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Mar. 4, 2009 —
Power holders
often seem misguided in their actions. Leaders and commanders of
warring nations regularly underestimate the costs in time, money, and
human lives required for bringing home a victory.
CEOs of Fortune 500 companies routinely overestimate their capacity
to turn mergers and acquisitions into huge profits, leading to financial
losses for themselves, their companies, and their stockholders. Even
ordinary people seem to take on an air of invincibility after being
promoted to a more powerful position. The consequences of these
tendencies, especially when present in the world's most powerful
leaders, can be devastating.
In a new study, Nathanael Fast and Deborah Gruenfeld at Stanford
Graduate School of Business, Niro Sivanathan at the London Business
School and Adam Galinsky at the Kellogg School of Management at
Northwestern University, show that power can literally "go to one's
head," causing individuals to think they have more personal control over
outcomes than they, in fact, do.
"We conducted four experiments exploring the relationship between
power and illusory control - the belief that one has the ability to
influence outcomes that are largely determined by chance," said
Galinksy, "In each experiment, whether the participant recalled power by
an experience of holding power or it was manipulated by randomly
assigning participants to Manager-Subordinate roles, it led to perceived
control over outcomes that were beyond the reach of the individual.
Furthermore, the notion of being able to control a 'chance' result led
to unrealistic optimism and inflated self-esteem."
For example, in one experiment, power holders were presented with a
pair of dice, offered a reward for predicting the outcome of a roll, and
then asked if they would like to roll the dice or have someone else do
it for them. Each and every participant in the high power group chose to
roll the dice themselves compared to less than 70% of low power and
neutral participants, supporting the notion that simply experiencing
power can lead an individual to grossly overestimate their abilities, in
this case, influencing the outcome of the roll by personally rolling
the dice.
These results, reported in Psychological Science, a journal
of the Association for Psychological Science, have implications for how
power, once attained, is maintained or lost. The authors note that
positive illusions can be adaptive, helping power holders make the
seemingly impossible possible. But the relationship between power and
illusory control might also contribute directly to losses in power, by
causing leaders to make poor choices. They conclude that "the illusion
of personal control might be one of the ways in which power often leads
to its own demise."
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Association for Psychological Science.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Fast et al. Illusory Control: A Generative Force Behind Power's Far-Reaching Effects. Psychological Science, 2009; DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02311.x
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