Friend and Foe: When to Cooperate, When to Compete, and How to Succeed at Both (5 page)

In 2004, one of our former grad students, Gillian Ku, got a highly coveted interview for a professorship at London Business School (LBS). In general, academic interviews are long, arduous affairs that have tremendous amounts of stress built in. You typically have a series of 30-minute one-on-one interviews with each professor in the department throughout the day, culminating with the crucial job talk: a 90-minute presentation in which you present your research while being mercilessly grilled by a faculty that is searching for any flaw. When Gillian interviewed at LBS, she was given 30 minutes to prepare before her talk. She spent a full 10 minutes of that time completing our power prime—writing out an experience she had had with power. This simple task surged confidence into Gillian. As she gave her talk, she was in complete command of the room and situation. She handled every question with aplomb and captivated the audience with her persuasive responses. And better yet, she got the job.

This anecdote was so striking that we wanted to scientifically test whether activating that feeling of power can give someone a competitive advantage in landing a job. In a project led by Joris Lammers of the University of Cologne, we conducted an experiment that involved mock face-to-face interviews with a two-person committee for entrance into a prestigious French business school. During these selection interviews, applicants had to convince two expert interviewers (typically professors) that they had the motivation, skills, and experience to be successful. Unbeknownst to the interviewers, we randomly assigned these applicants to one of three conditions: a high-power recall prime, a low-power recall prime, and a baseline condition with no prime.

The result? Astoundingly, interviewers accepted 68 percent of the candidates in the high-power-prime condition but just a mere 26 percent in the low-power-prime condition. A later study replicated these effects with written job applications: Applicants who had been primed with power got higher ratings.

Why did these remarkable results occur? Because in both cases—the live interview and the application essay—those applicants primed with power displayed greater confidence, and were thus viewed as more capable and competent.

Now, you might think this effect is ephemeral, floating away after a few minutes. And you would be right if the power prime existed in isolation. Indeed, in a vacuum, the effects of priming only last for an hour or two. However, if the prime
alters behavior
in those couple of hours, it can have a lasting effect.

We demonstrated the enduring nature of power primes in a study we ran over a three-day period with Gavin Kilduff of New York University. We split participants into three-person, same-sex groups, and primed one person in each group with high power, one person with low power, and one with a neutral level of power. These three-person teams then worked together on a task and went home. Two days later each team came back to the lab and did some new tasks. Then came the interesting part: We asked each team member who they thought the leader of the group was. We found that the participants primed with power on the first day of the study were perceived to be leaders
two days later
.

Why did effects that seem so ephemeral persist here? Well, when we analyzed videotape of the conversations on the first day, we found that the individuals primed with power initially
acted
as though they were the leader. They spoke earlier and with greater conviction at the beginning of the group's meeting. Then two days later, they continued to be seen that way, even when their contributions were equal to those of others on the team. In other words, this power prime influenced short-term behavior, which then had enduring effects.

Thus, to be perceived as powerful, it helps to be not only in the right place at the right time, but also in the right
frame of mind
. A small change in our mindset—activated by something as quick and easy as thinking about a prior experience when we had power—can have a significant impact on our long-term success. Put simply, we can all achieve significantly higher status if we adjust our psychological states at the outset of a group interaction.

Now that we know that power helps us speed down the highway toward a brighter future, we need to be aware that power can also cause us to drive too fast. And when we speed down the highway, we become more likely to crash—sometimes literally.

On June 15, 2013, Ethan Couch was driving his truck at a speed of 70 miles an hour down a highway in Fort Worth, Texas. A mere 16 years of age, Ethan and a group of friends had stolen beer from a Walmart earlier in the evening. Severely drunk, with a blood alcohol content three times the legal limit, Ethan lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a group of pedestrians, killing four and injuring five others. Compounding the tragedy, many of the pedestrians who were struck were good Samaritans, people who had stopped to help out a motorist with a flat tire.

What caused such a horrific accident? According to Ethan's defense lawyers, it was a disease, one that required treatment, not imprisonment. What was this mysterious disease? It was “Affluenza,” and it is caused by having too much wealth and too much power. Individuals who suffer from Affluenza, according to Ethan's defense, lose the ability to see the link between their behavior and consequences. Ethan, his defense argued, had been so indulged by his parents that he lost his capacity to engage in moral thinking and responsible behavior!

The judge in the case was apparently swayed by this argument, sentencing Ethan to just 10 years of probation and ordering that his parents pay for him to attend an intensive therapy program.

Whether or not you agree with this ruling, the judge got one thing fundamentally right: Power and privilege are intoxicating. Left unchecked, they can turn individuals into optimistic risk-takers who don't heed the boundaries that normally constrain our behavior. Often, the powerful only see the rewards in their behavior and not the risks or even mortal consequences.

