THAT'S MEN:History and research shows that the more power we have, the more we tend to abuse it
WHAT MAKES moralistic people demand higher standards of others than they do of themselves?
A piece of research to be published this year in the journal Psychologial Sciencesuggests that it's power that enables us to do the things we deny to others.
About 500 years ago, William Shakespeare put forward the same thesis without benefit of a research grant.
In Measure for Measure, a strict, moralistic judge is put in temporary charge of the city of Vienna. Angelo is not a fun guy to be around. He belongs, if I may borrow a line from Father Ted, to the "down with this sort of thing" school of morality.
When it comes to sexual immorality, including such abominations as sex before marriage, Angelo is particularly hard-line.
The girlfriend of a nobleman called Claudio gets pregnant before marriage and Angelo sentences Claudio to death. Claudio’s sister, a nun called Isabella, goes to intercede for him.
This is where Angelo reveals his true nature. He offers her an arrangement: if Isabella will go to bed with him, he will spare Claudio.
To cut a long story short, Angelo is fooled into thinking he is sleeping with Isabella and then, double-crosser that he is, into thinking he has executed Claudio anyway.
The whole fascination of the play lies in seeing somebody who preaches very strict Christian morality for others behaving in ways that are, by his own standards, immoral.
This theme continues to fascinate us in modern times and we devour news stories depicting a fall from grace.
Researchers at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and at Northwestern University in Illinois wondered if this sort of behaviour had something to do with power.
Subjects in the study were assigned roles such as prime minister or civil servant. They found that the more power and influence people had, the more likely they were to condemn bad behaviour in others while condoning it in themselves.
For instance, the high-power people condemned cheating by others. However, when given the opportunity to win lottery tickets, these same people cheated so as to get more for themselves.
High-power people found it more acceptable for themselves to dodge their taxes, to drive too fast or to keep stolen property than they did for others to do so.
This seems to have something to do with a sense of entitlement. Various studies have shown that people who feel powerless and who don’t feel entitled to power tend to be harder on themselves than on others. That is why it is highly unlikely that the meek will inherit the earth. Instead the arrogant inherit it on behalf of the meek and we all know what comes next.
The understanding of this human trait pre-dates Shakespeare, of course, as evidenced by Christ’s words, “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”
The corrupting nature of power is also well recognised in proverbs.
It’s when this tendency is combined with preachiness that we are most fascinated.
And it’s very widespread, whether or not it involves widespread corruption. Those who feed themselves large, undeserved bonuses from their powerful positions at the corporate pig-trough seem entirely untroubled by the absence of bonuses for employees lower down the chain. Some politicians see nothing wrong with taking donations from people they shouldn’t be taking money from in their role as stewards of the rule of law. And icons of family values who are caught having sex with people who are not their spouses have been parading across the world media for decades as though they are in a play in which only the actors change.
All of the revelations of this misbehaviour have the benefit that the rest of us can feel better by condemning the sins of our betters.
The thing is, though, that we’re talking about human traits here. This means that if you and I were in positions of power, the chances we would behave in ways we now condemn would rise.
Which is why, the more power we have the more we need to have a sceptical and disrespectful eye kept on us.
- Padraig O'Morain (pomorain@ireland.com) is a counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His book, Light Mind – Mindfulness for Daily Living, is published by Veritas