Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely. – Lord Acton, 1887

Bill Clinton. John Edwards. Mark Sanford. Mark Foley. News of politicians having extramarital affairs has become almost commonplace. In fact, 2008 was the first election in which confessed adulterers ran for President. Still others seem to have sticky fingers, including Rod Blagojevich, Tom Delay and William Jefferson (of dubious $90,000 in the freezer fame). Corruption and hypocrisy seem to be a universal phenomenon — touching politicians across the political spectrum.

They decry the loss of family values in public but cheat on their spouses in private. They condemn government waste but enrich themselves with taxpayers’ money. So what’s the connection between hypocrisy and power? Is it anecdotal? Do these examples just stick out more because they involve high-profile people, or are politicians more at risk of being corrupted?

Two researchers, Joris Lammers, from Tilburg University, and Adam Galinsky, from Northwestern University, conducted a series of experiments to answer these questions.

According to the study they just published in Psychological Science, Lord Acton was right — power actually corrupts. They claim that power is corrupting because it leads to moral hypocrisy. Everyone knows the difference from right and wrong, even those in a position of power. However, power makes it easier to rationalize away doing wrong, thus the hypocrisy between “me” and “everyone else.” For example, in one experiment testing hypocrisy, two groups of people (“high power” individuals and “low power” individuals) were asked to rate certain actions on a scale of 1 to 9, with 1 being “highly immoral” and 9 being “highly moral.” The powerful said that a person speeding because they were late to work warranted, on average, a 6.3 on the morality scale. However, when placing themselves in the exact same situation, they gave themselves a 7.6. In other words, their speeding was more acceptable than other people’s speeding. In contrast, the less powerful people scored themselves the same as everyone else.

The authors also found that people who believed that they were entitled to their position of power were more corruptible. People who were in high-power seats but did not believe that they deserved their high-ranking position were very harsh on themselves, morally speaking.  (For more on the study, read the Economist’s article here).  Other studies have found that an isolated person of power is much more likely to abuse their position — it’s easier to take advantage of people when you don’t see them. Your mind skips over the sympathetic bit and goes straight to Machiavelli. The implications of this finding are troublesome in a world where technology makes isolation even easier (telecommuting; the ability, via blogs or feeds, to read only the news you agree with; speaking to your constituents via twitter instead of town hall meetings, etc).

So, assuming that Lammers and Galinsky are correct, what does it mean? Democracy and liberty are natural extensions of Lord Acton’s dictum in the broadest political sense, but clearly, temptation still looms in a democracy. What’s next?

Also, what does this mean in a business environment, where positions of power are everywhere? Business lunches, travel expenses, and the like all have the potential to be abused — and not just by the CEO. Is the janitor stealing the office’s toilet paper because s/he’s in a position to do so? Is your assistant stockpiling office supplies because she feels entitled to them? (Don’t laugh, businesses lose billions of dollars a year in employee theft.)  To complicate matters, studies show that unleashing the ethics police is counterproductive because such oversight would make people uncomfortable and incite backlash.

So what’s a manager to do? It’s obviously easier to prevent corruption than try to solve it after the fact, but how do you recognize the culprits? At what point do you start caring? And when does small become big?

Also, is “big” corruption ever excusable? Grover Cleveland won the 1884 election in spite of the press outing the child he fathered out of wedlock, and again, two admitted adulterers threw their hats in the last Presidential race (with one getting 56 million votes). And then there’s the fact that some of America’s most esteemed leaders were less than honorable. FDR, who had an affair with his wife’s social secretary, and Andrew Jackson, whose wife may not have been divorced when he married her, are frequently ranked in the top 10 most successful presidents by historians. JFK, who was rumored to have had an affair with Marilyn Monroe among others, came in third behind Martin Luther King, Jr and Mother Theresa in a Gallup list of the most admired Americans.  Add to the list the political leaders embroiled in corruption scandals over the years.  Did their thirst for power make them better leaders, or were they good leaders in spite of their dalliances?

Even if the position of power is what sparks the affair, should what happens in the motel room have any bearing on what happens in the boardroom?

So Lord Acton was right, but now what?

The questions above were asked to spark debate…so comment away!

Tags: Debate, Freedom, Government, Leadership, Lord Acton

Posted in Liberty & Philosophy, Opinion, Science & Research