October 4, 2017 • 41 mins
"Power is given, not grabbed.” — Dacher Keltner
Today I’m really excited to have Dr. Dacher Keltner join me for his second appearance on The Psychology Podcast!
Dacher Keltner is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the faculty director of the UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center. A renowned expert in the biological and evolutionary origins of human emotion, Dr. Keltner studies the science of compassion, awe, love, and beauty, and how emotions shape our moral intuition. His research interests also span issues of power, status, inequality, and social class. He is the author of the best-selling book Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life and of The Compassionate Instinct.
His latest book is The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Influence.
In our conversation we discuss several of Dacher’s ideas surrounding power including:
- The unique definition of power he presents in the book
- The recent development in power research of the 2 paths to power:
- Domination, Manipulation, Coercion
- Status, Respect, Strong Ties
- The myth of power stereotypes
- The problems of power
- The challenges of getting it
- The difficulties of maintaining it
- The dangers of becoming addicted to it
- The Humility pathway of enduring power
Links:
The Power Paradox is available on Amazon
Follow Dacher’s Greater Good Lab on Twitter
[Book] Good to Great – Jim Collins (mentioned-“The final stage of leadership is service”)
[Book] On Tyranny -Timothy Snyder (mentioned-“People give power to tyrants”)
[Book]
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-psychology-podcast/support
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
listening and enjoy the podcast. Sin Today, I'm really excited
(00:39):
to have doctor Keltner on the podcast. Doctor is a
professor of psychology the University of California, Berkeley and the
founding director of the University's Greater Good Science Center. Keltner
has devoted his career of studying the nature of human
goodness and happiness, conducting groundbreaking research on compassion, all laughter,
and love. He is the author of the best selling
(00:59):
book Born to Be Good, and his latest book, which
we will be discussing today, is called The Power Paradox,
How We Gain and Lose Influence. Hey, thanks so much
for being on the show twice. It's good being with
you again, Scott. Yeah, I always enjoyed chatting with you,
and I thought, you know, last time we focused more
on your work on all after and love. I thought,
you know, today, particularly under a certain political climate we're
(01:22):
living in, but maybe we could talk about power. Yeah,
very timely, isn't it. Yeah? It is. Can you please
start by defining what you mean by power? Yeah, so
very simply by power eye and then the social scientific
field mean your capacity to influence another person, your capacity
(01:43):
to change their minds or their actions or their feelings.
So it's really about influence. So this is a really
interesting definition of power that is very broad and could
encompass different motives for that. Yeah. Yeah, you know, Scott.
When I started reading about power years ago, people in
the scientific literature thought about it as politics. Right, do
(02:05):
you have access to political decision making? Is money and wealth?
And as a psychologist like you, I felt frustrated with
that definition because A those definitions of powers politics or
money or military might don't help us understand the power
politics and families and in romantic partnerships or friendships. And
(02:25):
then b I think they really do a disservice to
those definitions as powers, money, and might in politics in
understanding how societies change. Right, there is enormous innovation and
social change and societal movement that's brought about by people
who don't have a lot of money, who don't have
military might, but they lead to civil rights movement, they
(02:46):
create the Internet. So I wanted to broaden, Like you say,
are thinking about power, Yeah, and that definition encompasses the
whole spectrum of wine alter to the states of others
in a way that gives you like complete control over them,
to wanting to alter the states of others. I'm trying
to think of the quid opposite of that spectrum would
be in a way that is uplifting to everyone, really
(03:09):
spectacular observation. In fact, that's where we're going with our research,
which is, once you think about power is just your
capacity to influence the people around you and then the
people they influence. You can array the ways in which
we influence on a demandsion or continuum. And on one
side is the coercive, bullying, Machiavelian sociopathic tendencies right, And
(03:34):
on the other side is what a really profile more
in the book, which I think we're moving slowly toward,
which is ways of empowering other people, sharing resources, building
strong social networks that get you power, so you can
really start to make sense of the different strategies by
which we gain power. Well, that's interesting, so you said
sharing resources. So sharing resources versus grabbing resources seems to
(03:55):
be the core in distinction, right, Yeah, you know, and
it's really counterintuitive and people don't realize. But once you
start to think about it deeply, the really revealing examples
come to mind, which is that you know, at hunter
gatherer societies, it's really the individual who shares the most
who has the highest standing. There are studies of teenagers
in the United States and it's the kid And this
(04:18):
shocks parents. Right, it's the kid who's kind and breaks
up conflicts and helps other kids who has the highest
status in that group when you get to great acts
of leadership in the work world. Right. Jim Collins in
his book From Good to Great talks about the final
stage of leadership as service is really bringing out the
(04:39):
good in others as your pathway to power. So I
think there's surprising support for this idea. I agree, and
I'm wondering how you link this. I'm sure you're aware
of the distinction and the evolutionary psychology literature between authentic
pride and hebristic pride as two different paths to social status.
You could equally say they're two different paths to power, right. Yeah, no,
(05:02):
what a terrific connection, Scott. You know, it's great to
you know, and this is just new thinking in the
last couple of years that the evolutionary world of people
like Jeess Tracy and Joey Chang and Joseph Henrick, they're
talking about two paths to power, right, and one is
domination and manipulation, pinning people down right or tricking them,
(05:23):
and then the other is means by what you gain
status and respect. And I think that's a fair summary
that in some context, if you're working in a Mexican
drug cartel or you're dealing arms, it's all about domination
and tricking people and coersion and threat right. And by contrast,
(05:44):
if you're working in a hospital or in a biotech
firm or the like, more often it's about, you know,
doing things that gain you status, like doing great work
and building strong ties. So do you think that the
feeling of pride, like the evolved feeling itself, is the
same feeling that like a mob boss feels when they
(06:05):
kill an underling who's disrespected them as the person who
helps change the world and sort of like sees a huge,
grandiose impact that they made in the world. Is it
the same feeling? Yeah? You know, I think that in
this we should study that subjective quality whether or not
that's the same feeling it is, and I think that
you're going to find both similarities and differences. Right, So,
(06:27):
you know, the structure of pride, as Jess Tracy has shown,
just like feeling like I've done good things, I have strength,
I'm high in a social hierarchy is common to hubristic, arrogant,
narcissistic pride, and then this more authentic pride. But that
kind of the arrogant narcissism and is really the kind
(06:49):
of feeling of stature that we have to worry about.
And I write about in the Power Paradox, which is
the minute your sense of pride and success and wealth
and you know, making it in the world world is
accompanied by beliefs like Wow, I'm really fundamentally better than
other people, or I should really dominate the world. These
other people are second rate, You're in trouble, right, And
(07:12):
one worries about the current political climate with this distinction
in mind, and what we really should be looking for
where the subjective differences really are matters. Authentic pride, I think,
always is accompanied by a sense of other people's contributions
to your work, right, your place within a broader tradition
or a historical narrative. So I think there are subjective
(07:35):
differences between these two kinds of pride that helps speak
a lot to the problems of power. I love that
I wanted to think through for a moment without trying
to change people who they are, Like, what if you
are the type of person you know, if we talk
interpersonal circumplex, what if you are you know, so strong
on the social dominance side and very low on love?
(07:59):
I mean, is there a place for you in the world?
The thing is, are you telling people they should change
who they are? Like maybe they could make a great
contribution in sports or certain leadership positions. Do you see
what I'm saying? Like? Is it always the authentic pride wins?
You know? No, not at all? You know? And I
think that what I write about in The Power Paradox
is in in the last fifty years, and this is
(08:19):
worked by Elis Eggley and her colleagues, We've moved from
a more social dominance domineering, coercive form of power top
down to a more horizontal, empowering, collaborative form of power. Right. So,
in general, the data show if you're more collaborative and
empathetic you'll fare pretty well. But there are places for
(08:42):
pure assertive, domineering power. Right when I talk to, for example,
business groups, and some of them are doing really complicated
negotiations with like Russians. Right, it's good to have a
domineering type on your team. I think you're suggesting it's
good to have somebody on your team who does takes
(09:03):
no crap from anybody else and will be forceful. Right.
There are interesting speculations about sports teams about it's great
to collaborate like the Warriors do, but it's also good
to have an enforcer who's like you, you push my
guy around, I'm coming after you. Right. So, I think
in general we find that a mixture of strategies is good.
