{"id":73,"date":"2015-08-31T13:43:27","date_gmt":"2015-08-31T17:43:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/?p=73"},"modified":"2015-09-01T18:17:36","modified_gmt":"2015-09-01T22:17:36","slug":"power-and-corruption-part-1-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/power-and-corruption-part-1-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Power and Corruption, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most previous attempts<\/a> to test the adage that \u201cpower corrupts\u201d have been unconvincing either because the participants were responding to hypothetical scenarios, or when the situation was real, the incentives for behaving badly were too low to tempt people to corrupt behavior. Two new studies<\/a> by John Antonakis and his colleagues at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland) were intended to overcome these problems.<\/p>\n

The authors define power as \u201chaving the discretion and the means to assymetrically enforce one\u2019s will over others.\u201d In the study, they manipulated power by varying the number of others<\/em> who were dependent on the leader, and\u00a0discretion<\/i>, the number of choices<\/em> available to the leader. Corruption occurs when leaders make decisions that benefit themselves personally, but which harm the common good by reducing the outcomes of their followers. The authors specify that to qualify as corrupt, the behavior must (1) violate social norms<\/i>, and (2) \u201cdestroy public wealth\u201d<\/i>\u2014that is, the amount gained by the leader must be less than the amount lost by the followers.<\/p>\n

Antonakis has prepared this video to explain his two studies.<\/p>\n