This may be why, as we found in a study with Cameron Anderson of Berkeley, power makes people less likely to want to use condoms during sexual intercourse. And not just men—we found the same effect for women when they had been primed with power.

Or why the powerful are more likely to cheat and break the rules, even rules they themselves have created and imposed on others. In research we conducted with Joris Lammers of the University of Cologne, we had participants roll a set of dice to determine the number of lottery tickets they would receive—for example, a roll of two would earn them two tickets—and to report the roll of their dice. Would the powerful be more likely to overreport their outcomes? We found that indeed they were. So why do the powerful speed down the highway and end up hurting themselves and others? Part of the reason is because, like Mark Hurd and Ethan Couch, they assume they are the only ones on the road. Let's look at why.

Are people in power really
that
oblivious to the plight of others, or is that just something the less powerful say to feel better about themselves? We designed an experiment to find out. Here is what we asked our participants to do: Hold up the index finger of your dominant hand and draw a capital “E” on your forehead. Do this as quickly as possible, without stopping to think.

What does your E look like? Does it look like a normal E, or is it backward? It turns out that to draw an E on your forehead correctly requires that you think about what the E looks like from the
vantage point of others
(see left photo). In contrast, a self-focused E looks like an E from
your
vantage point, but is backward for others (see right photo).

Here is why you should care about the direction of your E. Power, as it turns out, dramatically increases the tendency for people to draw the E backward, from a selfish perspective. In a study we conducted with Joe Magee of New York University, almost three times as many people drew the backward E when they had been primed with power compared to those primed with low power. (We even replicated these findings in our first meeting with our publisher, when we asked everyone in the room to draw an E on their forehead. Just as in our experiment, the senior editors drew backward E's. The junior editors drew them correctly.) Again and again, we see that power makes people more focused on their own unique vantage point and oblivious to the perspectives of others.

So why do the powerful seem to forget that other people are in the room, like the man who redirected the annoying fan into Deb's face? Our neuroscience research offers clues; in a project led by Keely Muscatell of UCLA, we found that individuals who feel a sense of power are less likely to activate the prefrontal cortex and cingulate cortex, which represent the neural circuitry that pays attention to others. Other research shows that the powerful display less neurological mirroring of other people, and thus less awareness of others around them.

Interestingly, even in nature, the more powerful species have a narrower field of vision. The distinction between predator and prey offers an illuminating example of this. The key feature that distinguishes predator species from prey species isn't the presence of fangs or claws or any other feature related to biological weaponry. The key feature is
the position of their eyes
. Predators evolved with eyes facing forward—which allows for binocular vision that offers exquisite depth perception when pursuing prey. Prey, on the other hand, often have eyes facing outward, maximizing peripheral vision, which allows the hunted to detect danger that may be approaching from any angle. Consistent with our place at the top of the food chain, humans have eyes that face forward. We have the ability to gauge depth and pursue our goals, but we can also miss important action on our periphery.

This focus on the self also explains why stinginess has been linked to power. Consider two famous Christmas tales. In Charles Dickens's
A Christmas Carol
, the character Scrooge is introduced as a man of extraordinary wealth who hoards his money for himself and scoffs at the thought of spending it on others. In stark contrast, O. Henry's “The Gift of the Magi,” tells the tale of an impoverished couple, Jim and Della, in which Jim sells his prized pocket watch to purchase combs for Della's beautiful hair only to learn that she has cut and sold her hair to buy a gold chain for his watch. The characters of these stories vary on two dimensions. The first is their willingness to spend on themselves versus others. Scrooge hoards his money only for himself, whereas Jim and Della sacrifice their own prized possessions to buy gifts for each other. Second, they differ in terms of their power and wealth. Scrooge is a man of unlimited means whereas O. Henry's characters have very little.

In research we conducted with Derek Rucker of Northwestern University, we found that these stories echo a scientific truth. In one study, we manipulated power by having people take on the role of a Boss or an Employee. Afterward, all participants were given an opportunity to buy Hershey's Kisses at a cost of five cents. Some were asked to buy the chocolates for someone else, while others were buying only for themselves. Here is what we found: The powerful bosses acted like Scrooge—they bought 32 chocolates when buying for themselves but only 11 chocolates when buying for others. In contrast, those in the less powerful role of an employee acted like Jim and Della—they bought 37 chocolates when buying for others but only 14 when buying for themselves!

Other researchers have found that wealthier individuals donate a smaller percentage of their income to charity. Even though the powerful have more resources to share with others, power ironically makes people more Scrooge-like.

The key insight from all of this research is that power blinds us to the plight of others. And this “blindness” can have serious consequences: It can lead the powerful to lose their kingdom.