(09:26):
It's good to be able to fight fire with fire
if somebody is bullying you, to stand up to bullying
like that with calmness but strength. But in general, there
is this trend towards greater collaboration in the politics of
power these days. You're saying that in politics the stays
there's a trend towards which side. Did you say, Well,
what I meant is in a lot of different sectors, right,
(09:48):
So in workplace organizations, in hospital settings, in school settings,
there's more powers, more bi directional, it's horizontal. The one
exception I was going to say, wait a minute, is
politics of the day, where there has been this rise
or return of more top down authoritarian power, which we're
(10:10):
worried about. Yeah, you know, it just seems to me
like there are certain people would really love in sports
and reality TV, and but that's just really that's not
what we when as a president of the United States, like,
you know, I think to myself, you know, I have
watched I've been a big fan of Michael Jordan's career.
But a lot of people say that what he does
on that on the field, you know, on the basketball
(10:31):
court is a kin to like psychopathy, you know, like
he bullies, he intimidates others, he's vengeful. His number one
thing is to win and kick, but not only win,
but kill. You know. So now look, we love that
and admire that as a society when we watch him
on the thing in the context of United president, can
you imagine if Michael Jornan was President of the United States,
(10:52):
I mean, and he had that same attitude. He would
not want that for that position. So I just think
so much is so and textual, you know, And you
know what I'm saying, Yeah, yeah, I mean, Scott, your
observation is so fundamental for your audience to really dwell upon,
which is that you know, we have these stereotypes of
(11:13):
what it means to be powerful, right, and they're influenced
by Machiavelli in this five hundred year old legacy of power,
And Machiavelli wrote in the most violent time in human history,
and it was a theory of power about manipulation and
coercion for very violent times. And then we think of
power stereotypically by invoking images of really exceptional people. Michael
(11:37):
Jordan is a one in a billion person in terms
of basketball skills, right, But real facts are, how do
we influence in our families, how do we influence in
our romantic partnerships, How do when the rest of us
and not Michael Jordan, go to work, how do we
get things done? How do we get things done as
a member of a community or a school, And they're
(12:00):
data are really a counterpoint to the Michael Jordan model
of power, which is you get more done collaboratively. Right,
And even nowadays they're finding, you know that financial firms
and governments that have more collaborative members get a lot
more work done and they're better for the bottom line. Right.
So I think we really, as you are doing, we
(12:22):
have to question the image of power. And it is
not Donald Trump anymore. Right, It is much more likely
to be a woman today, much more likely to be
a person of a different ethnic background, and we have
to embrace the shift and power that Trump is a
reaction to. I think that's right, and I think I'm
(12:42):
also trying to make another point that I really am
not articulating well, but as you're talking, I think I'm
able to better do that now. And that's you know
that there still is a fundamental human drive for this
heboristic pride. It's still hard, it's within us, and I
think when we watch sports, or we watch like wrestling,
or we watch it allows us to vicariously get it
out of our system, you know, the winning losing mentality,
(13:04):
which is the extreme of the dominant side of the
interpersonal circumplex. It's still a fundamental human need. It's not
like the US first them. You know, It's not like, oh,
we have the narcissists and then we have the rest
of us. We yeah, well but yeah, so I just
feel like there are certain things that offer healthy vicarious
Like we watch reality TV. We like you know, you're fired.
(13:27):
I mean, Trump was popular for a reason, right, but
now he's not popular for a reason. It's interesting to
think about that, do you know what I mean? He
was popular for a reason within a particular context, and
that's what got him elected. And now he's in this
different context and the same traits are not. So I
think the segues to your power paradox is that, right, Yeah,
that's a terrific segue, you know. So it's kind of
(13:49):
the inverse. Actually, it's kind of the inverse. Trump is
the inverse of your power paradox. He is, he is
the inverse, which is he rose to power encounterintuitive ways,
but now he's falling fortily. Yeah. So you know, and
I really appreciate your point, Scott. And one of the
points of the power paradox and all the studies we've
been doing for twenty years is that it isn't just
(14:12):
the weirdos or the sociopaths who can get into trouble
with power. Right. Our lab study show you take any
human being and you give them some power, and they
start to have that hubristic pride. They feel they're a
little bit better than other people, and they feel the
surges of desire like I want this or I want
to sleep with that personal I want more money, right,
(14:35):
and we get into trouble, and our studies show, just
like you say, like, this is just a human thing
to misuse power. And when you have power, you're more
likely to lie to people and cheat in games and
take candy in a lab study that was meant for kids,
and drive like a maniac, you know, blazing through the
pedestrian zone. So this is a really we all have
(14:55):
done this, right, We've all misused power. It's not just
the nuts who do it. It's really a human tendency.
And so that then brings in, you know, this question
of the paradox of power, which is we rise to
power through lots of good things in human nature, and
then we can misuse it. And I think the lesson
of Trump is that is a lesson of how we
(15:17):
keep using power well, which is you got to watch
it because other people are going to hold you accountable.
Your reputation's going to fall. Your influence in the distal sense,
like the US reputation in the United States outside of
the United States right now has just fallen, has plummeted
as a result of these kind of impulsive behaviors of
Trump where people literally don't take his set seriously on
(15:42):
the international stage anymore. It's going to cost us dearly.
And those are the reminders of the power paradox of
not misusing the power we earn with good works to
stay close to the better side to our human nature. Yeah,
I mean, it's such an important reminder for all of
us when we get power what it can do to us.
(16:02):
Dopamine is really addictive, you know, in that circumplex. You know,
my colleague Colin de Young has been doing some great
work on personality neuroscience showing that if you're really high
on that social dominance thing, that's pure dopamine. It it's
not necessarily aggression by you know. The thing is, it's
not necessarily testosterone. That's more when you get the antagonism,
which is the left side of that circle. But when
you're just straight up social dominance, which is just orthogonal
(16:24):
to love. That's straight up like pure dopamine. And I
think that's the point you're trying to make. Yeah, And
you know that literature really guide this thinking about the
abuses of power, Scott, which is dopamine is about going
after things that you crave and desire, as you know,
really well, going after this I do not you personally,
(16:49):
you know, flirting with somebody so that it leads to
a sexual tryst, you know, getting involved in drugs, wanting
more money, wanting to take money. That's all dopamine addictive behavior,
you know, Scott. When I started to do this work
on power, there are two things that really struck me
when I watched the behavior of people who are really
feeling the surges of power. One is how much they
(17:11):
look like addicts. They just wanted more, there was no
constrain on what they wanted. They look like they're dopamine driven.
And regrettably, and this has actually been verified by science,
they look like people who had had brain damage. Right.
There are studies showing if you damage the frontal lobes
parts of the frontal lobes, you act impulsively, You swear
at people, you make sexual passes, you are greedy. And
(17:34):
there are studies by superindero Obi at McMaster University showing
when I feel powerful, it disengages my frontal lobes, you
know so, and I write about this in the paragraphs.
So that's a really problematic mixture of being addicted to
dopamine minus your frontal lobes. It's such a good point,
And you know, I find it interesting that there's like
(17:56):
Colin and others are trying to map out this two
different dopamine pathways. One that's more related to what we're
talking about, which depetitive rewards which are very ancestral like status, money,
and power. But then there's also a newer evolved pathway
project with the projections to the prefrontal cortex itself, which
is more about the reward value of information. It's curio
(18:17):
eing curiosity and the reward so not the reward value
of competitive rewards, but the reward value of understanding, yeah,
and reducing information. And I feel like I'm a dopamine
junkie on that second one. Like I'll admit it, I'm
a doping junky when it comes to cure, you know,
I mean, that's why we're having this conversation to begin with,
and maybe you are too totally keeps too late at
(18:38):
night and it keeps been returning to your show, Scott. Well,
it's really interesting and this and this may be a
way to think about the upside to power and the
downside to power. The downside to power is when you
hyperactivate that older dopamine system that you're talking about, which
just makes you swear at people and make sexual passes
and get greedy. But maybe the upside to power is
(19:00):
the social side that you're talking about and on that
you know, it's so interesting. I hadn't made this connection
until he brought it up. An A Guinotte in Europe
has these great studies showing when I feel powerful. Yeah,
I'm too driven by my own fleshy desires. But the
upside is I really can look at social situations and
(19:21):
know like, this is the most socially important thing to
do right here, right this is the most valuable social
course of action, like my team to work on this
part of the problem or you know, solve that conflict.
