Adam Grant is a widely-known psychologist and bestselling author. His work often studies how people find motivation and meaning in their work and lives. In this article, originally published in The Washington Post, Grant considers the age old idea that power corrupts people.

Question

As you read, take notes on how the author uses evidence to support his argument.

Another day, another leader seems to fall from a seat of power. The #MeToo movement has shown us devastating evidence of how male superiors have abused their power over female subordinates. The Catholic Church has offered demoralizing revelations of how priests have abused their power over nuns and children.

When leaders cross the line, we often blame power. As Lord Acton famously expressed it, “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

But it’s not entirely true.

Last year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, I wanted to understand the impact of power on people. I sat down with two dozen leaders, including the current or former CEOs of Microsoft, Google, General Motors, Goldman Sachs and the Gates Foundation. Over and over again, I heard that power doesn’t change people as much as it accentuates their preexisting traits.

As Slack founder and CEO Stewart Butterfield quipped, “It doesn’t make you an [expletive]. It just makes you more of who you already were.”

That’s actually a good summary of the new line of thinking in psychology: Power is like an amplifier. Whoever we were before just gets louder.

In one experiment, psychologists set up an annoying fan so that it would blow in people’s faces. The participants’ odds of moving it away, turning it off, or unplugging it spiked from 42 percent to 69 percent if they had just written about a time when they had power.

In other experiments, when people were reminded of feeling powerful, they were more likely to express their own opinions and ideas instead of conforming to others. And when they were assigned the role of manager rather than subordinate before a negotiation, they were more likely to bargain their own way instead of adapting to an opponent’s style.

Power disinhibits us. It releases us from the shackles of social pressure. Gaining influence and authority frees us up to act on our real wishes and show our true colors. Few would argue that we need look any further than the current White House occupant to see the ultimate example of how power can magnify a person’s personality.

Question The experiments illustrated a direct link between power and…

safety.

health.

institutions.

individualism.

Answer 1

The experiments illustrated a direct link between power and individualism. The studies mentioned in the article indicate that when individuals feel powerful, they are more likely to express their own opinions, act on their real wishes, and assert their preferences rather than conforming to social pressures. This suggests a tendency towards individualism when one experiences power.

Answer 2

For decades, psychologists were convinced instead that power corrupts. One of the key demonstrations was the classic Stanford prison simulation, where students were randomly assigned to play the role of prisoners or prison guards. The guards ended up taking away the prisoners’ clothes and forcing them to sleep on concrete floors.

“In only a few days, our guards became sadistic,” psychologist Philip Zimbardo said. The “power of a host of situational variables can dominate an individual’s will to resist.”

The results were so shocking that a critical detail was overlooked: the students who showed up had been recruited to participate in a “study of prison life.” When psychologists ran an experiment to figure out what kinds of people are drawn to that kind of study, they found that volunteers for a prison study scored about 26 percent higher on aggression and belief in social dominance, 12 percent higher on narcissism and 10 percent higher on authoritarianism and Machiavellianism than people who signed up for psychological studies in general.

Power didn’t corrupt ordinary people. It corrupted people who already leaned toward corruption. And it wasn’t the first time.