Powerful People Think Differently About Their Thoughts

New York Magazine:

Being in power does, in a very real sense, go to people’s heads. Psychologists have found that when people are made to feel powerful, they believe more in the things they’re thinking. This leads to a bunch of wacky, seemingly contradictory behaviors, as Ohio State Ph.D. candidate Geoff Durso explained to Science of Us in an email: Feeling more powerful may make you kinder and more assertive, yet also more dishonest.

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For a study published this month in Psychological Science, Durso and his colleagues recruited 129 and 197 college students for two separate experiments. Participants were given different descriptions of an employee named Bob, some with all positive attributes (like that Bob beat his earnings goals), some with all negative (e.g., Bob stole his colleague’s mug from the kitchen), and some with an even split. Then, the participants were given a writing task where they had to recall an experience in their lives that made them feel powerful or powerless, framing their decision. They were also asked how conflicted they felt about Bob’s future, and in one study, they were asked to decide whether to fire or promote Bob with the click of a mouse.

Read the whole story: New York Magazine