So maybe that's the rewarding side to power that we
need to bring into focus. I wish I had known
about that before writing The Power Paradox. Well, yeah, no,
(19:44):
this is this is I'm really glad to write this covertion.
And did I hear you say that you listen to
the psychology podcast? Yeah, did you just say that, like
about three minutes ago. Yes, like it just processed that.
I am. I'm incredibly honored that that is true. Well,
every now and then I need new sources of wisdom.
I just got a dopamine hit by you saying that,
(20:04):
I am. It's true, it's true. Well, you know, this
is I mean, we can really get like nuanced here
in a way that might be fun. You know. The
extra version domain is comprised of two main facets social
dominance slash assertiveness, but also social affiliation or social vitality.
(20:25):
They're correlated with each other, but the vitality facet is
the only one that's correlated with compassion, whereas the dominance
one is actually uncorrelated with compassion. So that's an interesting
example that when you look at the subfacets, actually the
technically the aspects, the two aspects of extraversion. There's one
aspect of extra version that is linked to the agreeableness
(20:46):
specifically compassion to mean and another one that's like pure dopamine.
So there's one that's like wanting and liking, and there's
one that's just wanting system. Yeah, that's relevant here, Yeah,
very relevant, and what a terrific observation. You know, there
are sixty year seventy studies and we've done some of
them that if you are extroverted, you will rise in
(21:07):
the ranks as a school kid in a dorm and
a fraternity sorority, sports team, military unit, in the workplace.
That social effervescence of extraversion gets you status and power.
And I think, you know, when I asked Oliver John
about this and he and I published on this, you know,
and he's pre eminent figure in this Big five world,
he said, it really is the social affiliate of connective
(21:31):
side to extraversion that's driving these resultsful, and I think
that will be a great frontier for more research. Scott, beautiful.
And I'll tell you there's one area of research I'd
love to do more on which relates to this. It
seems like there's a cluster of the Big Five when
you look at the aspect level that's not just it's
like a triad, which I'm realizing there's a social effervescence.
(21:52):
I love the way you put that. I'm going to
call that now social effervescence, compassion. And the third one
is creative openness. Yeah. See this triad and I would
say that's like the ultimate triad for positive social change. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And there are you know, they're really cool meta analyses
showing that openness piece that you've just introduced creativity. I'm
(22:17):
curious about things. Open mindedness drives power in business contexts,
which is very sensible but very important. Right. It's not
as important in the military context, for example, either structured units,
but boy is it important in driving innovation and positive
social change in the business world. Oh this is great.
(22:37):
This is really exciting linkages. I feel so honored to
be able to talk to you. Yeah, I wish I
could do some research on this. It's really these are
cool speculators. We can It seems like there are these
two major at least two major clusters at the aspect
level that you don't see when you just stay at
the bit too big five. So we just talked about one,
but the other one seems to be a more dominance cluster,
(22:58):
and that could be assertiveness, maybe disagreeableness. You know, and
I'm sure we can stick in a third one if
we wanted to somewhere in the conscientiousness maybe high conscientiousness
as well. You know, our grit might be part of that.
I don't know, I don't know. I'm just riffing, but
it seems like there are at least two major pathways
to power within the Big five. Yeah, and I think
(23:21):
you've nicely charted those configurations, you know, as an offshooter
that Scott. Yeah, you know, another personality space that we
should be talking about is the dark triad. Obviously, I
love that Ochabelianism, sosiopathy, and narcissism. And my colleague Leanne
Tenbrinke and I were really frustrated with the power literature
(23:42):
because there's this assumption out there and it's just a stereotype, right,
just as like people stereotype that women can't be leaders,
when in fact a lot of the data show their
better just as are better than men on average. But
there's this stereotype that you got to be a killer
to gain power, got to be a sociopath or Machabelian.
(24:02):
It has really deep intellectual roots to trace back to
the deep Machiavelli and So we've actually tested that in
two different contexts. One was with US senators and we
published this I think in twenty fifteen. U code the
speeches of US senators for how much humanity and sort
of empowering compassion this show versus sociopathy and narcissism. Do
(24:24):
they lick their lips and show the high dominant dopamine stuff.
And it was really the more just humane senators who
got more support for the bills they were trying to ote.
And we've got a paper coming out very soon where
we did the same analysis coding the speeches in terms
of their nonverbal behavior of hedge fund managers, and we
(24:45):
find that sociopathic kind of high domineering killer type hedge
fund managers do worse for the people who invest in them. Right,
So that these are cautionary tales about our image of
power that we need. Well, that is wonderful findings and
I would love to cite them in my work if
(25:06):
you wouldn't mind following up. Yeah, and this does suggest
that you know, the interpersonal circumplex originally was labeled as
the power or slash status axis, and I don't refer
to it as such or anymore it's just agency, you know,
because we need to like think like you're saying, you know,
and this is largely your point, and I'm agreeing with it,
but it seems like in that spirit, I'd be happy
(25:26):
to retire that description of that access and open up
power to even you know, like the communal side or
that the intersection I was talking about where you have
the affiliation plus plus compassion. Yeah, and you know, and
we need to do this kind of work on these
scales that define parts of our science, right, Yeah, they
(25:48):
get more refined as science advances, and we need to
evolve our scales as well for many different reasons. Brilliant,
it's brilliant. It's such good stuff. So you have this quote,
power is given, not grabbed in a lot of ways.
Is that a cautionary tale to kind of help us
realize that, you know, it were people who gave us
(26:08):
that power. Yeah, So when it goes to our head,
is that a good reminder that we didn't do it
all by ourselves. It's one of the deepest reminders. You know.
That idea really came out of a spectacular line of
thinking on power by Christopher boem b o e h
M at USC and he surveyed the data of hunter
(26:30):
gatherers societies and I think there are forty eight studies
in this meta analysis. And these are people living in
small groups that defined our evolution for two hundred thousand years.
It's really the kind of the context in which we
developed into the primate that we are today. And he said,
he talked about how groups control how much power you have,
(26:50):
and they do it by if you abuse your power,
they'll mock you, they'll tease you, they will spread gossip
about you, they will opely chastise you. Right, and your
power and this is also found in the sociological literature,
is given to you by the network you're part of. Right,
my power in psychological science, my influence is dependent upon
(27:14):
my reputation and what other people think of me. And
if they think I'm a jerk or they think I
do shoddy science, They're not going to refer to my work.
They're going to ignore it, they're going to make fun
of it, and it will have no influence in the field.
And so your power, fundamentally, for the most time, context
is given to you. And you know there are exceptions.
(27:35):
Obviously you look at political elections and you look at
the machinations of them and vote counting issues and voter
suppression and the like. In Oops, you suddenly see power
can be grabbed. But the broader and those are important exceptions,
but the broader lesson is you're only as good in
terms of power as the esteem other people dragt you.
(27:57):
I like that. I think I agree with fifty percent
of that statement. Then that power is given, but it
looks like power can be There are two roots to
social status from the evolution. So the nuanced, un sexy
version is powers given and it could either be grabbed
or you know, the other option. However, there's one version
(28:17):
that is re produced with to well being and ultimate success.
And that's a total mouthful. Yeah, you know, I mean,
and it's so interesting, Scott, because you know, I wrote
the power paradox right like power is given, not grabbed,
and I literally published it before Trump prose. Yeah, this
rise of right wing I mean literally a month later
(28:39):
Trump rose. Yeah, but not only Trump, but we had
all this right wing, this emergence of right wing politics
that people are very worried about, where it really looks like, wow,
there is a force in human psyche and in human
society that's all about taking others down to grab power.
And I had a lot of material on grabbing power
(29:01):
that we've been talking about, these two roots to power
that I cut out that is worth really reminding ourselves of. Yeah,
it just seems like, you know, because they use examples
in that evolutionary literashire, like if you're in jail, I
mean usually the dominant person is the one who really
wins and thrives in that environment. Is that right? Yeah?
And so there are certain environments that there's a reason
(29:21):
why we evolve these those social strategies, as every psychologists
call them exploitative. Yeah, and that's where you got to
think about the nature of the social system that you're in. So,
for example, is there accountability to your actions? Right, because
that will diminish domineering power. In prisons, there's no accountability,
it's all haywire. There is your action publicly visible. We
(29:47):
know people are better behave when their actions are publicly visible.
