Study: "Power decreases trust in social exchange"

Abstract

How does lacking vs. possessing power in a social exchange affect people’s trust in their exchange partner? An answer to this question has broad implications for a number of exchange settings in which dependence plays an important role. Here, we report on a series of experiments in which we manipulated participants’ power position in terms of structural dependence and observed their trust perceptions and behaviors. Over a variety of different experimental paradigms and measures, we find that more powerful actors place less trust in others than less powerful actors do. Our results contradict predictions by rational actor models, which assume that low-power individuals are able to anticipate that a more powerful exchange partner will place little value on the relationship with them, thus tends to behave opportunistically, and consequently cannot be trusted. Conversely, our results support predictions by motivated cognition theory, which posits that low-power individuals want their exchange partner to be trustworthy and then act according to that desire. Mediation analyses show that, consistent with the motivated cognition account, having low power increases individuals’ hope and, in turn, their perceptions of their exchange partners’ benevolence, which ultimately leads them to trust.

Top voted Reddit Comments...

- When you are in a position of power you realize that others in power are human just like yourself and that they may or may not know what they are doing.

- When you're higher in power, you have more to lose.

- Could be that less trusting individuals achieve positions of higher power. Or maybe the road of power strips you of trust for others?

- Much in common with Stockholm syndrome. Pretty much every higher animal that lives in a group has evolved dominance hierarchies as a way fo avoiding continuous upheaval. Not to recognise these hierarchies by the very small things which symbolise them - posture, gaze, teeth displays and yawning, for example - can be fatal. Humans have very elaborate hierarchies and we are hard wired to recognise and respond to these. Hierarchs are good at emphasising this: sitting higher, in distinctive clothing, being heralded by trumpets, whatever.

Car Chase Video... or Stuff Happens.

Link to video

"Trust me."

That is impossible. Iran leadership is equally untrustworthy. There is nothing to trust in both parties save for untrustworthy characteristics. So, no. We do not trust you. We trust grownups to repair the damage you insist upon. 

I heard his challenge by accident while deep cleaning that had me so cross so immediately my impulse is punch the guy for the haughty arrogant delivery. What little I saw of it.  I do not like listening to this man one single bit. I've never in my life had a president demand so much attention, insist on being heard so much as this man, Honest to God, listening back for the challenge the hissing extended sibilants with emphasis jabbed my eardrums and rattled the little bones in there. It is actual torture.

He chided a one-time Fox reporter for his use of the word "content" as in contentment, the same way George Takei latched onto the word dignity and ran with it inappropriately so that the issue at hand is deflected to his Highness taking umbrage. "You should know better." 

Just answer the question and spare us what better things we should know. Magisterial deflection rejected. It was a bad deal and from a position of dire immediate need and of weakness and not of the actual strength of our position, if deal you must and for reasons unexplained. He traded off the country's efforts. He is a bad deal maker. So no, he is not trusted. 

The bit that I am looking for sounded fairly good at first blush, argumentatively, if you hadn't bothered with his dissimilation before and if the chief interest is scoring polemical points and not in developing understanding and agreement with his royal subjects. He is not interested in that. So no, he is not trusted.

The exchange is right before he departed abruptly not taking anymore questions this morning. 

I challenge those who are objecting to this agreement, number one to read the agreement before they comment on it, number two to explain specifically where it is that they think this agreement does not prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and why they're right and people like Ernie Moniz, who is an MIT nuclear physicist and an expert in these issues is wrong, why the rest of the world is wrong, and then present an alternative. 

And if the alternative is that we should bring Iran to heel through military force, then those critics should say so. And that will be an honest debate.

All right.

Very well, we will read the agreement. And we will explain specifically where it fails to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and much worse than that as you know, and your appeal to authority is rejected when common sense supervenes whoever the authority or from wherever they hail. And when the rest of the world tells you their shit sandwich is delicious we'll  still question their judgement and "this notion" that a new treaty is necessary is entirely your own, for reasons your own, so no, we do not need to offer you an alternative. You can leave it alone or turn up the heat. And lastly the choice you present between this treaty and opponents suggesting war is discarded to the heap of previous Obama tagged sophomoric false dilemma sophistry.

That is allowing only a few seconds.

Text of speech Washing Post.

linear face

Straight up, I do not know anything about Brian Williams although I am familiar with him and I did recognize his voice. I would not have been able to place his network. Having him thrust upon my awareness and now paying attention, I am struck foremost how disjointed his face. It's silly, I know, but I cannot let it go. It interferes with everything because I keep wondering, how did his face get like that? He looks like he's been punched. Really hard. His face is actually segmented distinctly with each segment out of joint, like a short caterpillar in motion, with the nose in the central segment out of joint with the rest of the features. the mouth out of alignment with the eyes. His is singularly the most asymmetrical face I've payed attention to in a long time. It's fascinating.

