THE BLINDNESS OF THE POWERFUL TOWARD OTHERS

By Florian Roetzer

[This article published in the German-English cyber journal Telepolis, January 2007 is translated abridged from the German on the World Wide Web, http://www.heise.de/bin/tp/issue/r4/dl-artikel2.cgi?artikelnr=24464&zeilenlaenge=72&mode=html]



…People with power are probably not very sensitive to opinions and feelings of their fellow-citizens but exploit them mainly for their own ends. The goals of powerful interests involve advantageous exchange, not abstract collective emotions. Empathizing with the situation of fellow-persons particularly when they are insignificant for the game of power may be bizarre for power-oriented people because they cannot change their perspective. Are those without power the only ones who can empathize with others and see a situation with the eyes of the other?…




To find out whether power actually prevents empathy to other persons, psychologists first subject their test-persons to tests revealing information about their power and their tendency to empathy with others. A negative correlation resulted…

Men made mistakes more often than women. The “powerful” were wrong more than the members of the control group.

According to psychologists, power seems to make difficult taking the point of view of others and understanding their feelings. Persons fixated on power usually start from their own interest in perceiving others and only see them in the aspects serving their own goals. As a result, the deficient ability to see a situation from the view of the other contributes to the downfall of the powerful. They see too late when growing annoyance finally turns into rebellion.

This one-sided power perspective reducing complexity is not unchangeable, psychologists say. Discovering the perspective of another person could also be useful to power-persons in reaching their objectives. If the ruler feels responsible for his fellow-persons, he accepts the perspective of the other and acts generously or liberally. Pressure and the respective culture can influence the attitudes of the powerful. For Adam Galinsky, psychologist at Northwestern University, this conclusion has far-reaching consequences from politics to the economy. As an example, he says: “Presidents who preside over a disunited government and have little power are psychologically more inclined to consider alternative points of view than those with a united government.

In his disciplined ruling party dominated by men pretending to be united, the Bavarian Prime Minister has a hard time knowing the mood of people in the country and in his party. Men with great power only see how their interests can be joined with preserving or overthrowing the power of others.