But when Trump makes his private deals at mar Lago,
or a prisoner is not is in a prison cell
and no one's looking, then coercive power can rain another
one that's really important, and it's rising in our conversation
today is what do we value in leaders? Right? Do
(30:07):
we think it's okay that a leader can swear and
grab people's genitalia and you know, brag about it and
act in irrational ways. If we value that, when we
value the right kinds of things, that will constrain leaders
in really interesting ways to be better behaved. So I
think that in part, as Snyder says in his recent
(30:29):
book on tyranny, which is really your audience really should
read it. He's a Yale historian. His first principle of
tyranny is people give power to tyrants by just backing off,
by letting them run rough shot over us. And it
really is in our hands to constrain the domineering types
of power and the abuses of power. Oh boy, so
(30:51):
we even can make this sense even more nuanced. Powers
given willingly or unwillingly, either through grabbing or compassion, and
depending on the context, one or the other will be
more conducive to harmonious cooperation or something. That's a big mouthful,
but yeah it is. But I think that, you know,
(31:13):
I think now that is the challenge of the day, right, which, yes,
we have this tendency to give power to people who
advance societies, and there are historical moments where that is
corrupted and it's still in our hands to give power
to the right people. Yeah, it's such an oh man,
what an important message. And it seems like your phrase
(31:35):
power is given out grabbed. I mean, it has a
real new meaning under you know, the Genitalia situation that
we had with our current named So when you came
up with that phrase, you actually didn't mean that at all,
did you? Is that right? I didn't, you know, But
I'll tell you what. And it's interesting for your audience
to know that that phrase also came out of really
(31:58):
important scholarship on by Joseph Nye at Harvard University, who's
the author of concept Smart Power and Soft Power, and
what he noticed, and I think it's very relevant to today,
which is that during the Shock and Awe campaign where
we bomb the lights out of Iraq, Bush and Cheney,
that was one of these really assertive, dominering acts of power.
(32:21):
But in point of fact, when you look at the
broad effects of that action, right, we lost enormous influence
on the worldwide stage, and that's been documented by Joseph Nye.
And then when you think about the long term effects
of that single policy on the status of the American people,
(32:41):
the trillions of dollars it costs, that cost us, that
disempowered us as well. So I think what we see
today is another interesting example of where these really coursive
forms of power cost individuals and the collectives they represent
in the long term. Yeah, I'm so glad that you
and others that you mentioned doing this kind of research.
(33:01):
Without this kind of research, it's very easy to just
for anyone to just, based on their own value system,
kind of say what is important. I mean, obviously the
dominant listener to this conversation will be laughing at us, right,
And I know, yeah, yeah, yeah, And that's like it's chumps.
They would call this chumps, right. You know, I've dealt
with bullies so much in my childhood that I know
(33:22):
exactly how it is. So what are I think? I
maybe we talked about that a little bit in the
last chat. I can't remember, but I feel the day's
age right now, this is a common thing we talk
about bullies. Bullies. I'd love to talk a little about
what are some potential some of the pathways to enduring power.
And it's another aspect of your book. I really loved
how you this. Even the phrase enduring power, it's a
(33:43):
powerful phrase to me. So can you maybe tell the
listeners some of those pathways. Yeah, you know, power is
such a rush, right that, like, Wow, I feel powerful.
I'm at the top of the game, you know. And
I've been teaching this stuff to managers and executives and
leaders for twenty years and the smart ones are recognized. Yeah,
(34:03):
it is a rush. It's great if the dopamine high
that we've talked about, But what really matters is what
your life looks like after you know, fifty years of
work and in a relationship or relationships, and what you
do in the community. And that's really enduring power, right.
And the Greeks were very interested in this question of
at the end of life, what have you given? And
(34:26):
to me, that's the deeper question about power is how
have you influenced others over the long haul of life
and not just in the moment of rising to the top.
And that then begs the question of what pathways lead
to enduring influence. And one, notwithstanding certain critiques, is empathy
is just make it a practice to think about what
(34:49):
other people are thinking, to take on their feelings to
listen to their wisdom. You know, I was blown away
and reading about Abraham Lincoln that as Thurlow Weed, a
journalist who followed him at the time, said, his political
genius was that he heard all who came to speak
to him, He read everything that was written to him,
(35:12):
and he listened with a genius intent. Right, he just
absorbed himself in other people's minds empathy, And when you
look at great leaders, they have this quality. And then
there are people like Stefan Cote who's finding Wow, it's
really the empathetic managers who keep their power, who have
enduring power. Then, you know, a second one is the
(35:36):
recognition that we've talked about that is really just hyper
connecting in you know, this dimension to extraversion, Scott, that
you've really sharply brought into focus of. Like, you know,
just make sure that you're always don't seduce yourself into
thinking your power is the product of your genius or
(35:56):
your incredible talents. Really it's you're enduring powers related to
the networks you build. This is true of primates, front
of All's work on chimps, it's true of hunter gatherer societies,
and it's true today. Right, So there are studies of
organizations showing if you want to really drive social change
(36:18):
in the organization have power, be it a scientific society
or a finance firm. You're hyper connected, right, so just
make sure you're connecting, having fun, laughing, reaching out to
others and then you know, I'll get pro social on you.
But you know, I think kindness and sharing are fundamental
(36:40):
in the long haul. And you know, there are meta
analyzes showing with a little bit of data showing agreeableness,
which you've talked about that one of the big five.
Kindness helps you keep power. And when you study great leaders,
very often they have this really really clear devot to
(37:00):
other people. Now, you know, there are bullies out there
who may be laughing at us, but there are data
that align with these ideas because those are the ones
that are made fun of by the bullies. I mean,
that's really what's going on in middle school. The ones
that are the most made fun of. The quote, the nerds,
the humanitarians, the one you know, the sweet little girl
(37:21):
who brings cookies for the teacher then gets bullied and
my heart breaks. It's horrible, but I think that's what
we see though, right, yeah, I agree, and you know
you've brought into focus, you know, and it's a little
bit in the power paradox, which is there is this
struggle over power. Is it the Machiavelian domineering bullying type,
(37:42):
and that does prevail in places versus this pro social
collaborative type, And there are context where that is a battle,
right and it's historical battle that we have to engage in,
be it on the playground or in the US Senate totally.
And the person who might be the bully in school,
that could be coming from a place of intense powerlessness
(38:05):
for that person. So we should be clear that these
are malleable characteristics. Sometimes the bully can grow up to
channel in a way once they get power and positive
beneficial things. But as you make the point in your
book that a lot of that hubris and arrogance and
exploitation can come from a place of a person feeling
like they don't have any power, right yeah. And we
(38:27):
have to remember, you know, bullies were bullied very often
the reviews, they suffer depression and anxiety at higher rates,
right yeah, And so remember that, as you say, it
comes from a place of a defensiveness or even weakness.
It's hard to remember that when you're being bullied, but
I've been there. Yeah, we can of course remember that.
(38:48):
Just I'll end here. You know, maybe you could just
go with one or two pathways to during power because
you talk about a fivefold pathway and you see how
can we outsmart the power paradox? So maybe you just
want to leave one way that your favorite on how
we Cannouncemarte the power of Paradox. Well, you know, I've
already talked about sharing and empathy and kindness, but one
(39:11):
that really struck me as I wrote this book, Scott,
and is humility. And you know, humility is as complex
construct as you know, which is it's about having an
accurate sense of who you are. So it's a counter
to the narcissism we've talked about. But it's also mixed
in with what you spoke of, Scott, which is a
(39:32):
curiosity about other people, you know, just a recognition of
how important other people are. And that really is the
texture of humility. And I remember I got to work
on inside Out with Pete Doctor and you know Pete
was the director of up Monsters, Inc. And then inside
Out Oscar Winner. You know, inside Out ended up being
(39:55):
one of the best reviewed movies of the year one
an Oscar et cetera and Pete two hundred and fifty
people to make a movie, right, that's power. His movies
reach hundreds of millions of people. They're billion dollar enterprises.
And I remember having lunch with him after he won
the Oscar, you know, and he was so humble about
(40:18):
the endeavor, you know, he was I got certain things
I got wrong. It really was due to Ronnie del Carmen,
my assistant director. I really want to improve on this.
