AP41228

Topic: Science Summary

Nataneal Fast, a professor at the USC, conducted an experiment on how power hinders decision making skills. Nataneal and his team of researchers discovered feelings of overconfidence increase exponentially with the amount of power that is granted to a person. One experiment consisted of asking participants to recall a situation where they wielded power over other people or were powerless. Then the participants were asked to bet money on the accuracy of their knowledge when asked six questions. The researchers found that power lead to over-precision, the tendency to overestimate the accuracy of personal knowledge. The participants who recalled an experience of having power bet (and lost) more money than their counterparts who recalled moments of powerlessness (USC). The researchers then hypothesized that overconfidence among individual with power could be diminished by altering their feelings of personal confidence. In this experiment, the participants were allocated high and low-power roles. They were then given a rigged leadership aptitude test that randomly gave out scores of low or high competence. The participants were then asked to bet on their answers to six questions. The researchers found that the participants who were allocated high-power roles but, were given a score of low competence lost less money than their counterparts who were also given a high-power role but, were given a score of high competence on the leadership test (USC). The experiments show that unchecked power can be disastrous. An example of ultimate authority impeding on decision making skills with catastrophic consequences is Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward. The Great Leap Forward was Chairman Mao's plan to rapidly industrialize China's economy. Mao's ideas, like forcing all farmers to work in factories and limiting the amount of grain a farmer could produce, backfired and resulted in the deaths of twenty to forty-five million civilians (Cambridge).

References: Fast, Nataneal J., Niro Sivanathan, Nicole D. Mayer, and Adam D. Galinsky. "Power and Overconfident Decision Making." //Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes//. University of Southern California, 14 Nov. 2012. Web. 2 Aug. 2014.

Lieberthal, Kenneth. "The Great Leap Forward." //Cambridge Histories Online//. Cambridge University, Mar. 2008. Web. 02 Aug. 2014.

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