Slashdot Mirror
Study Shows People In Power Make Better Liars
oDDmON oUT writes "MSNBC is reporting that a Columbia Business School study shows those who hold power over others make better liars. According to one of the study's coauthors, 'It just doesn't hurt them as much to do it.' For the average liar, she said, the act of lying elicits negative emotions, physiological stress and the fear of getting caught in a lie. As a result, she added, liars will often send out cues that they are lying by doing things like fidgeting in a chair or changing the rate of their speech. But for the powerful, the impact is very different: 'Power, it seems, enhances the same emotional, cognitive, and physiological systems that lie-telling depletes. People with power enjoy positive emotions, increases in cognitive function, and physiological resilience such as lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Thus, holding power over others might make it easier for people to tell lies.'"
Why am I not surprised that Columbia Business School is researching ways to lie more effectively? They must be trying to catch up to Harvard.
Or maybe the people who don't have moral or emotional problems with lying are more likely to get into power.
At least to why Obamacare passed.
Congrats, you beat the tag.
And they have Expert power, right?
Who's to say they are not lying?
BINGO!
All you ever have to do is look at various high-level politicians and you'll know that it's true. The better study would be determining how often they get caught.
OCO is Loco
Maybe it's because most leaders are psychopaths, so they have absolute no problem telling lies at all.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You took the words right out of my mouth. It certainly wasn't while you were kissing me.
...an IgNobel prize a-cooking?
Somehow I think anybody in power would be able to give personal experiences on this. Be it a politician (as KiltedKnight suggested), power broker, agent, spy or executive.
Nothing new here, move along!
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/interviews/rapaille.html "The Reptile Always Wins" Traits such as the submission to authority are part of the deep underlying reptile brain. Even when other parts of brain saying not to, it very hard to ignore these base desire to submit. It is the core of our intelligent being. This is more than just "correlation imply causation," it is reflection of deep underlying trait that is known. There is not many news in this story. If you look on this principle you will find much to read.
Exactly what I was going to say. Would mod up if I had points.
RTFA. There's an actual experiment here, not just observations like the summary here implies.
Or maybe you could RTFA where in the study they control for that... because the participants in the study were randomly assigned "leader" and "subordinate" roles.
Fricking knee-jerk "Correlation != Causation".
It's quite possible that both claims are true (TFA's and yours) -- but in this case, it appears from the study simply that:
Causation = Causation.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Delegating! Good leaders know how to delegate better than lesser leaders. Thus, they delegate the lying to the professionals. Rent 'Wag the Dog' for a good example. There's also 'plausible deniability'. By not actually educating themselves on anything, they 'rely on what their researchers told them', when their handlers tell the researchers to tell them what the money men want them to say.
Spoken like a true loser.
Wait, Columbia did a study that just figured out that Politicians are better liars?
Wow, no wonder so many MBA's we hire are so ineffective at their jobs. You really need to perform a study to determine this?
Next study: Do females have an advantage in child rearing?
Reading things of this nature just reinforces my decision to discontinue structured learning, and go at it myself.
No we don't.
war criminals.
As this member of the Bush Crime Family has clearly demonstrated.
Yours In Astrakhan,
Kilgore Trout
People who are in power are generally very confident people. When you lie you need to be confident or people will not be convinced.
TFA isn't true. I'll prove it:
I.. uh.. have had sex before.
She had big bobs.
Yeah, they were nice.
You know, when you, like,
you grab a woman's breast
and it's...
And you feel it and...
it feels like a bag of sand
when you're touching it.
(please dont mod me down, you point holders have all the power)
I am no expert, but I have a feeling this has more to do with this. Especially in todays companies where there is a culture of promoting the biggest assholes and creating a play-field where you actually get rewarded if you F%@* somebody over. The elbow-way of making career gets you more. Unfortunately for those companies that work like this, they are actually selecting people to be liars and when you don't lie and so you come 2% of your target short, you're out. That guy next to you, who actually stole several sales from you... he is getting a new office. These companies are breeding bastards and often they don't see that. But by selecting management on these traits (what they effectively are doing) I am no surprised at all by this.
Obama certainly fucked you yanks good. Serves you bitches right.
To become a leader you have to be able to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what they want to hear. The better you are at this the higher up the ladder you will climb. For some reason people will always believe what they want to hear. It seems to apply across all ideologies.