You know. There was such humility in his reflection on things,
and I think when you find people who enjoy enduring
power in their family or love life or at work,
(40:40):
there's humility there. And that's what we've got to go after.
That's wonderful. We're going to end in that note because
it's a wonderful note to end on. Thank you so
much for your be so generous on being in a
psychology podcast twice now and often your wisdom. I will
talk with you. It's awesome to talk to you. I've
got nine research ideas I got to go say thank
(41:01):
you so much for listening to the Psychology Podcast with
Doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode
just as thought provoking as I did. If something you
heard today stimulated you in some way, I encourage you
to join in the discussion at the Psychology podcast dot com.
That's the Psychology podcast dot com.
Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
listening and enjoy the podcast. Sin Today, I'm really excited
(00:39):
to have doctor Keltner on the podcast. Doctor is a
professor of psychology the University of California, Berkeley and the
founding director of the University's Greater Good Science Center. Keltner
has devoted his career of studying the nature of human
goodness and happiness, conducting groundbreaking research on compassion, all laughter,
and love. He is the author of the best selling
(00:59):
book Born to Be Good, and his latest book, which
we will be discussing today, is called The Power Paradox,
How We Gain and Lose Influence. Hey, thanks so much
for being on the show twice. It's good being with
you again, Scott. Yeah, I always enjoyed chatting with you,
and I thought, you know, last time we focused more
on your work on all after and love. I thought,
you know, today, particularly under a certain political climate we're
(01:22):
living in, but maybe we could talk about power. Yeah,
very timely, isn't it. Yeah? It is. Can you please
start by defining what you mean by power? Yeah, so
very simply by power eye and then the social scientific
field mean your capacity to influence another person, your capacity
(01:43):
to change their minds or their actions or their feelings.
So it's really about influence. So this is a really
interesting definition of power that is very broad and could
encompass different motives for that. Yeah. Yeah, you know, Scott.
When I started reading about power years ago, people in
the scientific literature thought about it as politics. Right, do
(02:05):
you have access to political decision making? Is money and wealth?
And as a psychologist like you, I felt frustrated with
that definition because A those definitions of powers politics or
money or military might don't help us understand the power
politics and families and in romantic partnerships or friendships. And
(02:25):
then b I think they really do a disservice to
those definitions as powers, money, and might in politics in
understanding how societies change. Right, there is enormous innovation and
social change and societal movement that's brought about by people
who don't have a lot of money, who don't have
military might, but they lead to civil rights movement, they
(02:46):
create the Internet. So I wanted to broaden, Like you say,
are thinking about power, Yeah, and that definition encompasses the
whole spectrum of wine alter to the states of others
in a way that gives you like complete control over them,
to wanting to alter the states of others. I'm trying
to think of the quid opposite of that spectrum would
be in a way that is uplifting to everyone, really
(03:09):
spectacular observation. In fact, that's where we're going with our research,
which is, once you think about power is just your
capacity to influence the people around you and then the
people they influence. You can array the ways in which
we influence on a demandsion or continuum. And on one
side is the coercive, bullying, Machiavelian sociopathic tendencies right, And
(03:34):
on the other side is what a really profile more
in the book, which I think we're moving slowly toward,
which is ways of empowering other people, sharing resources, building
strong social networks that get you power, so you can
really start to make sense of the different strategies by
which we gain power. Well, that's interesting, so you said
sharing resources. So sharing resources versus grabbing resources seems to
(03:55):
be the core in distinction, right, Yeah, you know, and
it's really counterintuitive and people don't realize. But once you
start to think about it deeply, the really revealing examples
come to mind, which is that you know, at hunter
gatherer societies, it's really the individual who shares the most
who has the highest standing. There are studies of teenagers
in the United States and it's the kid And this
(04:18):
shocks parents. Right, it's the kid who's kind and breaks
up conflicts and helps other kids who has the highest
status in that group when you get to great acts
of leadership in the work world. Right. Jim Collins in
his book From Good to Great talks about the final
stage of leadership as service is really bringing out the
(04:39):
good in others as your pathway to power. So I
think there's surprising support for this idea. I agree, and
I'm wondering how you link this. I'm sure you're aware
of the distinction and the evolutionary psychology literature between authentic
pride and hebristic pride as two different paths to social status.
You could equally say they're two different paths to power, right. Yeah, no,
(05:02):
what a terrific connection, Scott. You know, it's great to
you know, and this is just new thinking in the
last couple of years that the evolutionary world of people
like Jeess Tracy and Joey Chang and Joseph Henrick, they're
talking about two paths to power, right, and one is
domination and manipulation, pinning people down right or tricking them,
(05:23):
and then the other is means by what you gain
status and respect. And I think that's a fair summary
that in some context, if you're working in a Mexican
drug cartel or you're dealing arms, it's all about domination
and tricking people and coersion and threat right. And by contrast,
(05:44):
if you're working in a hospital or in a biotech
firm or the like, more often it's about, you know,
doing things that gain you status, like doing great work
and building strong ties. So do you think that the
feeling of pride, like the evolved feeling itself, is the
same feeling that like a mob boss feels when they
(06:05):
kill an underling who's disrespected them as the person who
helps change the world and sort of like sees a huge,
grandiose impact that they made in the world. Is it
the same feeling? Yeah? You know, I think that in
this we should study that subjective quality whether or not
that's the same feeling it is, and I think that
you're going to find both similarities and differences. Right, So,
(06:27):
you know, the structure of pride, as Jess Tracy has shown,
just like feeling like I've done good things, I have strength,
I'm high in a social hierarchy is common to hubristic, arrogant,
narcissistic pride, and then this more authentic pride. But that
kind of the arrogant narcissism and is really the kind
(06:49):
of feeling of stature that we have to worry about.
And I write about in the Power Paradox, which is
the minute your sense of pride and success and wealth
and you know, making it in the world world is
accompanied by beliefs like Wow, I'm really fundamentally better than
other people, or I should really dominate the world. These
other people are second rate, You're in trouble, right, And
(07:12):
one worries about the current political climate with this distinction
in mind, and what we really should be looking for
where the subjective differences really are matters. Authentic pride, I think,
always is accompanied by a sense of other people's contributions
to your work, right, your place within a broader tradition
or a historical narrative. So I think there are subjective
(07:35):
differences between these two kinds of pride that helps speak
a lot to the problems of power. I love that
I wanted to think through for a moment without trying
to change people who they are, Like, what if you
are the type of person you know, if we talk
interpersonal circumplex, what if you are you know, so strong
on the social dominance side and very low on love?
(07:59):
I mean, is there a place for you in the world?
The thing is, are you telling people they should change
who they are? Like maybe they could make a great
contribution in sports or certain leadership positions. Do you see
what I'm saying? Like? Is it always the authentic pride wins?
You know? No, not at all? You know? And I
think that what I write about in The Power Paradox
is in in the last fifty years, and this is
(08:19):
worked by Elis Eggley and her colleagues, We've moved from
a more social dominance domineering, coercive form of power top
down to a more horizontal, empowering, collaborative form of power. Right. So,
in general, the data show if you're more collaborative and
empathetic you'll fare pretty well. But there are places for
(08:42):
pure assertive, domineering power. Right when I talk to, for example,
business groups, and some of them are doing really complicated
negotiations with like Russians. Right, it's good to have a
domineering type on your team. I think you're suggesting it's
good to have somebody on your team who does takes
(09:03):
no crap from anybody else and will be forceful. Right.
There are interesting speculations about sports teams about it's great
to collaborate like the Warriors do, but it's also good
to have an enforcer who's like you, you push my
guy around, I'm coming after you. Right. So, I think
in general we find that a mixture of strategies is good.
(09:26):
It's good to be able to fight fire with fire
if somebody is bullying you, to stand up to bullying
like that with calmness but strength. But in general, there
is this trend towards greater collaboration in the politics of
power these days. You're saying that in politics the stays
there's a trend towards which side. Did you say, Well,
what I meant is in a lot of different sectors, right,
(09:48):
So in workplace organizations, in hospital settings, in school settings,
there's more powers, more bi directional, it's horizontal. The one
exception I was going to say, wait a minute, is
politics of the day, where there has been this rise
or return of more top down authoritarian power, which we're
(10:10):
worried about. Yeah, you know, it just seems to me
like there are certain people would really love in sports
and reality TV, and but that's just really that's not
what we when as a president of the United States, like,
you know, I think to myself, you know, I have
watched I've been a big fan of Michael Jordan's career.
