{"id":111,"date":"2020-02-28T19:43:19","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T19:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-introtocollegereadingandwriting\/?post_type=chapter&p=111"},"modified":"2020-12-11T18:04:47","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T18:04:47","slug":"power-causes-brain-damage","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-introtocollegereadingandwriting\/chapter\/power-causes-brain-damage\/","title":{"raw":"Power Causes Brain Damage","rendered":"Power Causes Brain Damage"},"content":{"raw":"by Jerry Useem\r\n<\/em>July\/August 2017<\/em>\r\n

If power were\u00a0<\/span>a prescription drug, it would come with a long list of known side effects. It can intoxicate. It can corrupt. It can even make Henry Kissinger\u00a0believe<\/a>\u00a0that he\u2019s sexually magnetic. But can it cause brain damage?<\/p>\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\nWhen various lawmakers lit into John Stumpf at a\u00a0congressional hearing<\/a>\u00a0last fall, each seemed to find a fresh way to flay the now-former CEO of Wells Fargo for failing to stop some 5,000 employees from setting up phony accounts for customers. But it was Stumpf\u2019s performance that stood out. Here was a man who had risen to the top of the world\u2019s most valuable bank, yet he seemed utterly unable to read a room. Although he apologized, he didn\u2019t appear chastened or remorseful. Nor did he seem defiant or smug or even insincere. He looked disoriented, like a jet-lagged space traveler just arrived from Planet Stumpf, where deference to him is a natural law and 5,000 a commendably small number. Even the most direct barbs\u2014\u201cYou have got to be kidding me\u201d (Sean Duffy<\/a>\u00a0of Wisconsin); \u201cI can\u2019t believe some of what I\u2019m hearing here\u201d (Gregory Meeks<\/a>\u00a0of New York)\u2014failed to shake him awake.\r\n\r\nWhat was going through Stumpf\u2019s head? New research suggests that the better question may be: What\u00a0wasn\u2019t<\/i>\u00a0going through it?\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\nThe historian Henry Adams was being metaphorical, not medical, when he described power as \u201ca sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim\u2019s sympathies.\u201d But that\u2019s not far from where Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at U.C. Berkeley, ended up after years of lab and field experiments. Subjects under the influence of power, he found in studies spanning two decades, acted as if they had suffered a traumatic brain injury\u2014becoming more impulsive, less risk-aware, and, crucially, less adept at seeing things from other people\u2019s point of view.\r\n\r\nSukhvinder Obhi, a neuroscientist at McMaster University, in Ontario, recently described something similar. Unlike Keltner, who studies behaviors, Obhi studies brains. And when he put the heads of the powerful and the not-so-powerful under a transcranial-magnetic-stimulation machine, he found that power, in fact, impairs a specific neural process, \u201cmirroring,\u201d that may be a cornerstone of empathy. Which gives a neurological basis to what Keltner has termed the \u201cpower paradox<\/a>\u201d: Once we have power, we lose some of the capacities we needed to gain it in the first place.\r\n\r\nThat loss in capacity<\/span>\u00a0has been demonstrated in various creative ways. A\u00a02006 study<\/a>\u00a0asked participants to draw the letter\u00a0E<\/i>\u00a0on their forehead for others to view\u2014a task that requires seeing yourself from an observer\u2019s vantage point. Those feeling powerful were three times more likely to draw the\u00a0E<\/i>\u00a0the right way to themselves\u2014and backwards to everyone else (which calls to mind George W. Bush, who memorably held up the American flag backwards at the 2008 Olympics). Other experiments have shown that powerful people do worse at identifying what someone in a picture is feeling, or guessing how a colleague might interpret a remark.\r\n\r\nThe fact that people tend to mimic the expressions and body language of their superiors can aggravate this problem: Subordinates provide few reliable cues to the powerful. But more important, Keltner says, is the fact that the powerful stop mimicking others. Laughing when others laugh or tensing when others tense does more than ingratiate. It helps trigger the same feelings those others are experiencing and provides a window into where they are coming from. Powerful people \u201cstop simulating the experience of others,\u201d Keltner says, which leads to what he calls an \u201cempathy deficit.\u201d\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\nMirroring<\/a>\u00a0is a subtler kind of mimicry that goes on entirely within our heads, and without our awareness. When we watch someone perform an action, the part of the brain we would use to do that same thing lights up in sympathetic response. It might be best understood as vicarious experience. It\u2019s what Obhi and his team were\u00a0trying to activate<\/a>\u00a0when they had their subjects watch a video of someone\u2019s hand squeezing a rubber ball.\r\n\r\nFor non-powerful participants, mirroring worked fine: The neural pathways they would use to squeeze the ball themselves fired strongly. But the powerful group\u2019s? Less so.\r\n\r\nWas the mirroring response broken? More like anesthetized. None of the participants possessed permanent power. They were college students who had been \u201cprimed\u201d to feel potent by recounting an experience in which they had been in charge. The anesthetic would presumably wear off when the feeling did\u2014their brains weren\u2019t structurally damaged after an afternoon in the lab. But if the effect had been long-lasting\u2014say, by dint of having Wall Street analysts whispering their greatness quarter after quarter, board members offering them extra helpings of pay, and\u00a0Forbes<\/i>\u00a0praising<\/a>\u00a0them for \u201cdoing well while doing good\u201d\u2014they may have what in medicine is known as \u201cfunctional\u201d changes to the brain.\r\n\r\nThis article was originally published on the website TheAtlantic.com and is republished here with The Atlantic\u2019s permission.","rendered":"