Their conclusion of the study sounds ridiculous in itself.
They make it sound like some Jedi mind-trick -- as if you are channeling your power into a lie. "These are not the droids you are looking for..."
You just put up another correlation-causation-problem here. Yet another alternative: While you are in power, your lies are a matter of controlling people, when you are not in power, you gotta lie to cover your arse. Different motivations for the lies, different reactions.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
You know there's worse things than lying. For instance bullshit. Bullshitters don't even acknowledge that the truth is important, at least liars do that by knowingly lying. Bullshitters believe the crap they spout.
What you say about getting into power is undoubtedly so. All other things being equal, the ruthless person will have an easier time climbing the ladder.
But, i actually rtfa (well, almost all of page one, so correct me if I'm wrong).Here's a snippet:
"Carney and the other researchers, Andy Yap, Brian Lucas and Pranjal Mehta, used volunteers who were told they were either leaders or subordinates. The leaders were given a large office, and the subordinates given a small windowless space."
So, it wasn't that the ones "in power" got there by being ruthless. So not a chicken/egg/correlation/causation thing.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
Duh
How do you think they got in power?
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
RTFA?
You must be new here.
They must have missed the study by another university that also reads that sociopaths tend to be in some position of power. Must be easy to miss too because not remembering a lot about the study I couldn't find the link to it with Google either. It still has to be somewhere on this vast web we call the internet. Anyone else happen to read and bookmark it?
Lying is an important job skill for people in power. Either people are born with the aptitude, they learn it, or they are at a disadvantage to good liars at acquiring and holding power.
They got it all wrong it's not that those in power are better liars, it's because they are better liars that they have power. Obviously the eggheads that researched this never saw the outside world.
Come on Obama. You're fumbling the ball and I can't help but to think it's on purpose.
Ihttp://www.sustainabilityninja.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/captain-obvious.jpg
Well yeah? How else would they have gotten into that kind of power?
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
Having a small penis helps, too. Nothing can make a man act more powerful than a micropenis and raisin testes.
Columbia University Business school finds "people in power makes better liars." The report goes on to state, "it's 'bitchin' cold in Antartica" and "people who cut me off in traffic are total 'dick's." Full story at 11.
I always thought cliches like "absolute power corrupts" included this concept well enough, but I must disclaim that I'm not an academic with a department to promote who feels in danger of perishing unless he publishes....
"All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."
--Frank Herbert; Chapterhouse: Dune (1985)
Oh yes, we have Fox News pumping out information like: This bill will increase taxes on everyone that pays taxes, and, This bill will increase the entitlements thusly increase the base of voters that will vote for politicians that will increase entitlements even more, and, This bill will do more to ruin jobs that to improve the lives of citizens. Bye the way, if you read the bill, these are all facts. My son and I poured over the documents for two days.
There is more to harm this country than to help. Since when does the federal government reduce waste and fraud? Really. When?
The congressional leaders have done nothing but lie the the public about their intent. They don't give a rat's ass about improving healthcare or anything about our lives. They only want total control over everything in this country. Then, they will have all the power and lots of our money.
If you read the constitution, you will find that the 10th amendment makes a good portion of this bill illegal anyway.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
The terrifying conclusion of this research is that when you randomly assign normal people to positions of power, they become psychopaths.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Because this is exactly what high priests in religion have been doing for centuries.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Spoken like a true/lying psychopath.
(Your pointy hair is showing.)
Maybe it's because most leaders are psychopaths, so they have absolute no problem telling lies at all.
Let's just hope they are merely sociopaths!
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
I read a psychology study wherein the participants lie to each other and rate who is the best liar. They then, as part of the study, vote for a representative to return their results. Every single group voted for the best liar to return the results.
So are we hardwired to want liars in power?
I remember the first times I saw Ron Reagan and Bill Clinton when they were running for office. I was awestruck by how good they were at lying and I knew with certainty they'd be elected.
Obama is so good at it, I believed every damn hopey changey word!
Good liars get elected!
But, i actually rtfa
Pfft. Great! There goes your chance to sound smarter than the professional researchers. Now you only sound smarter than the slashdotters racing to sound smarter than the researchers. Some accomplishment!
Volunteers [were] told they were either leaders or subordinates. The leaders were given a large office, and the subordinates given a small windowless space.