But a lot of people say that what he does
on that on the field, you know, on the basketball
(10:31):
court is a kin to like psychopathy, you know, like
he bullies, he intimidates others, he's vengeful. His number one
thing is to win and kick, but not only win,
but kill. You know. So now look, we love that
and admire that as a society when we watch him
on the thing in the context of United president, can
you imagine if Michael Jornan was President of the United States,
(10:52):
I mean, and he had that same attitude. He would
not want that for that position. So I just think
so much is so and textual, you know, And you
know what I'm saying, Yeah, yeah, I mean, Scott, your
observation is so fundamental for your audience to really dwell upon,
which is that you know, we have these stereotypes of
(11:13):
what it means to be powerful, right, and they're influenced
by Machiavelli in this five hundred year old legacy of power,
And Machiavelli wrote in the most violent time in human history,
and it was a theory of power about manipulation and
coercion for very violent times. And then we think of
power stereotypically by invoking images of really exceptional people. Michael
(11:37):
Jordan is a one in a billion person in terms
of basketball skills, right, But real facts are, how do
we influence in our families, how do we influence in
our romantic partnerships, How do when the rest of us
and not Michael Jordan, go to work, how do we
get things done? How do we get things done as
a member of a community or a school, And they're
(12:00):
data are really a counterpoint to the Michael Jordan model
of power, which is you get more done collaboratively. Right,
And even nowadays they're finding, you know that financial firms
and governments that have more collaborative members get a lot
more work done and they're better for the bottom line. Right.
So I think we really, as you are doing, we
(12:22):
have to question the image of power. And it is
not Donald Trump anymore. Right, It is much more likely
to be a woman today, much more likely to be
a person of a different ethnic background, and we have
to embrace the shift and power that Trump is a
reaction to. I think that's right, and I think I'm
(12:42):
also trying to make another point that I really am
not articulating well, but as you're talking, I think I'm
able to better do that now. And that's you know
that there still is a fundamental human drive for this
heboristic pride. It's still hard, it's within us, and I
think when we watch sports, or we watch like wrestling,
or we watch it allows us to vicariously get it
out of our system, you know, the winning losing mentality,
(13:04):
which is the extreme of the dominant side of the
interpersonal circumplex. It's still a fundamental human need. It's not
like the US first them. You know, It's not like, oh,
we have the narcissists and then we have the rest
of us. We yeah, well but yeah, so I just
feel like there are certain things that offer healthy vicarious
Like we watch reality TV. We like you know, you're fired.
(13:27):
I mean, Trump was popular for a reason, right, but
now he's not popular for a reason. It's interesting to
think about that, do you know what I mean? He
was popular for a reason within a particular context, and
that's what got him elected. And now he's in this
different context and the same traits are not. So I
think the segues to your power paradox is that, right, Yeah,
that's a terrific segue, you know. So it's kind of
(13:49):
the inverse. Actually, it's kind of the inverse. Trump is
the inverse of your power paradox. He is, he is
the inverse, which is he rose to power encounterintuitive ways,
but now he's falling fortily. Yeah. So you know, and
I really appreciate your point, Scott. And one of the
points of the power paradox and all the studies we've
been doing for twenty years is that it isn't just
(14:12):
the weirdos or the sociopaths who can get into trouble
with power. Right. Our lab study show you take any
human being and you give them some power, and they
start to have that hubristic pride. They feel they're a
little bit better than other people, and they feel the
surges of desire like I want this or I want
to sleep with that personal I want more money, right,
(14:35):
and we get into trouble, and our studies show, just
like you say, like, this is just a human thing
to misuse power. And when you have power, you're more
likely to lie to people and cheat in games and
take candy in a lab study that was meant for kids,
and drive like a maniac, you know, blazing through the
pedestrian zone. So this is a really we all have
(14:55):
done this, right, We've all misused power. It's not just
the nuts who do it. It's really a human tendency.
And so that then brings in, you know, this question
of the paradox of power, which is we rise to
power through lots of good things in human nature, and
then we can misuse it. And I think the lesson
of Trump is that is a lesson of how we
(15:17):
keep using power well, which is you got to watch
it because other people are going to hold you accountable.
Your reputation's going to fall. Your influence in the distal sense,
like the US reputation in the United States outside of
the United States right now has just fallen, has plummeted
as a result of these kind of impulsive behaviors of
Trump where people literally don't take his set seriously on
(15:42):
the international stage anymore. It's going to cost us dearly.
And those are the reminders of the power paradox of
not misusing the power we earn with good works to
stay close to the better side to our human nature. Yeah,
I mean, it's such an important reminder for all of
us when we get power what it can do to us.
(16:02):
Dopamine is really addictive, you know, in that circumplex. You know,
my colleague Colin de Young has been doing some great
work on personality neuroscience showing that if you're really high
on that social dominance thing, that's pure dopamine. It it's
not necessarily aggression by you know. The thing is, it's
not necessarily testosterone. That's more when you get the antagonism,
which is the left side of that circle. But when
you're just straight up social dominance, which is just orthogonal
(16:24):
to love. That's straight up like pure dopamine. And I
think that's the point you're trying to make. Yeah, And
you know that literature really guide this thinking about the
abuses of power, Scott, which is dopamine is about going
after things that you crave and desire, as you know,
really well, going after this I do not you personally,
(16:49):
you know, flirting with somebody so that it leads to
a sexual tryst, you know, getting involved in drugs, wanting
more money, wanting to take money. That's all dopamine addictive behavior,
you know, Scott. When I started to do this work
on power, there are two things that really struck me
when I watched the behavior of people who are really
feeling the surges of power. One is how much they
(17:11):
look like addicts. They just wanted more, there was no
constrain on what they wanted. They look like they're dopamine driven.
And regrettably, and this has actually been verified by science,
they look like people who had had brain damage. Right.
There are studies showing if you damage the frontal lobes
parts of the frontal lobes, you act impulsively, You swear
at people, you make sexual passes, you are greedy. And
(17:34):
there are studies by superindero Obi at McMaster University showing
when I feel powerful, it disengages my frontal lobes, you
know so, and I write about this in the paragraphs.
So that's a really problematic mixture of being addicted to
dopamine minus your frontal lobes. It's such a good point,
And you know, I find it interesting that there's like
(17:56):
Colin and others are trying to map out this two
different dopamine pathways. One that's more related to what we're
talking about, which depetitive rewards which are very ancestral like status, money,
and power. But then there's also a newer evolved pathway
project with the projections to the prefrontal cortex itself, which
is more about the reward value of information. It's curio
(18:17):
eing curiosity and the reward so not the reward value
of competitive rewards, but the reward value of understanding, yeah,
and reducing information. And I feel like I'm a dopamine
junkie on that second one. Like I'll admit it, I'm
a doping junky when it comes to cure, you know,
I mean, that's why we're having this conversation to begin with,
and maybe you are too totally keeps too late at
(18:38):
night and it keeps been returning to your show, Scott. Well,
it's really interesting and this and this may be a
way to think about the upside to power and the
downside to power. The downside to power is when you
hyperactivate that older dopamine system that you're talking about, which
just makes you swear at people and make sexual passes
and get greedy. But maybe the upside to power is
(19:00):
the social side that you're talking about and on that
you know, it's so interesting. I hadn't made this connection
until he brought it up. An A Guinotte in Europe
has these great studies showing when I feel powerful. Yeah,
I'm too driven by my own fleshy desires. But the
upside is I really can look at social situations and
(19:21):
know like, this is the most socially important thing to
do right here, right this is the most valuable social
course of action, like my team to work on this
part of the problem or you know, solve that conflict.
So maybe that's the rewarding side to power that we
need to bring into focus. I wish I had known
about that before writing The Power Paradox. Well, yeah, no,
(19:44):
this is this is I'm really glad to write this covertion.
And did I hear you say that you listen to
the psychology podcast? Yeah, did you just say that, like
about three minutes ago. Yes, like it just processed that.
I am. I'm incredibly honored that that is true. Well,
every now and then I need new sources of wisdom.
I just got a dopamine hit by you saying that,
(20:04):
I am. It's true, it's true. Well, you know, this
is I mean, we can really get like nuanced here
in a way that might be fun. You know. The
extra version domain is comprised of two main facets social
dominance slash assertiveness, but also social affiliation or social vitality.