He is a big deal to a lot of people and this shows how accepting all those people are. 

Are we not told symmetrical faces are considered more appealing, more trustworthy, at least more trusted? 

This example runs counter to that. With Brian Williams, a lot of people trust an asymmetrical face.

Maybe they trust the soothing assuring knowing baritone intonations of the asymmetrical face. I do not know. 

When you consider all this misalignment he is not actually ugly, his features not so displaced that they're disqualifying for television. 

Did he get in a fight? 

I feel sorry for him being punched so hard his features were shifted. I did a few anims of government people I saw on t.v., showing them being punched really hard or smacked with a pan leaving their features rearranged and that is what I see in every single instance of Google images for Brian Williams, a fist come in from right and solidly punch symmetric Brian Williams leaving asymmetric Brian Williams behind to struggle through with a career in... what?... in television. I didn't even use the best example. 

NYT Grey Matter: "Stop Trusting Yourself"

"The psychologist Piercarlo Valdesolo and I have demonstrated this phenomenon (read article) in several experiments. In one of them, we gave participants a coin to flip that would determine whether they would have to complete an enjoyable task or an onerous one. We then left them “alone” to flip it (while secretly monitoring them). Ninety percent of them did not flip the coin (or they kept flipping it until they got the answer they wanted) and unfairly assigned themselves the preferable task."

All the participants in our sample had earlier stated that cheating on the task would be immoral. But when evaluating their actions afterward, most not only continued to view themselves as fair even when they weren’t, but also readily condemned others for cheating in the same way. Their minds quickly whitewashed their own untrustworthy actions. They didn’t ignore what they did; they just created a story for why it was O.K.

This article resonated with me yesterday, so much so, I brought it up in conversation with someone, but, I found I couldn't keep from sounding wishy washy. Maybe there is another way of saying to someone "stop trusting yourself" that would be more palatably substantive. My exit strategy was to recommend the article. I told the guy it was very short, which it is... trust me.

"In God we trust, maybe, but not each other"

"(AP) - You can take our word for it. Americans don't trust each other anymore."

We're not talking about the loss of faith in big institutions such as the government, the church or Wall Street, which fluctuates with events. For four decades, a gut-level ingredient of democracy - trust in the other fellow - has been quietly draining away.

These days, only one-third of Americans say most people can be trusted. Half felt that way in 1972, when the General Social Survey first asked the question.

Forty years later, a record high of nearly two-thirds say "you can't be too careful" in dealing with people.

For the rest of the article trust the AP

Trust NPS?

I am not going out of my mind. I did notice a post on Hot Air about trusting the National Park Service ever again after the shutdown theater, the title and lead-in posed as a question easily answered with, "no." 

That is what I wrote. Two people got in before me. Checked later and there were some 35 responses, some long, 100% in agreement "no way will they trust them again." That surprised me. I thought I was being unusually uncharacteristically closed-mined about this, turns out it's just a regular attitude held by anyone who noticed what happened. 

Now the post is gone. It was on top. Sometimes they move down. I do not see it there on Hot Air now. 

Gosh, I hope it comes back. I wanted to see how far it would go. Did it get too ugly? 

For me it goes like this [Smoky the Bear ---> fascist ] Just like that. One step. One single event and wham my whole attitude changed toward the entire national parks system generally. And I don't care who it is, National Park Service, National Park Police, National Park Administration, National Park Overseers whatever, don't confuse me with tidy distinctions. They're all lumped together and they're all bad news even if there happen to nice ones in there caught up in the theater beyond their control. I honestly do not care if I ever make it to the Grand Canyon, or to Yellowstone, or to Mt. Rushmore anymore. I'll read about those things and avoid fascist fiefdoms, even Estes that opened quickly enough, none of them are acceptable now. They're all off limits to me. And if I end up there by mistake, say, a series of unfortunate events, it happens, I certainly will have the creeps the whole time through knowing I'm in the presence of weak-minded stormtroopers. My attitude will not change. It cannot, because they cannot. I will hold this soured attitude until the day I die. Best for me not to think about national parks and leave all those splendid things for others. 

So. What do you think? 

First I'll check to see if the post came back. Nope. Not in "more green room" either. See? That there is fascism. It's everywhere.