for everybody around them. Because they tend to keep such a laser focus on their own goals, the powerful can discount the needs of others, be less willing to compromise and rely on mental shortcuts and stereotypes when they make decisions, as Guinote described in her 2017 review.

"It comes back to the definition of power. When we have power, we're less dependent on others and we can act in a more egocentric way," Galinsky says. "When we lack power, we need to serve others to access resources and we're more likely to act in a prosocial way."

Research from numerous labs, using various methods, has found that power reduces a person's ability to see things from another person's point of view, as Galinsky described in a review on power and perspective-taking (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2016).

And the powerful often see other people as a means to an end. In a series of lab studies, Galinsky and colleagues showed that people who felt greater power were more likely to make social connections based on how useful that person might be in helping them reach their goals (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2008).

Self-centered leaders aren't just a problem for the people they step over on their way to the top. Their unethical decisions and bad behavior can weaken organizations or even whole societies. "Some of the most dangerous human instincts come from our inability to walk in someone else's shoes," Whitson says.

Lack of empathy, failure to see risks and a tendency to make quick decisions can be a devastating combination. "This is costly," Keltner says. "If you're privileged to be in a position of power, you have to approach that power ethically."

The good news, he adds, is that it can be done. "Great leaders do that."

Indeed, people inclined to be kind can—and do—use their power for good. In a study that included a field survey and a lab experiment, Katherine DeCelles, PhD, at the University of Toronto, and colleagues explored the interaction between power and moral identity, which they defined as the extent to which a person holds morality as part of his or her self-concept. They found that people with a weak moral identity acted in self-interested ways when they had power. But among those with strong moral identities, power inspired them to be more selfless (Journal of Applied Psychology, 2012).

And Galinsky's 2016 review in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology suggests that while power is generally associated with reduced perspective-taking, power might actually make it easier to consider other people's points of view when those leaders feel an increased sense of responsibility toward others. "Free from the constraints of others, people's true personality comes out," Galinsky says. "We need to select the right people for power, people who already come in with a sense of responsibility to others."

Just in case, it's a good idea not to rely too heavily on a leader's moral compass, Galinsky says. Research on the psychology of power can help organizations create policies and systems to help hold leaders accountable for their behavior. "One way to increase perspective-taking in the powerful is through accountability," he says.

The study of power can also help inform psychologists in clinical practice. Feelings of powerlessness come into play in many domains, from poverty to anxiety, workplace problems to marital discord, says Keltner. "For a lot of the problems psychologists grapple with, the solution is really about empowering people."

In many cases, people have a skewed view of their own ability to control their lives—in other words, they may not realize how much agency they actually have. Others accurately perceive their own power, but need to do a better job keeping it in perspective. "We need the benefits of power to move forward in life and step up to the plate, but we need to minimize the downside, that egocentric focus," Galinsky says. "Clinical psychologists can help people harness that sense of power, and steer it in the right direction."

To watch Dacher Keltner, PhD, discuss his recent work on power, go to YouTube and search for "The Power Paradox."