Interesting study but hasn't it already been proven?

[foomf]

http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/halevy_power_2011.html - about how there is an interaction between the authority provided to an individual by a job, and the perception of the status of that person

Comments

[unikyrn]

Proven so often, that it's now considered a fact.

Give somebody power over other people and they'll abuse it. The more power given, the more abuse, and the less they'll care, because they figure they're above having to answer to those with less power.

Politicians, Wall Street, take your pick.

It's gotta be a basic flaw at the genetic level.

[foomf]

Ah, but that's precisely NOT what they found. The discovery was that it isn't simply the having of power, but the having of power over others while having no /status/ to go with it - where status conveys that intangible something that carries respect and recognition.

I can understand it fairly easily as "even though I am not valued in any way, I have the very real and demonstrable power to take revenge if someone tries to devalue me for being in this position of servitude to them."