Ha! That doesn't solve the problem, there's still an issue here that started with the second run of the trial.
Researcher: "Okay, now for control purposes we need to switch the groups. Now, who hasn't been a 'leader' yet?"
Sociopath: "Oh, not me!"
Researcher: "Wait, weren't a leader last time?"
Sociopath: "Golly, no! I swear!"
Researcher: "Okay then."
See? The good liars are still more likely to be leaders. ;)
The enemies of Democracy are
I really think this should become more of a slashdot meme. People could really learn from it.
People who are better liars tend to rise to power more often than people who aren't. We have already identified that most people in power are also sociopaths. What the summary would seem to be saying is that people who are placed in power develop comfort telling lies. If there is a causation, it's that better liars end up in power more often than those who aren't.
For anyone who's ever been a parent, this is obvious. I can lie my teeth off to my kids without so much as flinching (all in their best interest of course), but they can't so much as bend the truth without contorting themselves into a pretzel.
I doubt there's many people that lie as much as cops do on a daily basis & get away with it. & I've yet to see a polices facts statement or brief that wasn't full of lies. No wonder bugger all trust coppers these days
For some reason people will always believe what they want to hear.
As Paul Simon famously asserted, "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."
True psychopaths are born not bred.
So which is the cause, and which is the effect?
Well, this explains Barack Obama then.
Furthermore, a man "carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down, or cut him 'til he cried out in his anger and his shame ..."
I know I do, anyway ... and I'm not even a fighter.
But sociopaths are another matter -- they don't give a shit about shame. Anger, yes. But not shame.
-kgj
Mod me down but you know that Obama is a fucking liar.
But if you make a living interpreting the Constitution, as many people in Washington do, the 10th Amendment is moot when it faces the might of the Commerce Clause.
And even if the bill needs to be reworked should SCOTUS rule against it, there's always cooperative federalism to push the issue... your state doesn't obey the new law? Fine. The federal government can withhold related moneys for your state. Hey, it worked for the dirnking age, right?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Obviously. Haven't these people ever met anyone in power?
It's the whole prisoner detainee problem. This is more useless research pointing out the obvious cranked out by our "higher learning institutions".
How can millions of people who cannot afford health care get free health care?
By waiting until their conditions are serious or critical and then going to the ER, which is much more expensive than traditional care for the same condition, and ludicrously more expensive than preventative care. And that's not even counting that prices are already higher for the uninsured!
The added costs by the health care companies will be passed down to the customers.
You mean they are passed down to the paying customers. You and I are already paying for the uninsured! So given that, would you rather pay for ultra-expensive emergency care, or pay for cheaper regular care?
Locking people out of the regular health care system and forcing them to use emergency services because they can't afford insurance is a serious case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Health care costs could have been cut more by stopping all the frivolous health care related law suites.
I'm not saying it isn't a good cause, but that is a trivial amount of savings.
No, we're going to save more money by reducing the amount we are paying for health care for the poor. Just because that cost is now coming out in the open doesn't mean we weren't paying for it before. We were, and paying more at that.
The enemies of Democracy are
Wouldn't this mean that depending on your social, financial, or business stature, all lie detections systems will not work properly? Do not lie detection systems rely on some basic similarities in physiological human response to achieve their goal?
To become a leader you have to be able to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what they want to hear.
Well, if that's all there is to it, then it would always be the salesman who climbs the ladder. But that's not the case.
Being a leader is also being able to know and set boundaries. Being able to recognize win-win deals. Having wisdom.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Very easy to stand aside and point to THEM as the problem. But in this study, just as in Zimbardo's prisoner study at Standford (check out The Lucifer Effect), the people in charge were selected randomly. The more reasonable conclusion is that power tends to bring out the worst in most people or, as put more succinctly, power corrupts. Couple this with the Dunning-Kruger Effect (roughly, ignorance is positively correlated with confidence) and our tendency to want confident leaders and you have an almost perfect storm. We select the confident over the capable for our leaders, and then the power we give them makes them worse.
Power corrupts. That was noticed a couple millenia ago. What's sad is that so many people willingly and eagerly let themselves be lied to.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
What if they were asked to present facts? Does having a position of power increase your confidence overall, or does it only affect your lying ability?
Better Liars? Wouldn't a better liar be one who is not capable of lying and getting away with it?
