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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.'"
Or maybe the people who don't have moral or emotional problems with lying are more likely to get into power.
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.
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.
If there were no lies, this plan would have overwhelming support. Everyone except the very rich and the insurance companies would support it.
Unfortunately, we have Fox News and conservative politicians pumping out lies day and night and a bunch of idiots that believe the lies.
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.
No we don't.
People who are in power are generally very confident people. When you lie you need to be confident or people will not be convinced.
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.
Are you kidding? The insurance companies are ecstatic over the bill that is being passed. They get 30,000,000 additional clients, and practically none of the restraints that have been bandied about. The only big thing they'll be upset about is pre-existing conditions, and you can bet your bottom dollar that their friends in high places will ensure they continue to be profitable nonetheless.
Sure, there will be some headaches with implementation and compliance... but they stand to make even more money off the new legislation. Make no mistake... there's a reason insurance companies' stocks have been on the upswing over the past week.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
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.
It seems more appropriate applied to the EU Parliament or the US Congress. "We will not ratify the Lisbon Treaty without a popular referendum." - "We will have more open government watchable on CSPAN, not hidden behind doors."
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
How do you think they got in power?
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
And therein lies the problem.
The Republican party (as a generalization,) feeds on "this will hurt anyone who wants to get ahead in life." They make it seem like taxes that target the rich will hurt everyone, because it will cut down on the desire to be rich.
Bollocks. When a tax, by definition, only affects the top 2%, it ONLY AFFECTS THE TOP 2%! The fact that the "no taxes" people use this as a red herring to convince people that "If you desire to be rich, you should vote against this" is ridiculous. If you desire to be rich, you should be happy in the fact that you now have to pay a little more taxes. It's proof that you're rich! It's not like someone who makes $5 million a year is going to be taxed so heavily, they take home less than someone who makes $25,000 a year. THEY'LL STILL MAKE MILLIONS! You show me a single person who makes $5 mil a year who spends the same percentage of their net income on physical products as someone who makes $25k a year. There are very few "rich" people who put as high a percentage of their income "back into the economy" as poor people. Poor people HAVE to spend a large percentage of their money on food, housing, etc. For a rich person, the required "reinvest in the economy" percentage is far lower. Yes, the raw dollars is higher, but that same income figure, spread among a larger number of middle-class persons, will put a higher dollar value back in to the economy.
P.S. I'm not a fan of unfair taxes, by any means, I'm all for a "graduated flat tax", where people below the poverty line pay no income tax, and it ramps up to a flat amount (whatever amount that has to be to cover the government expenditures,) at a certain point, say, 2x poverty line. No deductions, no 'bulk credits' that 90% of the population qualifies for every year, no loopholes, no untaxed income. ALL income is taxed at the same rate, as long as you are above 2x poverty line. (Or whatever value makes sense.) Short term credits that are meant to promote certain activities into the mainstream, are just fine, as long as they are VERY targeted, and temporary. If you want people to buy houses instead of rent, you make a short term credit, like the one that is about to expire. If you want people to invest in alternative energy, you make an expiring credit, like the one that is in effect for hybrid cars. You use short-term, targeted credits to "shift the herd", not permanent ones that turn into entitlements to do it. Two dogs can shift a herd just as well as tens of miles of fencing.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
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.
I read it!!!
Of course.....I might be lying about that.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Are you kidding?
The insurance companies were FULLY behind this. They're gonna make a killing off of Obamacare. Think about it..now EVERYONE has to have insurance. This will increase their roles by nearly a magnitude (ok, exaggerating there a little). And, best of all, they can likely now raise their rates since everyone will be mandated to have it or face fines.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Trouble is, this isn't going to stop with the top 2%. Heck they used to say no more taxes for those making less than $250K (per couple I think). Well, in many parts of the US, that is NOT being wealthy. I think those living in SF and NYC might could vouch for that.
But not only that...as time has gone by, I'm hearing more and more politicians trying to lower the bar as to what is 'rich'...$200K....those making $150K are rich...etc.
Don't kid yourself, with this and new planned massive spending, they're gonna HAVE to start taxing pretty much everyone that is not on welfare. I forget the exact statistic, but something along the lines of the top 10%-15% or so already pay > 80% of the US's taxes. At some point, you can't squeeze more money out of them and have to hit lower hanging fruit. I hear already that new taxes are gonna move the effective top tax rates back up to near Carter era rates were....a number I heard was like 44%, especially when the Bush tax cuts expire. That just too much for the govt to take.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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.
