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Powerful people often bend the rules. But here’s a twist: If someone breaks rules, are they then perceived as powerful?
Scientists had 40 volunteers read various scenarios. One was about a person who, without asking, helped himself to a cup of coffee from another person’s pot. In another, a bookkeeper consciously ignored a financial error. The subjects also read about scrupulous coffee drinkers and bookkeepers. The subjects were then surveyed, and they rated the rule-breakers as being more in-control and leaderlike than the conscientious types. The research is in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.
In another test, being publicly rude also seemed to engender a perceived sense of power. A hundred twenty-six subjects watched one of two videos. One of a man sitting in a sidewalk café and acting courteously, the other of the same man stretching his legs out on a chair next to him, tossing his cigarette ashes wherever, and barking orders at the cafe staff. Subjects thought the crude man was more likely to be a decision-maker and get his way than the same man behaving himself.
So next time you think someone is important, remember: They may simply be a jerk.
—Christie Nicholson
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13 Comments
Add CommentThat might also explain some of the appeal of "bad boys" to certain women, as they're unconsciously perceived as being more socially dominant (i.e. a more suitable father for their offspring).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article reminds me of Raskolnikov's premise in Crime and Punishment in that powerful people have a natural right or responsibility to commit crimes such as murder (the example given was Napoleon conquering to establish rule of law). Which is true: that powerful people break the rules or that breaking the rules creates powerful people?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnfortunately this is true. Thankful it is only a relatively small percentage of our rural and suburban populatons here in the US. Many are intimidated by them, but there are a few who call, them on their arrogance, rudness and selfcentered behavior. Again unfortunately they are usually callus to their reinforced behavior and are perceived as successful.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe most of our major cities and corporate elite
centers have a much higher percentage.
Worked for a jerk, whose boss was a jerk. Warned them both that I did not treat people that way, did not tolerate my subordinates treating people that way, and I would not be treated that way. After two warnings apiece, I quit. Have done well for my self; they cannot get qualified people, nor keep the people they get.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRude people will only have the power that the uninformed and un-empowered give them. Rudeness is a clear indication of deep seated insecurities and a pathology for perceived domination and control. People who have been exposed and oriented to the concept that true leadership and management efficacy comes from treating others with respect, dignity, understanding, value, or perhaps ‘as they would like to be treated’ will likely feel a bit uncomfortable doing it, but where possible, try calling these rude individuals out on their rude behavior and their pathetic attempts to give themselves some importance and stature and you will likely quickly see that, a) the emperor has no clothes b) for many reasons, you have suddenly gained significant power over this individual.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEveryone acts badly once and a while but, some people are just jerks all the time. It's the way they are.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRude people are not courageous or powerful. Really speaking they are timid to hide their weakness they making themselves rude if courageous people show them their place they obediently surrender.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJames Hillman's "Force Of Character" espouses that a person's true character is revealed only with aging; the older a person is, the more that individual's character is revealed. The reason, younger people exercise too many psychological ploys to disguise their character. Recent papers have countered Hillman's postulate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrom personal experience with an older, arrogant to the point of rude woman who is also a dear friend, I believe that her very core is arrogant by nature and that it has always been so; I've known her for over 50 years. While her rudeness appears to be crafted to inflict maximum effect on whoever she is speaking with, I believe that it is simply how she has learned to survive in an intensely intellectual world.
All of this is to say that there are always exceptions to the rule when people are involved. She, in fact, commands respect better than the average person and is well loved despite as well as for her rudeness; she brings a refreshing perspective to every conversation.
yes. while the experiments described might be crystal clear, in the real world, "rudeness" is often (not always) eye of the beholder, and based in parliamentary/cultural/democratic/my-figments-of-self-esteem-entitle-me notions. Incompetence is probably far more common than the "rudeness" it may elicit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree that rudeness is often or nearly always a sign of insecurity (in relation to other people), or even of serious psychopathology: people like this probably have overcompensated for feeling powerless, maybe for having been overpowered, especially as children. (Inborn temperament doubtless plays a role too; but the other factors I think differentiate between leaders who lead for good and those who lead for ill.) When such people are intelligent and ruthless, they too easily push to the top of social hierarchies, dominating people who are not necessarily "weaker," but either don't themselves care about dominating others, or are unwilling to behave uncivilly or hurtfully. My conclusion from this (based on no scientific research, but on much reading of history) is that many if not most powerful leaders in any social/political/economic hierarchy tend to be narcissistic at best, often sociopathic or psychopathic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thispathology sounds reasonable enough when the frame is the human animal only. widen out to include for comparison other animals, tho, including closest genetic relatives, and nobody speaks of "pathology". instead, it is pecking orders, alpha/betas/omegas, etc. there are plenty of predators out there, but the rest is just the equality-blind rank ordering that goes on throughout all of nature, and homo sapiens could just as accurately, if not more so, be referred to as homo queue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrying to lump causes of rudeness into a simple set of rules is childish at best. A mature study of rude people shows that some are indeed sociopathic while others simply grew with an easy life where rudeness was tolerated and an underserved feeling of superiority was ingrained. Others are not naturally rude but get frustrated by being ignored and thus adopt the strategies that they see working for others.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA more realistic explanation of the results of this study is that most people figure only a very powerful person can get away with acting so inferior.
the incredible demon of man
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