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
Something no one seems to have mentioned yet is that lying might sometimes be necessary for effective leadership.
Since this is Slashdot, think of Theoden at the battle at Helm's Deep. Putting on a brace face, sometimes straight out lying about things. I can imagine e.g. tribal leaders doing the same thing. So there might be a mechanism whereby people either develop these skills when in a leadership position, or the people who tend towards lying more easily attain these positions.
Of course, this can only ever be a positive thing if the leader in question actually cares about his underlings.
obvius, the people don't like the truth
1010011010
Well, what is the cost of lying? If you're a leader, someone might call you out, but probably not. More likely you get more power, as people follow you because you tell them what they want to hear.
If you're a subordinate, you can get penalized - fired, demoted, reprimanded.
So the punishment for lying is different.
That's one highly likely cause, but probably not the only one .. there's been some experiments that demonstrated that people in power change, generally for the worse.
The Standford experiment is the classic example, though it's not definite (is anything in psychology definte though?), but it's a good indicator that power also changes normal people. Another good example would the Abu Ghraib occurrences, I doubt the prison guards would've pictured themselves that way when they were normal civilians.
actually "born" and "bred" come kinda hand in hand. You might have been thinking of "made"?
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
I was being a bit facetious, although I do think psychopaths do excel at politics, mainly because their easy charisma, insanely over-the-top goals and absolute lack of empathy or a conscience, but with the ability to mimic those emotions, make them perfect for a line of work where goals can evaporate and reformulate in days.
There's no doubt that giving someone power can lead to all sorts of nasty side-effects on their egos. It doesn't even take much power. Some of the worst I've seen are mall cops and beach patrols, small time jobs for small time people, and yet give someone a uniform or a big fancy job title with even just moderate responsibility, and they'll go a little nuts.
Myself, I hate being in management. I was there once for a small firm and it sucked. All I got was a small raise, a whole lot more responsibility, a bunch of miserable bastards for underlings, and I was glad when the whole thing was over and I found a job where my responsibilities over others was limited.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"Power corrupts".
The higher up the corporate ladder a person is, the more people he/she has control over and thus he/she is a bigger liar.
Water is wet, fire hot, etc.
Not really insightful.
"No shit, sherlock"
My web domain.
'It just doesn't hurt them as much to do it.' For the average liar, she said, the act of lying elicits negative emotions, physiological stress and the fear of getting caught in a lie
"It just doesn't hurt them as much". Let's put it another way. If you're at the bottom of the heap, there's plenty of people with the ability to administer punishment if they don't believe you.
But if you're at the top, if you lie and they don't believe you -- you're the one who can dish out the punishment.
If positions of power are detrimental to human mental health then it should be illegal to put people in or allow people to attain positions of power.
I observed one of my colleagues get promoted from engineer to manager. At first he was obviously uncomfortable telling us lies. (e.g. the company is not planning any layoffs). After he had been in the position for about a year, he was much more comfortable repeating the official corporate lines, even when I knew that he wasn't telling the truth. He was still a nice guy, not a psychopath, so I attributed a fair amount of this change to practice. According to this research, maybe some of it was that he was secure in the power he established over the group.
People were randomly assigned to groups (power/no power, truthful/lying) so claiming power causes people to lie more easily seems valid, within the bounds of the experiment.
Or - psychopathy is genetic, not learned.
No, it's probably because in that experiment the best liar is the only one who doesn't have an incentive to misreport (ie. lie about) the results. Counterintuitive, I know.
Pretty much explains the dopes in Washington DC doesn't it?
People will buy into what you think of yourself. And then react accordingly. Which then fulfills your prophecy that you are like that. Because everyone confirms it.
This is what creates the bullies, nerds, winners and losers in schools, companies, in all communities, and even on state/world level.
The guy who is the most secure of himself, becomes what most people listen to and believe in. Hence they become leaders.
The problem is, that we all think this would be something unchangable. That we ourselves would be just how we are. So many people think they are losers. And they could change it... just like that. By deciding that they are what they want to be. Which makes them act accordingly, makes others react accordingly, and so on, until it becomes reality.
I did that myself, and completely changed who I am.
But I’m drifting off.
The thing is, that those leaders are so sure of their reality, that they can make themselves believe it is true and not a lie. They are trained experts in acting confident and secure. So everybody buys into it. Which is reason for becoming and the result of being a leader.
