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Feeling powerless impairs higher mental abilities

Not Exactly Rocket ScienceBy Ed YongMay 19, 2008 9:00 PM


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Feeling powerless is no fun. A lack of control can make the difference between contented and unhappy employees. But new research shows that a lack of power doesn't just make people feel disgruntled. It has a more fundamental effect on their mental skills.




Smith reasoned that this constant re-evaluation draws the brain's resources away from other needs, including a set of mental abilities known as "executive functions". The term is loosely defined but accurately named and refers to a set of master processes that govern and control more basic abilities, like attention and motor skills. They allow us to plan for the future, adapt to new situations and carry out our goals. They allow us to carry out actions that further our goals while restraining us from those that hamper them.

"I have the power"

Smith used a variety of psychological tests to investigate how power, or a lack of it, affects executive function. The first of these, a "two-back task", involved watching a sequence of letters flash by and saying if the current letter matched the one shown two cycles ago. The test requires people to continuously work out if new information is relevant to a set goal.

About 100 volunteers took the test and Smith split them into superiors and subordinates. All were told that they would do a practice run, then work together with the superiors in control. After the test, the subordinates would be paid according to evaluations from the superiors, who would themselves receive a fixed payment. In reality, the "practice run" was the real deal and as predicted, the subordinates made more errors than their powerful superiors. It was an interesting first result but didn't account for the possibility that the subordinates were just preoccupied with their impending evaluation.

The second experiment was subtler. No specific roles of authority were dished out. Instead, Smith subliminally influenced the participants' feelings of power by asking them to unscramble a set of innocuous sentences. The scrambled words either related to power (authority or dominate) or the lack of it (obey or subordinate). After this psychological "priming", the volunteers did a Stroop test, designed to ascertain their ability to suppress irrelevant responses that won't help them to achieve a goal.

The goal was to say if different words were written in red or blue ink. If the words were unrelated to colour, the power-priming had no effect on their performance. Likewise, there was no effect if the words were colours written in matching ink (e.g. "red" written in red). In both these conditions, volunteers found it easy to focus on the task as hand. However, if the word and ink were mismatched (e.g. "blue" written in red), the test became more difficult and the low-power group made more errors.


The third experiment built on the skills needed in the previous tests and looked at the more complex executive ability of planning. Smith used the classic Tower of Hanoi game, where players have to move a pyramid of discs from one pole to another, one at a time, and without placing a larger disk atop a smaller one. The game isn't straightforward (try it yourself with at least 4 disks). The disks often have to be initially moved in the opposite direction to their final locations and this "sub-goal" conflicts with the bigger one of getting everything to the final place. Players have to be able to reconcile these competing priorities to make a workable strategy.


"Respect mah authoritah"



But this mindset is perhaps too facile; if we assume that the powerful are swimming in skill or motivation, it follows that the powerless are lacking in both. That certainly wasn't the case in Smith's experiments. The volunteers were split into different groups randomly rather than based on known skills or talent. Despite this, they still showed more powerful executive functions if they experienced power, or even the mere concept of it.


Power doesn't have to come through rank - it can also be assigned on a case-by-case basis. Delegating jobs to people isn't simply about telling them what to do; good managers will hand over not only tasks, but the authority to carry out those tasks. Employees tend to perform better if they have the ability to make their own decisions within certain confines, and take ownership of their own work. The alternative - peering over their shoulders and dictating their every move - is a sure-fire route to poor results.



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