iwakar
crush the fences
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- May 2, 2007
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Power Causes Brain Damage
The article title is patently false, which is disappointing, but it's still an interesting read.
The article seems to take a harsh view of this, but it seems to me that diminishing empathy is a necessary change in order to lead at very high levels. However, this isn't a perfect development because apparently terrible decision-making can erupt.
The article goes on to explain that the most successful mitigation of the powerful's 'social blindness' is to have people around them who "put them in their place" and keep them grounded. People who diminish their feeling of being powerful.
This all seems intuitively true to me, but it's fascinating to have behavioral and neuro-scientists confirm this.
The article title is patently false, which is disappointing, but it's still an interesting read.
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, “mirroring,†that may be a cornerstone of empathy. Which gives a neurological basis to what Keltner has termed the “power paradoxâ€: Once we have power, we lose some of the capacities we needed to gain it in the first place.
The article seems to take a harsh view of this, but it seems to me that diminishing empathy is a necessary change in order to lead at very high levels. However, this isn't a perfect development because apparently terrible decision-making can erupt.
I wondered whether the powerful might simply stop trying to put themselves in others’ shoes, without losing the ability to do so. As it happened, Obhi ran a subsequent study that may help answer that question. This time, subjects were told what mirroring was and asked to make a conscious effort to increase or decrease their response. “Our results,†he and his co-author, Katherine Naish, wrote, “showed no difference.†Effort didn’t help.
This is a depressing finding. Knowledge is supposed to be power. But what good is knowing that power deprives you of knowledge?
Less able to make out people’s individuating traits, they rely more heavily on stereotype. And the less they’re able to see, other research suggests, the more they rely on a personal “vision†for navigation.
The article goes on to explain that the most successful mitigation of the powerful's 'social blindness' is to have people around them who "put them in their place" and keep them grounded. People who diminish their feeling of being powerful.
This all seems intuitively true to me, but it's fascinating to have behavioral and neuro-scientists confirm this.