Remember to be aware of that wen around people. Know that you can play with it. If you play it right, the power structures will shift at your will, and you can act completely opposite to your actual thoughts and intentions. (If you want to.)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Just to be pedantic, there is no longer a difference between sociopath and psychopath in the DSM-IV used by both psychologists and psychiatrists. Both disorders are incorporated under the same definition, and it's now called "antisocial personality disorder".
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
In the study, the lies told were the same for the same motive. "Power" was the independent variable.
becoming more and more moronic each day. I guess being well fed off those fat MBA fees make them so.
Yeah, yeah.
You're still getting stuffed into your locker.
Have gnu, will travel.
If positions of power are detrimental to human mental health then it should be illegal to put people in or allow people to attain positions of power.
And that in a nutshell is the political philosophy called democracy.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Couldn't agree more about the study's contention. It's kind of intuitive, you know. BTW, Democrats are in power. That must mean they're good liars. They are! As for Bush, I thought he was too stupid to lie. He must have been one of those devious neandertal types!
"The terrifying conclusion of this research is that when you randomly assign normal people to positions of power, they become psychopaths."
Define psychopath, what defines a psychopath? This slashdot babble getting modded insightful/interesting is a little disturbing and reflects poorly on the mods. The fact of the matter is if the people dont' stand up for their rights and eject such people from power then they get what they deserve.
Please don't tell me that the 72 virgins aren't real.
Have gnu, will travel.
And who shall have the power to prevent people from attaining positions of power?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Same NBC that says the comcast deal is good for people! NO it's good for comcast and bad for dish and directv and people how have DBS.
Comcast also lies about having more HD. But they count each PPV VOD movie as a channel and they also count the super part time NFL RED ZONE HD, GAME1 HD, Game2 HD, PPV HD, TEAM HD as channels. Even when with GAME1 HD, Game2 HD, PPV HD and TEAM HD only 2 can be live at one time and they only show live events and are far from being 24/7. NFL RED ZONE HD is only live for about 6 hours a day 1 day a week and this not even year round. Some systems also have a 24/7 comcast info channel HD that just shows looping help videos and they are not even in HD But they do have from time to time a HD RSN over flow game on it.
Comcast also seems to play around with there hidden fees. Like Outlet fees and HD fees. Some deals clam free Free HD - no HD access fees or HD equipment fees* but the fine print says stuff like limited to a single outlet and Equipment extra. (so they say free HD and say Equipment extra?) also HD is $9 per box and HD DVR is $16-$20 per box as well.
"Well, if that's all there is to it, then it would always be the salesman who climbs the ladder. But that's not the case."
Actually I'm pretty sure that is the case. A leader is just a good salesman who is almost always selling the right thing, which always includes selling themselves. He or she is the best salesperson. Referring to an employee who is stuck in the sales department, well they're not the best sales people. Else they wouldn't be stuck selling just one or 2 things.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
Please don't tell me that the 72 virgins aren't real.
Good news: They're real all right.
Bad News: Hope you're not Hetrosexual.
Shows wny Jobs runs apple and Wozniak does not
They didnt think lying was needed, or they woudnt do it. Think about that for a minute.
Can you trust them?
I believe the word you're looking for is "sociopath".
Whist both sociopaths and psychopaths both seek power pathologically but psychopaths generally aren't very successful due to the fact they keep killing people.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I know people who, when confronted with their lousy behavior, think that it is confirmation of the "rightness" of their behavior. If they're a bully telling them that not everyone is a bully by nature confirms to them that bullies are the only ones who have everything all together. To them people who aren't bullies just don't understand life.
If they are a person in position of authority it will tell them that when they lie it only confirms what powerful leader they are, even if they're a total waste as a leader.
Instead of this being cautionary to them, it will only increase their antisocial behavior.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
So is it that being in power makes you a better liar, or are you in power because you were the better liar?
--- When you start with the conclusion that you want, then throw out any facts that don't agree, is it true?
> Whist both sociopaths and psychopaths both seek power pathologically but psychopaths generally aren't very successful due to the fact they keep killing people.
You mean like wars and stuff? Yeah, those people never get elected!
The terrifying conclusion of this research is that when you randomly assign normal people to positions of power, they become psychopaths.
