Neuroscience
Matthew McConaughey may have surprised some during the 2014 Oscars ceremony when he listed his heroes: each one was a past, present or future version of himself. But it turns out that being your own inspiration isn’t unusual, especially for people who feel socially powerful and influential.
A new study, led by Gerben van Kleef from the University of Amsterdam, asked 140 undergraduates to spend a few minutes writing about a personally inspiring event that took place in the prior five years. Participants then paired up and took turns recounting their inspirational moment to their partner.
Most of the students tended to find it more inspiring to talk about their own experiences than to hear someone else’s, but this difference was especially pronounced for participants who rated themselves more powerful on statements like “I can get others to do what I want.” Ratings by observers of the students’ body language and tone of voice independently confirmed this. Powerful people were definitely getting off on talking about their inspiring experiences, but was this just because they had the mic, and others had to listen?
Another experiment suggests not. Participants were given the choice to write about an inspiring event that included or did not involve themselves. For individuals feeling low in power, either decision turned out to feel about as inspiring as the other. But for those feeling high in power, it was much more inspiring to write about themselves – even though they were their own audience.
Why is this happening? We know having power in terms of status and influence is linked to feeling more socially distant from others, and consequently to discounting advice, downgrading contributions from others (hence more talking-over them) and being less able to take their perspective. As a matter of course, powerful people don’t expect others to fulfil their needs, and may therefore find it difficult to consider anyone else a worthy source of inspiration. It’s a little like a child for whom no one in the playground is up to scratch, so they become their own best friend.
Before getting smug, we should recognise that we all have the potential to be like that child. In the second experiment, participants were randomly assigned to the power condition, and power was artificially induced merely through a preliminary writing task – “tell me a time when you had power over others”. These phases and tendencies are likely to move in all of us, day by day. So maybe McConaughey was just being more forthright than we expect to hear.
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Van Kleef, G., Oveis, C., Homan, A., van der Lowe, I., & Keltner, D. (2015). Power Gets You High: The Powerful Are More Inspired by Themselves Than by Others Social Psychological and Personality Science DOI: 10.1177/1948550614566857
Post written by Alex Fradera (@alexfradera) for the BPS Research Digest.
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Neuroscience
"Look at me!": People who feel powerful find themselves inspirational
A new study, led by Gerben van Kleef from the University of Amsterdam, asked 140 undergraduates to spend a few minutes writing about a personally inspiring event that took place in the prior five years. Participants then paired up and took turns recounting their inspirational moment to their partner.
Most of the students tended to find it more inspiring to talk about their own experiences than to hear someone else’s, but this difference was especially pronounced for participants who rated themselves more powerful on statements like “I can get others to do what I want.” Ratings by observers of the students’ body language and tone of voice independently confirmed this. Powerful people were definitely getting off on talking about their inspiring experiences, but was this just because they had the mic, and others had to listen?
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| When we feel powerful, we find ourselves inspirational. Actor McConaughey has said he is his own hero. |
Why is this happening? We know having power in terms of status and influence is linked to feeling more socially distant from others, and consequently to discounting advice, downgrading contributions from others (hence more talking-over them) and being less able to take their perspective. As a matter of course, powerful people don’t expect others to fulfil their needs, and may therefore find it difficult to consider anyone else a worthy source of inspiration. It’s a little like a child for whom no one in the playground is up to scratch, so they become their own best friend.
Before getting smug, we should recognise that we all have the potential to be like that child. In the second experiment, participants were randomly assigned to the power condition, and power was artificially induced merely through a preliminary writing task – “tell me a time when you had power over others”. These phases and tendencies are likely to move in all of us, day by day. So maybe McConaughey was just being more forthright than we expect to hear.
_________________________________
Van Kleef, G., Oveis, C., Homan, A., van der Lowe, I., & Keltner, D. (2015). Power Gets You High: The Powerful Are More Inspired by Themselves Than by Others Social Psychological and Personality Science DOI: 10.1177/1948550614566857
Post written by Alex Fradera (@alexfradera) for the BPS Research Digest.
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'How can you not feel sorry about people who have died? I mean you would be inhuman if you didn't think that,' former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair speaking to Andrew Marr on the BBC.Think how terrible you'd feel if a decision you made...
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Power corrupts, or so they say. But it doesn't corrupt everyone. Not all bosses are bullies. What is it about some people in power that leads them to turn nasty? The psychologists Nathanael Fast and Serena Chen have performed four new studies testing...
- Anticipating An Interaction With An Obese Person Provokes Feelings Of Social Power
Humans are obsessed with status. Beneath every social interaction, there's an implicit power play. This is made stark by a North American study showing that the anticipation of a conversation with an obese person provokes in normal-weight people feelings...
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