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.
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.
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
Heck they used to say no more taxes for those making less than $250K (per couple I think). Well, in many parts of the US, that is NOT being wealthy. I think those living in SF and NYC might could vouch for that.
Whereas I think being able to afford to live in the parts of SF or NYC that cost that much means you're wealthy. If you make $250k you're wealthy. If you choose to spend most of that on an apartment in lower Manhattan, that's your choice.
I forget the exact statistic, but something along the lines of the top 10%-15% or so already pay > 80% of the US's taxes.
Yes but they also have over 90% of the wealth. Funny how that works out.
At some point, you can't squeeze more money out of them and have to hit lower hanging fruit.
We aren't even squeezing them. They sure as fuck aren't paying 80% of their own income as taxes if that's what that factoid above was meant to imply. They aren't even paying the proportionally greater amount that our progressive taxation system is supposed to make them pay!
As Warren Buffet noted, he pays less in taxes than his secretary.
There's plenty of squeezing left that can be done, and Mr. Buffet agrees. But really, I'd be happy just ensuring that our tax system is in fact progressive.
The enemies of Democracy are
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
A well thought out and detailed response. Obviously I must now rethink my position.
Violence is like duct tape. If it doesn't solve the problem, you didn't use enough.
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
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
It is certain that "Rich people put more or less the same amount of money back into the economy" but I don't think most people care about others' economies so much.
The less money I have, the more goes into staples. That is food, housing, basic services.
Do these all get produced in xyzcheapland- no, by and large they actually get produced locally (at least in Canada and the USA). My carpenter is local, my food / feed is grown in-country, my lumber and materials are local... That means the local city / state / country gets the benefit. This means that to service this need there is a desire to invest, where? Again not in xyzcheapland but locally.
Someone with piles of cash will invest where they get a good return, if there is no local demand there is no inducement to invest locally.
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.
Kill the upper class and you kill the middle class.
That would be an interesting and relevant comment if MY WHOLE POINT wasn't that we AREN'T "killing" the upper class with progressive taxes. Not anywhere close! They aren't even paying the tax amount that they should be. And even if they were, it wouldn't even come close to ending the upper class. They'd still be ridiculously rich!
No, instead we're killing the middle class directly, and letting the rich shirk their responsibility with accounting tricks. Kinda makes your argument moot, in as much as it applied in the first place.
Class warfare never ends well.
Quoting Buffet again: "There's class warfare all right, and my class is winning."
But I forgot, the kind of class warfare where the wealthy suck up all wealth from the middle and lower class, creating ever-escalating concentration of wealth in their hands, is good for us. It's only when we want to stop this from happening that it's bad.
The enemies of Democracy are
Maybe. On the other hand, the max penalty for not getting insurance is 2.5% of income. For most people (I assume including most uninsured) that's far less than the _current_ cost of health insurance. Add in the extra costs incurred by covering pre-existing conditions, and premiums will have to go up. The extra people brought in by the vouchers and the individual mandate may not be sufficient to avoid runaway adverse selection, which would not be good for the insurance companies.
There's something more than a little sick about "solving" the problem of the uninsured by penalizing them. It somehow seems very... Republican, actually.
You need to exchange US Congress for US President. It was Obama that promised open, transparent government and that the process would be aired on CSPAN.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
You do realize that during the Reagan years, top marginal rates were 50% and anyone making over $60k was paying at least 42%. When he took office, the top marginal rate was 70%.
When Bush Sr left office, the top marginal rate was 40%. In fact, Bush Sr raised that rate several times.
During the fastest period of economic growth in US history (from 1945-1983) the top marginal rate bounced between 90% and 70%.
The last 4 years were simply an aberration in the last century. This directly contradicts your assertion that a 44% top marginal rate is "simply too much".
History begs to differ.
Nobody is "killing" the upper class.
The fact that the last four years have been the lowest taxed since the Spanish-American war makes them an aberration, not a rule.
The average top marginal tax rate over the last 100 years is about 55%. It spent several decades at 90% during the greatest boom in the middle class (1950-1970).
Your argument is bunk and smells like turd.
In the study, the lies told were the same for the same motive. "Power" was the independent variable.
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.
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.
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
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.
doing a good job around dating Pamela Anderson
He MUST be telling the truth. Who'd want to date a broke over the hill soft pr0n actress?
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
but the president is not the end all be all of government. Everyone else has to go along with him including people who just want him to fail no matter what so they can point out his flaws.
every anarchist is a baffled dictator. Benito_Mussolini
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.