And in other news, when you apply a force to something it accelerates in inverse proportion to its mass...
Seriously, why is it in the sciences we can prove things by experiment and they stay proved, but in the social "sciences" every repeat of a well-known, empirically proven result is considered new and insightful?
Is it the lack of sound biological foundation for the social "sciences", so that there is no notion that some truths--like those revealed decades ago by the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram Experiment, as well as many, many actual field observations, from Auschwitz to Abu Ghraib--are in any way fundamental? The strong tendency of people in power to abuse that power is not a truism or "philosophical" observation, but an ordinary empirical fact.
It's as if social "scientists" were continually running experiments in which they didn't give people food for a week and reported with breathless amazement at the end that the subjects were hungry! Isn't that amazing? No, it isn't, unless you haven't been paying any attention to anything for the past thirty or forty years.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
IMHO it's more likely that lying to someone who's more powerful than you is riskier and thus more stressful. Plus there's the whole boss ~= parent mental association that's bound to have some kind of effect.
Or - psychopathy is genetic, not learned.
And F = m*v. At least, that's what I'd really like to believe, so I'm going to keep repeating it on the Internet and completely ignore all the evidence to the contrary.
Psychopathy is opportunistic. Everyone has the capacity. Most people take advantage of the opportunity when they have it.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Promise them a mild Winter and a cure for warming by Spring.
--
Causation implies correlation.
You compete to gain positions of power. You are born a psychopath, you do not become one, although as a weak willed amoral person it is certainly possible to come under the influence of a psychopath and join them in their corrupt activities.
The flip side of the report is that people get into modern capitalist based positions of power by being better liars, rather than be being competent managers. So being good a blaming other people for your mistakes and taking credit for other peoples work, all whilst showing no conscience or shame gives you a competitive advantage in the modern corporate and political structure.
Unfortunately of course that results in the inevitable catastrophic collapse of the companies or political groups that the sociopath gains control of, as they are incompetent self serving schemers rather intuitive aware managers with a strong scene of personal integrity and conscience.
Recently medical science has caught up with the sociopath and the condition can now be specifically tested for and those persons can be prevented from laying waste to what ever company, government agency, political party etc they gain control of to the their own seriously disturbed ego. How broad those tests will become is a very interesting question, obviously no sane parent would want their child to marry a smooth talking, charming, psychopath.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
"How broad those tests will become is a very interesting question, obviously no sane parent would want their child to marry a smooth talking, charming, psychopath."
No parent would mark his child to be a sociopath is that means ruining his future.
But on a more to the spot issue, no boss would test to demonstrate his own socipathy nor any minion would ask for his sociopath boss to be tested that way.
"Well, if that's all there is to it, then it would always be the salesman who climbs the ladder."
As, in fact, it happens.
politicians lie, absolute politicians lie absolutely
Also, the more powerful you are, the more immune you are to the consequences of getting caught lying.
As much as I appreciate good sarcasm, those people are still sociopaths. A sociopath has no qualms against hurting others to create or extend their own power just like psychopaths, the key difference being that a psychopath has little self control. Certainly not enough to get elected, or hold a steady job.
Lack of remorse is another common trait. Both are Antisocial Personality Disorders but have critical differences in the way they react to other people and threats.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Nothing unexpected ... as more power you have less fear you have about the consequences of getting caught lying;
also, the ethical and moral burden is not anymore an issue as we are brain washed for decades that lying is the
normality when the liar must show leadership or has political reasoning. So, welcome to the future where things are
well established that the ones owning the power will own it and pass it to the ones they will choose as fit to perpetuate
the same status quo. Hooray to the glory of the North American Bison Citizen ...
Let's try a car analogy. Researchers might in great detail measure how much more likely you are to get into a car crash if you use a mobile phone while driving, and they might measure this for several different kinds of phones, hand-free sets and so on. They might compare it to simply talking to someone else in the car. The newsstory will read "researchers conclude that being distracted is likely to get you into a crash than if you were paying attention," but that's a very unfair characterization. What you are doing is generalizing the results of this research to something that you don't think is surprising, while in fact the research is about something very specific. Another thing is that people report being unsurprised by results from the social sciences, however for some results people will report this no matter how you tell them the research came out. If the research had found that lying ability was greater in subordinates, would you also be here saying "that's so obvious that these people are morons for researching it."
