Boss Doesn't Listen, Because He's the Boss

Power makes one less likely to take others seriously.

ByABC News
January 16, 2007, 6:04 PM

Jan. 17, 2007 — -- Boss not listening to you?

Maybe it's because he's the boss.

A new study indicates that a sense of power makes one less likely to take other people seriously, and less able "to comprehend how other people see, think and feel."

The study is the latest in a long line of research on personal power, probably dating back to when the first caveman picked up a club and announced he was in charge. Why do people seek it, what does it do to them and how does it affect those around them?

Well, sometimes it's good, and sometimes it's bad.

"Power leads people to take more action, it leads them to take more risks, and sometimes risks are a good thing," says social psychologist Adam D. Galinsky of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. But it also tends to make them disregard the perspectives of those below them.

So in itself, power is not a bad thing, says Galinsky, lead author of a report on the research in the December issue of Psychological Science. But it needs a little help.

"Power is like a gas pedal," he says. "But what you need, so you don't crash, is a good steering wheel." And one way to get that steering wheel, he says, is to pay attention to the opinions and feelings of subordinates.

It sounds like it ought to be pretty easy, but the research by Galinsky and his colleagues suggests that it isn't.

"Power leads individuals to anchor too heavily on their own vantage point, insufficiently adjusting to others' perspectives," the researchers conclude.

That's consistent with findings by many others, but the researchers wanted to get right down to the bare bones and see if the mere suggestion of power influences how people react to others. So they recruited a bunch of college students on different campuses and conducted four experiments.

In one experiment, 57 undergraduates (41 women and 16 men) were divided into two groups. Members of one group were told to write an essay about a time when they had some degree of personal power over someone else. The others were told to write about a time when someone else had control over them.