Powerful people overestimate their own height
- Reported, January 13, 2012
The psychological experience of power makes people feel taller than they
are, according to research by ILR School associate professor of organizational
behavior Jack Goncalo and a Washington University colleague.
"Although a great deal of research has shown that physically imposing
individuals are more likely to acquire power, this work is the first to show
that the powerful may actually feel taller than they are," Goncalo and Michelle
Duguid write in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science.
So a 5-foot-4-inch woman might actually sprout an inch or two in her own mind
when she's having an empowered moment. In other words, there is actually a
physical experience that goes along with feeling powerful.
Three experiments with 266 American men and women confirmed for Goncalo and
Duguid that there is a relationship between feelings of power and one's
self-perception of height.
"Using different manipulations of power and measures of perceived height, we
found that people literally perceived themselves as taller when they occupied a
more powerful position," they write.
Is that perhaps why, Goncalo and Duguid wonder, BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg
referred to Gulf of Mexico oil spill victims as "small people?"
Research -- included assigning one's height to a video game avatar --established
a starting point for exploring reciprocity between the psychological and
physical experiences of power, Goncalo said.
He added that the research begs a number of questions: Do short people attempt
to capture power by physically elevating themselves above others? Would it be
possible to psychologically empower people by giving them an office on the top
floor? Can feeling powerful make leaders less able to feel empathy and relate to
the "little people" because they literally feel bigger? Is it possible that BP's
CEO gave us an insider's view on the experience of power?
Maybe the powerful really do feel bigger than the rest of us.
Credits: Mary Catt and Chronicle Online
Mary Catt is assistant director of communications at the ILR School.
For More information:http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Jan12/ILRheight.html
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