Power Corrupts

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I believe power corrupts more because once people are given it, they abuse it in order to benefit themselves. People with power don’t act with the well being of everyone else as their priority even though they should because in the end, it would benefit more people. People with power are possessed by their greed whereas people with more beneficial priorities are too powerless in order to make a difference. Powerless people don’t charge consumers more than twice the price the good actually costs them, they are happy to be making a dollar by the end of the day. People with power do just that and they get away with it because they are superior to everyone who would be able to make them stop. They also can use the profit from ripping people off to get the officials off of their case. This can be seen in an experiment by a student, Yap, at Columbia who made people feel powerful and powerless and then asked them questions on other people's height. We view people relative to ourselves, so if we feel powerful, other people appear less powerful and shorter. This study showed that powerful people do, indeed, judge others to be …show more content…

In an experiment where people had to write the letter “e” on their forehead, powerful people were two to three times more likely to draw the letter correct for themselves, but backwards to everyone else. Therefore, the writer was the only one able to read it. Power also causes people to downplay risks, and have higher levels of testosterone and lower levels of cortisol, a stress hormone. This abstract thinking favors the big picture over—what they perceive to be—small consequences. Although this allows them to be more likely to take decisive action, the risks could be more important than they perceived and can harm others. The risks may not be important to them, but to everyone else—who has higher levels of cortisol and thinks more rationally—it could change their

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