In a recent New York Times editorial “The Rich Are More Oblivious than You and Me,” Richard Conniff examines how the rich and famous lose touch with the world and questions if this loss is due to their powerful position in a (social or money) network. He cites a study led by Stanford Professor Dacher Keltner that examines if group leaders tend to over compensate themselves for their performance. In the study, groups of three were assigned a survey to complete while one person was chosen to be the manager of the group.

At the end of the study, five cookies were left on the table and more often than not, the leader grabbed the last cookie. The leader was also “more likely to eat it with his mouth open, spew crumbs on partners and get cookie detritus on his face and on the table,” as Conniff writes. The results of the study suggest that “getting power causes people to focus so keenly on the potential rewards, like money, sex, public acclaim or an extra chocolate-chip cookie… they become oblivious to the people around them.”

While in class we talked about many of the upsides of being in a powerful position in a social network, we did not talk about downsides. Perhaps being “above” everyone else in the network or realizing ones own power makes the most powerful abuse their power. It is interesting that social status could increase personal, and somewhat intangible, negative traits.

Links:

“The Rich Are More Oblivious than You and Me” by Richard Conniff

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/04/opinion/04conniff.html?

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Dacher Keltner Ph.D., Stanford University Professor

http://psychology.berkeley.edu/faculty/profiles/dkeltner.html