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having power over others are to change
the course of events can do strange
things to your brain it can be good for
you in lots of ways research has shown
that it can help you think more
creatively be better organized stay
focused and remember things more easily
but there's also a dark side to that
power as the famous British historian
Lord Acton once said power tends to
corrupt and absolute power corrupts
absolutely and if you look at the
history of human leadership from
dictators to corporate executives it's
easy to see where Acton is coming from
science seems to agree with Acton power
it can definitely go to your head but
unlike Acton scientists have also come
up with some ways that you might be able
to prevent that one of the most well
known studies that looked into the
dubious influence of power was the
Stanford Prison Experiment and the now
infamous experiment University students
were randomly assigned to be either a
guard or a prisoner and within a matter
of days the students assigned to be the
guards had become so sadistic that the
researchers were forced to stop the
experiment but it turns out this
experiment was more theatrics than
science according to a recent interview
with the lead researcher and one of the
study participants the guards were told
to act cruel and the harrowing prisoner
breakdowns were at least partly the
result of some dramatic acting there's
still plenty of evidence that power
corrupts people though one study now
called the cookie monster study found
that people in positions of power were
more likely to be greedy in the
experiment researchers divided people
into groups of three and with one person
randomly chosen to be the leader the
groups then did some simple tasks and
when they were done the researchers
brought in a plate of four cookies and
surprise surprise the person who was
chosen to be the leader was more likely
to take a second cookie I can tell you
from my experience that I am the one who
will have the second cookie in this
office taking a second cookie might not
seem like a big deal it's certainly not
the same as a dictator deciding to keep
extra taxes for themselves in their
Swiss bank account or something but it
is an example of someone in a position
of admittedly minor power acting in
their own personal interest when there
are limited resources researchers also
notice that the leaders ate differently
tending to chew with their mouths open
and getting more crumbs all
for the place like Cookie Monster
another study asked some people to write
about a time when they had power over
someone else while others were told to
write about a time when someone had
power over them other studies have found
that this is a way to manipulate whether
someone's feeling powerful then they had
participants draw the letter E on their
forehead something that kind of forces
you to see yourself from someone else's
point of view people who were feeling
powerful were three times more likely to
draw the e
pointing in the direction that would
make sense if they were reading it but
backwards for everyone else according to
the researchers the results suggested
that those in power might be less likely
to see things from other people's
perspectives over the last few decades
lots of other studies have found that
people in positions of power or people
who feel powerful also showed signs of
less empathy they tended to act more
impulsively were less aware of risks
became more selfish were more likely to
cheat and were bad at guessing what
someone else was feeling or how they
might interpret something the person in
power said so maybe Lord Acton was right
after all power does corrupt that said
like a lot of human psychology research
the studies on this are small and for
ethical reasons these days you can't
design experiments where someone has
power over others in a really
significant way but the research we do
have can help guide psychologists
theories even if we can't draw definite
conclusions and either way there are
some things you can do to help yourself
feel more empathy when you're in a
position of power because as we know
with great power comes great
responsibility some research suggests it
can help to keep in mind times when
you've felt powerless and becoming more
self-aware could be useful to other
experts recommend reflecting on
compassion like by doing compassion
meditation where you try to create an
emotional state of kindness and empathy
if nothing else the world can always use
a little more kindness do I feel like
the staff gave me this script for a
particular reason we're hoping not but
it doesn't matter I've fired them all
and I've ate the last cookie thanks for
watching this episode of scishow psyche
speaking of kindness if you're part of
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