And who shall have the power to prevent people from attaining positions of power?
I will. I promise not to abuse the power at all.
You're thinking small. Why miniaturize the laser, when we could instead enlarge the sharks? -John Searle
80% of people will give someone what they believe to be a lethal shock (despite the person begging them to stop) with slight prompting.
So I'd say 80% of people are ready to be psychopaths-- they just lack the opportunity.
(sources are the original study and the recent french TV program that duplicated it).
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
But this doesn't diminish the point that some individuals are incapable of being anything other than psychopatic - they are simply born without the required hardware to have empathy as a feature of their cognitive architecture. They lack an instinct that most of us have, even if we don't always use it.
... the researchers and article have it backwards, it's liars who make it to positions of power.
TOP DSLR Cameras Reviews of the top DSLRs
The terrifying conclusion of this research is that when you randomly assign normal people to positions of power, they become psychopaths.
Perfect example, of this: the Stanford prison experiment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
Psychopathy can be easily trained into humans. All it takes is for societal restrictions to be removed from the mind. The US Marines have been doing this for decades.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
No, they show their true nature, i.e. most people don't give a damn about anyone else except themselves and possibly their family.
Psychopaths are always like this, but in a much worse way, whether they are in power or not. You can very easily determine if someone is a psychopath by what he says (i.e. they have no empathy and this quickly shows). That power makes it easier to tell lies doesn't change that, you can differentiate between such people.
People who are psychopaths/sociopaths are quite different from people who get into power and then behave like assholes. Someone mentioned that people who get into power are more likely to be psychopaths, and this is obviously true. Therefore this study isn't particularly useful in seeing what would happen if psychopaths were to be excluded from government etc. (because then the whole climate would improve, less emphasis on "who's in power" etc.). Years ago I suggested to dutch political parties that people there should get a psychological test so that these kind of people (who are only in politics for themselves and don't give a damn about anyone/anything except when it benefits their own career) be excluded from politics...
Oh btw, someone mentioned 'Power corrupts' and if you consider 'to corrupt' to mean his personality will change, this is not true. Give someone power, and he will show his true personality (because he doesn't have to hide anything, doesn't have to suck up to people etc.)
The terrifying conclusion of this research is that when you randomly assign normal people to positions of power, they become psychopaths.
Except that there don't appear to be that many actual cases of people being randomly assigned to positions of power. Even juries which are specifically intended to be random frequently are not.
Actually that is the more or less the central belief of anarchy. (The intellectual kind, not the rioting in the streets kind.)
I do take issue with the term psychopathy. It is typical primate alpha behavior. Like it or not, this is our natural uncorrupted state.
Your statement isn't looking deeper at the issue. People in positions of power unfortunately need to lie to others sometimes, it's just a requirement of the job. If you are in charge of a serious group of people on a daily basis, you have to deal with a variety of things that demand secrecy/discretion, which in turn demands that you occasionally lie about things to others. In my opinion, reducing the impact of lying is a defensive tool that our brains are wired with.
What happens when an employee is accused of a crime or career-ending misconduct? Serious accusations must be investigated, but are often completely untrue... so you are going to be forced to lie to others point-blank if they hear rumors and ask you about it. Otherwise the rumor machine kicks in.
What happens when the company is in trouble and you need to seriously evaluate all sorts of different options, including laying off most of the staff? Again, you have to be careful to keep those sorts of discussions close to the vest, and that may require lying.
Studies like the Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrate that in certain contexts, otherwise normal people will become monsters capable of incredible evil. This is true, but it doesn't mean that we all need to curl up in the fetal position and cry. You have to have controls -- checks and balances to ensure that the powerful don't turn tyrannical. Those checks include training, delegated authority, evaluation with consequences and debriefings. Disasters like Enron, the My Lai massacre, and countless others are egregious examples of what happens when individuals invested with unchecked power are unleashed.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
You don't have to be a liar to be a great politician, but a great liar will make a great politician, and the ability to lie and act would give any politician a great advantage over others who can't.
Lying only works on people. You cannot build a house on false measurements. The measurements have to be honest. But you can build a church on lies. You can gather people and make them work for you under false premises. Imagine the advantage you would have if your words were not restricted to what is true?