(20:25):
They're correlated with each other, but the vitality facet is
the only one that's correlated with compassion, whereas the dominance
one is actually uncorrelated with compassion. So that's an interesting
example that when you look at the subfacets, actually the
technically the aspects, the two aspects of extraversion. There's one
aspect of extra version that is linked to the agreeableness
(20:46):
specifically compassion to mean and another one that's like pure dopamine.
So there's one that's like wanting and liking, and there's
one that's just wanting system. Yeah, that's relevant here, Yeah,
very relevant, and what a terrific observation. You know, there
are sixty year seventy studies and we've done some of
them that if you are extroverted, you will rise in
(21:07):
the ranks as a school kid in a dorm and
a fraternity sorority, sports team, military unit, in the workplace.
That social effervescence of extraversion gets you status and power.
And I think, you know, when I asked Oliver John
about this and he and I published on this, you know,
and he's pre eminent figure in this Big five world,
he said, it really is the social affiliate of connective
(21:31):
side to extraversion that's driving these resultsful, and I think
that will be a great frontier for more research. Scott, beautiful.
And I'll tell you there's one area of research I'd
love to do more on which relates to this. It
seems like there's a cluster of the Big Five when
you look at the aspect level that's not just it's
like a triad, which I'm realizing there's a social effervescence.
(21:52):
I love the way you put that. I'm going to
call that now social effervescence, compassion. And the third one
is creative openness. Yeah. See this triad and I would
say that's like the ultimate triad for positive social change. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And there are you know, they're really cool meta analyses
showing that openness piece that you've just introduced creativity. I'm
(22:17):
curious about things. Open mindedness drives power in business contexts,
which is very sensible but very important. Right. It's not
as important in the military context, for example, either structured units,
but boy is it important in driving innovation and positive
social change in the business world. Oh this is great.
(22:37):
This is really exciting linkages. I feel so honored to
be able to talk to you. Yeah, I wish I
could do some research on this. It's really these are
cool speculators. We can It seems like there are these
two major at least two major clusters at the aspect
level that you don't see when you just stay at
the bit too big five. So we just talked about one,
but the other one seems to be a more dominance cluster,
(22:58):
and that could be assertiveness, maybe disagreeableness. You know, and
I'm sure we can stick in a third one if
we wanted to somewhere in the conscientiousness maybe high conscientiousness
as well. You know, our grit might be part of that.
I don't know, I don't know. I'm just riffing, but
it seems like there are at least two major pathways
to power within the Big five. Yeah, and I think
(23:21):
you've nicely charted those configurations, you know, as an offshooter
that Scott. Yeah, you know, another personality space that we
should be talking about is the dark triad. Obviously, I
love that Ochabelianism, sosiopathy, and narcissism. And my colleague Leanne
Tenbrinke and I were really frustrated with the power literature
(23:42):
because there's this assumption out there and it's just a stereotype, right,
just as like people stereotype that women can't be leaders,
when in fact a lot of the data show their
better just as are better than men on average. But
there's this stereotype that you got to be a killer
to gain power, got to be a sociopath or Machabelian.
(24:02):
It has really deep intellectual roots to trace back to
the deep Machiavelli and So we've actually tested that in
two different contexts. One was with US senators and we
published this I think in twenty fifteen. U code the
speeches of US senators for how much humanity and sort
of empowering compassion this show versus sociopathy and narcissism. Do
(24:24):
they lick their lips and show the high dominant dopamine stuff.
And it was really the more just humane senators who
got more support for the bills they were trying to ote.
And we've got a paper coming out very soon where
we did the same analysis coding the speeches in terms
of their nonverbal behavior of hedge fund managers, and we
(24:45):
find that sociopathic kind of high domineering killer type hedge
fund managers do worse for the people who invest in them. Right,
So that these are cautionary tales about our image of
power that we need. Well, that is wonderful findings and
I would love to cite them in my work if
(25:06):
you wouldn't mind following up. Yeah, and this does suggest
that you know, the interpersonal circumplex originally was labeled as
the power or slash status axis, and I don't refer
to it as such or anymore it's just agency, you know,
because we need to like think like you're saying, you know,
and this is largely your point, and I'm agreeing with it,
but it seems like in that spirit, I'd be happy
(25:26):
to retire that description of that access and open up
power to even you know, like the communal side or
that the intersection I was talking about where you have
the affiliation plus plus compassion. Yeah, and you know, and
we need to do this kind of work on these
scales that define parts of our science, right, Yeah, they
(25:48):
get more refined as science advances, and we need to
evolve our scales as well for many different reasons. Brilliant,
it's brilliant. It's such good stuff. So you have this quote,
power is given, not grabbed in a lot of ways.
Is that a cautionary tale to kind of help us
realize that, you know, it were people who gave us
(26:08):
that power. Yeah, So when it goes to our head,
is that a good reminder that we didn't do it
all by ourselves. It's one of the deepest reminders. You know.
That idea really came out of a spectacular line of
thinking on power by Christopher boem b o e h
M at USC and he surveyed the data of hunter
(26:30):
gatherers societies and I think there are forty eight studies
in this meta analysis. And these are people living in
small groups that defined our evolution for two hundred thousand years.
It's really the kind of the context in which we
developed into the primate that we are today. And he said,
he talked about how groups control how much power you have,
(26:50):
and they do it by if you abuse your power,
they'll mock you, they'll tease you, they will spread gossip
about you, they will opely chastise you. Right, and your
power and this is also found in the sociological literature,
is given to you by the network you're part of. Right,
my power in psychological science, my influence is dependent upon
(27:14):
my reputation and what other people think of me. And
if they think I'm a jerk or they think I
do shoddy science, They're not going to refer to my work.
They're going to ignore it, they're going to make fun
of it, and it will have no influence in the field.
And so your power, fundamentally, for the most time, context
is given to you. And you know there are exceptions.
(27:35):
Obviously you look at political elections and you look at
the machinations of them and vote counting issues and voter
suppression and the like. In Oops, you suddenly see power
can be grabbed. But the broader and those are important exceptions,
but the broader lesson is you're only as good in
terms of power as the esteem other people dragt you.
(27:57):
I like that. I think I agree with fifty percent
of that statement. Then that power is given, but it
looks like power can be There are two roots to
social status from the evolution. So the nuanced, un sexy
version is powers given and it could either be grabbed
or you know, the other option. However, there's one version
(28:17):
that is re produced with to well being and ultimate success.
And that's a total mouthful. Yeah, you know, I mean,
and it's so interesting, Scott, because you know, I wrote
the power paradox right like power is given, not grabbed,
and I literally published it before Trump prose. Yeah, this
rise of right wing I mean literally a month later
(28:39):
Trump rose. Yeah, but not only Trump, but we had
all this right wing, this emergence of right wing politics
that people are very worried about, where it really looks like, wow,
there is a force in human psyche and in human
society that's all about taking others down to grab power.
And I had a lot of material on grabbing power
(29:01):
that we've been talking about, these two roots to power
that I cut out that is worth really reminding ourselves of. Yeah,
it just seems like, you know, because they use examples
in that evolutionary literashire, like if you're in jail, I
mean usually the dominant person is the one who really
wins and thrives in that environment. Is that right? Yeah?
And so there are certain environments that there's a reason
(29:21):
why we evolve these those social strategies, as every psychologists
call them exploitative. Yeah, and that's where you got to
think about the nature of the social system that you're in. So,
for example, is there accountability to your actions? Right, because
that will diminish domineering power. In prisons, there's no accountability,
it's all haywire. There is your action publicly visible. We
(29:47):
know people are better behave when their actions are publicly visible.
