Public accusations of sexual harassment, lewd behavior and outright sexual assault by powerful men have now stretched from Hollywood to Washington, DC, to New York City and many points in between. They have shaken the worlds of entertainment, politics, media and others. What they all have in common is men wielding and abusing some form of great power. But if you are a man who doesn’t have such great power—even a good man—don’t assume that you are immune from abusing even the limited power you have. The fact is, research suggests that the abuse of power, including the sexual abuse of power, is not just the result of bad people rising to powerful positions. It also occurs because having power can alter the way the human brain works. And it’s not just the very powerful who engage in sexual misconduct—even modest amounts of power can distort behavior, and we all wield at least modest amounts of power over others from time to time.
Of course, men who wield power don’t necessarily abuse it.
Bottom Line Personal asked Dacher Keltner, PhD, professor of psychology at University of California-Berkeley and author of The Power Paradox, to help our readers understand why power so often leads to abuse of power, including inappropriate sexual behavior, and what we all can do to avoid letting this happen to us…
Some people behave as though they don’t care about other people’s feelings or opinions…or about the rules of polite society. But in many cases, it’s not that they don’t care—they don’t even notice.
Brain scans of people in power reveal reduced activity in the orbitofrontal lobe, a region of the brain that helps us determine what other people are thinking and that reminds us of societal rules. In fact, the brain activity of powerful people is strikingly similar to the brain activity of people who have experienced brain damage to the orbitofrontal lobe, an injury that can cause rude and impulsive behavior.
And when a powerful person fails to sense what someone else is thinking or feeling, his brain often fills in this blank by projecting his own thoughts and feelings onto that person.
This can lead to boorish or pushy behavior, such as ignoring other people’s opinions or cutting to the front of a line…and it also can lead to sexually inappropriate behavior. According to a 2010 study published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, in many cases when a powerful person feels sexually aroused, he may project that feeling onto the person who is the source of his desire—in other words, he concludes that this other person is sexually aroused as well. If that happens, this powerful person might truly—but wrongly—believe that his sexual advances are justified by the circumstances. That doesn’t make the behavior any more appropriate, of course.
Meanwhile, the other people in these situations—those who are less powerful—often struggle to tell the high-power individuals what they really think in a straightforward way. Instead, they try to send subtle clues and hint at what they feel in hopes that this will get their message through without offending, angering or directly contradicting the powerful people. But while the attempted clues might seem clear to the person giving them, they might not get through to a powerful person who has reduced orbitofrontal lobe activity.
None of this excuses the abuse of power, but it does help explain why it happens so very often. And as discussed below, it should serve as a wake-up call to every one of us who has some power over another individual.
People who have great power sometimes get away with blatant sexual misconduct (or other abuses of power) for years, as recent revelations amply show. These people have protectors and enablers to sweep their transgressions under the rug. Their victims often are afraid to come forward or are paid to remain silent. But if you think this problem involves only the very powerful, you’re wrong. Whenever a person has the capacity to alter someone else’s condition by providing or withholding resources, that person has power enough to exploit—and almost everyone has that amount of power at times.
Examples: A midlevel manager has power over entry-level employees…a member of a homeowner’s association board has power over the home owners in the neighborhood…a popular member of any group has power over a less popular person who wants to join the group.
If you don’t think this minor power affects behavior, consider that when researchers arbitrarily elevated one person in a group to a leadership role over his/her fellow participants in a study, this “leader” became more likely to flirt in overt ways…to make risky choices…and to make potentially inappropriate physical contact. And these people didn’t even have any real-world power—they were just called powerful for the purposes of a psychology experiment.
Whenever you are in a position of power—even if your power is modest—assume that you will be at a neurological disadvantage when it comes to figuring out what other people are thinking. To counteract this, make a conscious effort to speak less, listen intently and always respond politely. If you sense that someone over whom you have power is sexually attracted to you, consider that there’s an excellent chance that this is just your mind playing tricks on you. Do not act on the sexual signals you think you are receiving unless they seem unequivocal—and even then, if you are interested, proceed only with great respect and caution.
Warning: Despite what you might have heard about power being an aphrodisiac to others, your power is not a turn-on for people who have less power than you—it’s probably a turn-off. According to a 2006 study published in Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, when women (and men) sense that they have little power, their anxiety and self-consciousness increase and their pleasure—including sexual pleasure—declines sharply.
What about your behavior when you have power over someone and are not attracted to that person? Your best course is to avoid making any physical contact or comments that could possibly be construed as sexual. Such contact or words could cause discomfort and distress even if you have no sexual intent.
Example: John Lasseter, head of the Walt Disney Company’s animation division, is taking a six-month leave of absence, reportedly because he gave coworkers unwanted hugs. It is possible that Lasseter truly did not realize that his hugs were unwanted—though, of course, he still was responsible for his actions.
If you have a say in who has control over a group, include women on the leadership team. Sexual misconduct seems to be most likely when men have virtually all the power—such as in Hollywood, where female producers and directors are rare. It’s not that women do not abuse power (though they seem to be somewhat less likely to do so than men), but rather that a dramatic power imbalance between the sexes increases the odds that power will be abused in sexual ways.
If you are subjected to inappropriate sexual behavior from someone who has more power than you, immediately share what occurred with other people in the group or organization—in this current environment, there’s an excellent chance that you will find allies, even fellow victims. You might feel relatively powerless, but there is power in numbers.
Be very specific when you describe what occurred. Victims of sexual abuse of power often speak in general terms if they speak up at all, in part because social norms frown on the public discussion of sexual topics. But the more vague your description of the misbehavior, the easier it will be for people to doubt that anything inappropriate occurred. Example: Rather than say, “He made inappropriate contact,” say, “He grabbed my butt.” That leaves no room for doubt that a line was crossed.