by Jerry Useem
\n<\/em>July\/August 2017<\/em><\/p>\n

If power were\u00a0<\/span>a prescription drug, it would come with a long list of known side effects. It can intoxicate. It can corrupt. It can even make Henry Kissinger\u00a0believe<\/a>\u00a0that he\u2019s sexually magnetic. But can it cause brain damage?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When various lawmakers lit into John Stumpf at a\u00a0congressional hearing<\/a>\u00a0last fall, each seemed to find a fresh way to flay the now-former CEO of Wells Fargo for failing to stop some 5,000 employees from setting up phony accounts for customers. But it was Stumpf\u2019s performance that stood out. Here was a man who had risen to the top of the world\u2019s most valuable bank, yet he seemed utterly unable to read a room. Although he apologized, he didn\u2019t appear chastened or remorseful. Nor did he seem defiant or smug or even insincere. He looked disoriented, like a jet-lagged space traveler just arrived from Planet Stumpf, where deference to him is a natural law and 5,000 a commendably small number. Even the most direct barbs\u2014\u201cYou have got to be kidding me\u201d (Sean Duffy<\/a>\u00a0of Wisconsin); \u201cI can\u2019t believe some of what I\u2019m hearing here\u201d (Gregory Meeks<\/a>\u00a0of New York)\u2014failed to shake him awake.<\/p>\n

What was going through Stumpf\u2019s head? New research suggests that the better question may be: What\u00a0wasn\u2019t<\/i>\u00a0going through it?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The historian Henry Adams was being metaphorical, not medical, when he described power as \u201ca sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim\u2019s sympathies.\u201d But that\u2019s not far from where Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at U.C. Berkeley, ended up after years of lab and field experiments. Subjects under the influence of power, he found in studies spanning two decades, acted as if they had suffered a traumatic brain injury\u2014becoming more impulsive, less risk-aware, and, crucially, less adept at seeing things from other people\u2019s point of view.<\/p>\n

Sukhvinder Obhi, a neuroscientist at McMaster University, in Ontario, recently described something similar. Unlike Keltner, who studies behaviors, Obhi studies brains. And when he put the heads of the powerful and the not-so-powerful under a transcranial-magnetic-stimulation machine, he found that power, in fact, impairs a specific neural process, \u201cmirroring,\u201d that may be a cornerstone of empathy. Which gives a neurological basis to what Keltner has termed the \u201cpower paradox<\/a>\u201d: Once we have power, we lose some of the capacities we needed to gain it in the first place.<\/p>\n

That loss in capacity<\/span>\u00a0has been demonstrated in various creative ways. A\u00a02006 study<\/a>\u00a0asked participants to draw the letter\u00a0E<\/i>\u00a0on their forehead for others to view\u2014a task that requires seeing yourself from an observer\u2019s vantage point. Those feeling powerful were three times more likely to draw the\u00a0E<\/i>\u00a0the right way to themselves\u2014and backwards to everyone else (which calls to mind George W. Bush, who memorably held up the American flag backwards at the 2008 Olympics). Other experiments have shown that powerful people do worse at identifying what someone in a picture is feeling, or guessing how a colleague might interpret a remark.<\/p>\n

The fact that people tend to mimic the expressions and body language of their superiors can aggravate this problem: Subordinates provide few reliable cues to the powerful. But more important, Keltner says, is the fact that the powerful stop mimicking others. Laughing when others laugh or tensing when others tense does more than ingratiate. It helps trigger the same feelings those others are experiencing and provides a window into where they are coming from. Powerful people \u201cstop simulating the experience of others,\u201d Keltner says, which leads to what he calls an \u201cempathy deficit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mirroring<\/a>\u00a0is a subtler kind of mimicry that goes on entirely within our heads, and without our awareness. When we watch someone perform an action, the part of the brain we would use to do that same thing lights up in sympathetic response. It might be best understood as vicarious experience. It\u2019s what Obhi and his team were\u00a0trying to activate<\/a>\u00a0when they had their subjects watch a video of someone\u2019s hand squeezing a rubber ball.<\/p>\n

For non-powerful participants, mirroring worked fine: The neural pathways they would use to squeeze the ball themselves fired strongly. But the powerful group\u2019s? Less so.<\/p>\n

Was the mirroring response broken? More like anesthetized. None of the participants possessed permanent power. They were college students who had been \u201cprimed\u201d to feel potent by recounting an experience in which they had been in charge. The anesthetic would presumably wear off when the feeling did\u2014their brains weren\u2019t structurally damaged after an afternoon in the lab. But if the effect had been long-lasting\u2014say, by dint of having Wall Street analysts whispering their greatness quarter after quarter, board members offering them extra helpings of pay, and\u00a0Forbes<\/i>\u00a0praising<\/a>\u00a0them for \u201cdoing well while doing good\u201d\u2014they may have what in medicine is known as \u201cfunctional\u201d changes to the brain.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on the website TheAtlantic.com and is republished here with The Atlantic\u2019s permission.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t

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Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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