I had a recent flash of inspiration about the Stanford Prison Experiment. Would it be reasonable to generally consider the exercise of power over others as somehow toxic?
There are many, many examples through history of pathological behavior resulting from the exercise of power absent feedback mechanisms to safeguard the desires and wellbeing of the ruled. To define behavior resulting in the loss of human dignity and human life as pathological seems reasonable to me.
It can be shown that feedback loops in the brain can malfunction given stimuli they weren’t designed to handle, leading to addictive behavior and overstimulation of these mechanisms to such an extent that this results in measurable changes in brain structure. I wonder if the exercise of power in contexts far removed from those in village or family groups also results in such changes in the brain? There’s certainly a great deal of anecdotal evidence indicating stress involved in the exercise of power.
Perhaps exposure of individuals to the exercise of power should be limited, in the way modern armies try to limit an individual’s exposure to combat stress? Also note that modern armies take steps to mitigate combat stress soldiers are exposed to. In the same way, perhaps there should be a study of the toxic effects of the exercise of power, and organizations which must expose individuals to such stressors should take steps to mitigate the toxic effects of power.
A power available in modern environment = superstimulus? That makes sense. At least it would explain why powerful people sometimes do things that don’t give them an evolutionary advantage (such as killing most of their relatives, and having the few remaining ones predictably killed after their death by opponents).
Question: What position in a modern society is a power equivalent of an ancient chieftain? (The highest non-superstimulus power level.) I don’t know how exactly to measure it, because the environment is so different. Even using Dunbar’s number, should we define it as “1:150 power level” or rather “power over 150 people”? Which components of power are emotionally most relevant: is it the ability to give commands to others, or not having to obey others’ commands (a distance from the bottom or from the top of the society)?
I think social distance is key here. But perhaps it has more to do with feedback mechanisms supplying information to those wielding power. A village chieftain would have more direct channels of feedback than a general in the Pentagon, say.
Institutionalized power relationships would also create stimuli that didn’t exist in the past. For example, prisoners wouldn’t remain prisoners for years on end in hunter gatherer societies. They’d either be killed, exiled, or absorbed into the community.
The number of people seems a very likely factor. That could be involved with feedback. It’s probably a lot harder to process feedback information from 50,000 people than for 50.
EDIT: A metric might combine the number of people over which one has power, with an economic measure of social distance and social feedback. It’s the confluence of these which seems to be the problem, not just the number of persons ruled.
I had a recent flash of inspiration about the Stanford Prison Experiment. Would it be reasonable to generally consider the exercise of power over others as somehow toxic?
There are many, many examples through history of pathological behavior resulting from the exercise of power absent feedback mechanisms to safeguard the desires and wellbeing of the ruled. To define behavior resulting in the loss of human dignity and human life as pathological seems reasonable to me.
It can be shown that feedback loops in the brain can malfunction given stimuli they weren’t designed to handle, leading to addictive behavior and overstimulation of these mechanisms to such an extent that this results in measurable changes in brain structure. I wonder if the exercise of power in contexts far removed from those in village or family groups also results in such changes in the brain? There’s certainly a great deal of anecdotal evidence indicating stress involved in the exercise of power.
Perhaps exposure of individuals to the exercise of power should be limited, in the way modern armies try to limit an individual’s exposure to combat stress? Also note that modern armies take steps to mitigate combat stress soldiers are exposed to. In the same way, perhaps there should be a study of the toxic effects of the exercise of power, and organizations which must expose individuals to such stressors should take steps to mitigate the toxic effects of power.
A power available in modern environment = superstimulus? That makes sense. At least it would explain why powerful people sometimes do things that don’t give them an evolutionary advantage (such as killing most of their relatives, and having the few remaining ones predictably killed after their death by opponents).
Question: What position in a modern society is a power equivalent of an ancient chieftain? (The highest non-superstimulus power level.) I don’t know how exactly to measure it, because the environment is so different. Even using Dunbar’s number, should we define it as “1:150 power level” or rather “power over 150 people”? Which components of power are emotionally most relevant: is it the ability to give commands to others, or not having to obey others’ commands (a distance from the bottom or from the top of the society)?
I think social distance is key here. But perhaps it has more to do with feedback mechanisms supplying information to those wielding power. A village chieftain would have more direct channels of feedback than a general in the Pentagon, say.
Institutionalized power relationships would also create stimuli that didn’t exist in the past. For example, prisoners wouldn’t remain prisoners for years on end in hunter gatherer societies. They’d either be killed, exiled, or absorbed into the community.
The number of people seems a very likely factor. That could be involved with feedback. It’s probably a lot harder to process feedback information from 50,000 people than for 50.
EDIT: A metric might combine the number of people over which one has power, with an economic measure of social distance and social feedback. It’s the confluence of these which seems to be the problem, not just the number of persons ruled.
Probably?