Sense of power inversely related to empathy

[Creideiki]

A friend of mine shared this on Facebook:

http://www.npr.org/2013/08/10/210686255/a-sense-of-power-can-do-a-number-on-your-brain

It turns out, feeling powerless boosted the mirror system — people empathized highly. But, Obhi says, "when people were feeling powerful, the signal wasn't very high at all."

So when people felt power, they really did have more trouble getting inside another person's head.

"What we're finding is power diminishes all varieties of empathy," says Dacher Keltner, a social psychologist at University of California, Berkeley, not involved in the new study. He says these results fit a trend within psychological research.

Kind of enlightening. And it may be illustrative in interactions with posters in other fora.

[factsarenotfair]

1. Maybe that explains Pres. Obama. n/t

.

[TalkingDog]

2. Touche. n/t

[Creideiki]

4. It explains an awful lot of people

A friend of mine who is from Brooklyn, but of Puerto Rican descent used to talk in another messageboard that we were both part of that everyone needs to inspect their own privileges. We are all placed in situations where one characteristic or other gives us invisible power. It's not an indictment of the person. It's just awareness.

[factsarenotfair]

5. Good point.

And I'm not exempting myself.

[dbackjon]

3. You see that in many threads here

It is so ironic in the anti-police threads, where the anti-police posters use their power to silence any poster that disagrees with their anti-police screeds, that they are using the same abuse of power that they accuse the police of.


Power corrupts, whether at the White House, a police force, or as a juror at DU.