A stack of lies will only crumble if challenged, or rather, until challenged. So once in power, using your power to prevent people from challenging your lies becomes half the battle of staying in power. History illustrates this time and time again.
Ultimately though, there is nothing stronger than structure built on truth, and I would argue that the best leaders got where they were with the truths they told, and that their lies were their weakness.
I want to hear the truth, which is why I never listen to politicians or their puppeteers.
It's the natural state of many animals. The fact that it's not the natural state of affairs for humans is central to what makes us human.
As I recall, F=m*a :-)
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
I think he was paraphrasing Caesar:
"Libenter homines id quod volunt credunt" - Men gladly believe that which they wish for.
Steve -- If you have to call it a system, you don't know what it is.
Thank you. Sociopath, not psychopath.
What if we "crowdsource" government at "www.wiki.gov" and see what happens? or maybe just use twitter? Of course, we need a new version of twitter for filibusters. Is that a "blog"? I digress.
...plus, will have all this data to play with, thanks to Tim-Berners Lee. Surely we can come up with a new and better way to organize society, right? Solve the poverty problem, etc? Dance with unicorns?
It should read "Study Shows People In Power Are The Best Liars"
No shit Sherlock. That's likely the reason they got the power.
obviously no sane parent would want their child to marry a smooth talking, charming, psychopath.
I wouldn't be too sure of that. "Civilized" society calls him successful, and they would queue up to marry him.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
You can very easily determine if someone is a psychopath by what he says (i.e. they have no empathy and this quickly shows).
I guess it is not that simple. They sure have no empathy, but some are extremely good actors and feign more empathy than a "normal" guy can feel. So yes, there are unsuccessful psychopaths whose lack of empathy is evident. But there are genius psychopaths about whom it takes very long time for one to know that they are psychopaths.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Don't know about the "morality" angle, but regarding cause and effect, someone did a study a few years ago with the cause / effect reversed. They showed that peole who are convincingly good at lying make much better leaders.
...or maybe they have just been practicing at lying far longer...the time it took them to lie their way from the bottom to the top...
Naturally all sociopaths hide their illness, they plot and scheme every waking hour to minimise their frustrations at everyone else's expense. In the case of public companies. obviously financiers, investors and the board could require it prior to employment in management roles (just like any other recruitment test). This can also be required for other high personal risk professions like, police, teaching, doctors, nurses, pilots etc. In the case of politics, prior to running for office and person should be tested and be declared mentally fit to run for office. Once specific genes can be tied to the condition, defining it strength of impact as well as assurance of occurrence, that presents another even trickier issue of protecting children from other children with a dangerous cerebral defect, that results in an absence of conscience and empathy.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Oh, I get it, a Dilbert joke. Cute.
Keep believing that if it makes you happy, monkey boy.
Why is that considered a defect to you instead of an advantage? Traits that help the species are selected for, not against. The fact that its still around suggests that it is beneficial, not harmful.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
They also remorselessly psychologically abuse their partners, use then as lab rats in testing out psychological manipulations, cheat on them as a matter of course and then of course swap them over once the relationship is no longer advantageous and, if the opportunity presents when they can legally get away with removing them they will do so without a flicker of conscience, if they believe they can get away with it they'll even go for a life insurance claim. Juts like playing Russian roulette but instead of one loaded chamber and the rest are empty, it is one empty chamber and the rest are loaded.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
this example does not actually counter what he said. You are changing the fact that the researchers are *asking* those people for leader or subordinates, but he said the researchers assign the volunteers to become leaders or subordinates. There is a distinct difference between asking and assigning.
And throughout the history, a lot of the people in power doesn't necessarily are the people who are good at lying. For all elected president candidates from the party machine, can you really say that those are 100% good liers? No, gaining power or being put to the position of power does not implied the characteristic of that person, it is the circumstances that would influence the person.
That's right, but success makes him extremely attractive. All his defects will be not known in advance because he feigns a good, kindly nature. Even after they are found out, the defects will be ignored for a long time because that person is successful. He will even blame his spouse for the marital discord and since he is a smooth-talking, charming person, outer world(including his parents-in-law) will believe him more than the suffering spouse.
Marrying (and even your child's marrying) a successful person means that you have "arrived" in life. We cannot simply wish away this attraction for success we have as a species.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
There's a well known correlation between success and EQ. I'm guessing that EQ allows people to lie more easily.
Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.