But when Trump makes his private deals at mar Lago,
or a prisoner is not is in a prison cell
and no one's looking, then coercive power can rain another
one that's really important, and it's rising in our conversation
today is what do we value in leaders? Right? Do
(30:07):
we think it's okay that a leader can swear and
grab people's genitalia and you know, brag about it and
act in irrational ways. If we value that, when we
value the right kinds of things, that will constrain leaders
in really interesting ways to be better behaved. So I
think that in part, as Snyder says in his recent
(30:29):
book on tyranny, which is really your audience really should
read it. He's a Yale historian. His first principle of
tyranny is people give power to tyrants by just backing off,
by letting them run rough shot over us. And it
really is in our hands to constrain the domineering types
of power and the abuses of power. Oh boy, so
(30:51):
we even can make this sense even more nuanced. Powers
given willingly or unwillingly, either through grabbing or compassion, and
depending on the context, one or the other will be
more conducive to harmonious cooperation or something. That's a big mouthful,
but yeah it is. But I think that, you know,
(31:13):
I think now that is the challenge of the day, right, which, yes,
we have this tendency to give power to people who
advance societies, and there are historical moments where that is
corrupted and it's still in our hands to give power
to the right people. Yeah, it's such an oh man,
what an important message. And it seems like your phrase
(31:35):
power is given out grabbed. I mean, it has a
real new meaning under you know, the Genitalia situation that
we had with our current named So when you came
up with that phrase, you actually didn't mean that at all,
did you? Is that right? I didn't, you know, But
I'll tell you what. And it's interesting for your audience
to know that that phrase also came out of really
(31:58):
important scholarship on by Joseph Nye at Harvard University, who's
the author of concept Smart Power and Soft Power, and
what he noticed, and I think it's very relevant to today,
which is that during the Shock and Awe campaign where
we bomb the lights out of Iraq, Bush and Cheney,
that was one of these really assertive, dominering acts of power.
(32:21):
But in point of fact, when you look at the
broad effects of that action, right, we lost enormous influence
on the worldwide stage, and that's been documented by Joseph Nye.
And then when you think about the long term effects
of that single policy on the status of the American people,
(32:41):
the trillions of dollars it costs, that cost us, that
disempowered us as well. So I think what we see
today is another interesting example of where these really coursive
forms of power cost individuals and the collectives they represent
in the long term. Yeah, I'm so glad that you
and others that you mentioned doing this kind of research.
(33:01):
Without this kind of research, it's very easy to just
for anyone to just, based on their own value system,
kind of say what is important. I mean, obviously the
dominant listener to this conversation will be laughing at us, right,
And I know, yeah, yeah, yeah, And that's like it's chumps.
They would call this chumps, right. You know, I've dealt
with bullies so much in my childhood that I know
(33:22):
exactly how it is. So what are I think? I
maybe we talked about that a little bit in the
last chat. I can't remember, but I feel the day's
age right now, this is a common thing we talk
about bullies. Bullies. I'd love to talk a little about
what are some potential some of the pathways to enduring power.
And it's another aspect of your book. I really loved
how you this. Even the phrase enduring power, it's a
(33:43):
powerful phrase to me. So can you maybe tell the
listeners some of those pathways. Yeah, you know, power is
such a rush, right that, like, Wow, I feel powerful.
I'm at the top of the game, you know. And
I've been teaching this stuff to managers and executives and
leaders for twenty years and the smart ones are recognized. Yeah,
(34:03):
it is a rush. It's great if the dopamine high
that we've talked about, But what really matters is what
your life looks like after you know, fifty years of
work and in a relationship or relationships, and what you
do in the community. And that's really enduring power, right.
And the Greeks were very interested in this question of
at the end of life, what have you given? And
(34:26):
to me, that's the deeper question about power is how
have you influenced others over the long haul of life
and not just in the moment of rising to the top.
And that then begs the question of what pathways lead
to enduring influence. And one, notwithstanding certain critiques, is empathy
is just make it a practice to think about what
(34:49):
other people are thinking, to take on their feelings to
listen to their wisdom. You know, I was blown away
and reading about Abraham Lincoln that as Thurlow Weed, a
journalist who followed him at the time, said, his political
genius was that he heard all who came to speak
to him, He read everything that was written to him,
(35:12):
and he listened with a genius intent. Right, he just
absorbed himself in other people's minds empathy, And when you
look at great leaders, they have this quality. And then
there are people like Stefan Cote who's finding Wow, it's
really the empathetic managers who keep their power, who have
enduring power. Then, you know, a second one is the
(35:36):
recognition that we've talked about that is really just hyper
connecting in you know, this dimension to extraversion, Scott, that
you've really sharply brought into focus of. Like, you know,
just make sure that you're always don't seduce yourself into
thinking your power is the product of your genius or
(35:56):
your incredible talents. Really it's you're enduring powers related to
the networks you build. This is true of primates, front
of All's work on chimps, it's true of hunter gatherer societies,
and it's true today. Right, So there are studies of
organizations showing if you want to really drive social change
(36:18):
in the organization have power, be it a scientific society
or a finance firm. You're hyper connected, right, so just
make sure you're connecting, having fun, laughing, reaching out to
others and then you know, I'll get pro social on you.
But you know, I think kindness and sharing are fundamental
(36:40):
in the long haul. And you know, there are meta
analyzes showing with a little bit of data showing agreeableness,
which you've talked about that one of the big five.
Kindness helps you keep power. And when you study great leaders,
very often they have this really really clear devot to
(37:00):
other people. Now, you know, there are bullies out there
who may be laughing at us, but there are data
that align with these ideas because those are the ones
that are made fun of by the bullies. I mean,
that's really what's going on in middle school. The ones
that are the most made fun of. The quote, the nerds,
the humanitarians, the one you know, the sweet little girl
(37:21):
who brings cookies for the teacher then gets bullied and
my heart breaks. It's horrible, but I think that's what
we see though, right, yeah, I agree, and you know
you've brought into focus, you know, and it's a little
bit in the power paradox, which is there is this
struggle over power. Is it the Machiavelian domineering bullying type,
(37:42):
and that does prevail in places versus this pro social
collaborative type, And there are context where that is a battle,
right and it's historical battle that we have to engage in,
be it on the playground or in the US Senate totally.
And the person who might be the bully in school,
that could be coming from a place of intense powerlessness
(38:05):
for that person. So we should be clear that these
are malleable characteristics. Sometimes the bully can grow up to
channel in a way once they get power and positive
beneficial things. But as you make the point in your
book that a lot of that hubris and arrogance and
exploitation can come from a place of a person feeling
like they don't have any power, right yeah. And we
(38:27):
have to remember, you know, bullies were bullied very often
the reviews, they suffer depression and anxiety at higher rates,
right yeah, And so remember that, as you say, it
comes from a place of a defensiveness or even weakness.
It's hard to remember that when you're being bullied, but
I've been there. Yeah, we can of course remember that.
(38:48):
Just I'll end here. You know, maybe you could just
go with one or two pathways to during power because
you talk about a fivefold pathway and you see how
can we outsmart the power paradox? So maybe you just
want to leave one way that your favorite on how
we Cannouncemarte the power of Paradox. Well, you know, I've
already talked about sharing and empathy and kindness, but one
(39:11):
that really struck me as I wrote this book, Scott,
and is humility. And you know, humility is as complex
construct as you know, which is it's about having an
accurate sense of who you are. So it's a counter
to the narcissism we've talked about. But it's also mixed
in with what you spoke of, Scott, which is a
(39:32):
curiosity about other people, you know, just a recognition of
how important other people are. And that really is the
texture of humility. And I remember I got to work
on inside Out with Pete Doctor and you know Pete
was the director of up Monsters, Inc. And then inside
Out Oscar Winner. You know, inside Out ended up being
(39:55):
one of the best reviewed movies of the year one
an Oscar et cetera and Pete two hundred and fifty
people to make a movie, right, that's power. His movies
reach hundreds of millions of people. They're billion dollar enterprises.
And I remember having lunch with him after he won
the Oscar, you know, and he was so humble about
(40:18):
the endeavor, you know, he was I got certain things
I got wrong. It really was due to Ronnie del Carmen,
my assistant director. I really want to improve on this.
You know. There was such humility in his reflection on things,
and I think when you find people who enjoy enduring
power in their family or love life or at work,
(40:40):
there's humility there. And that's what we've got to go after.
That's wonderful. We're going to end in that note because
it's a wonderful note to end on. Thank you so
much for your be so generous on being in a
psychology podcast twice now and often your wisdom. I will
talk with you. It's awesome to talk to you. I've
got nine research ideas I got to go say thank
(41:01):
you so much for listening to the Psychology Podcast with
Doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode
just as thought provoking as I did. If something you
heard today stimulated you in some way, I encourage you
to join in the discussion at the Psychology podcast dot com.
That's the Psychology podcast dot com.
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