Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/62913
No Friends in High Places THE MORE POWER people wield, the more isolated they may become, according to researchers at London Busi- ness School in the United Kingdom, Stanford University in California, and Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. That's because their power can make them cyni- cal and distrustful of others' thoughtful actions. The finding is ironic, because those who seek power often do so because they want more people to love and value them, say Ena Inesi, assistant professor of organizational behavior at London Business School; Deborah Gruenfeld, the Moghadam Family Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior at Stanford's Graduate School of Business; and Adam Galinsky, the Morris and Alice Kaplan Professor of Ethics and Deci- sion in Management at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management. "Celebrities and the powerful are attractive targets for those who seek their friendship for more instrumen- tal purposes," says Galinsky. "This doubt prompts the question: Are they interested in me or do they only want access to my power? Do they love me or my celebrity?" "Without this ambiguity, kind acts produce benevolent awarded its third annual Middle Market Thought Leader Award to two indi- viduals: John Paglia, an associate professor of finance at Pepperdine Uni- versity's Graziadio School of Business and Manage- ment in Los Angeles, and Robert Slee, managing director of Robertson & Foley, a middle market investment banking firm in Charlotte, North Carolina. Slee also authored the book Private Capital Matters, and he collaborated with Paglia in 2007 to create a model that mapped the move- ments of lenders and busi- nesses in the private capital market ecosystem. attributions that inspire trust, encourage reciprocity, and build stronger relation- ships," the authors write. "With this ambi- guity, a vicious cycle ensues. The cynical attributions for others' kind acts ultimately taint the gestures, tarnish the response, and diminish the potential for true intimacy." In an online survey, the authors found that those indicating they had received favors from subordinates reported less trust and a lower desire to reciprocate the kindness than those who indicated they'd received favors from peers with equal power. In another survey, the authors found that married individuals who earned more than their spouses reported feeling more cynical about their spouses' true feelings—and, as a result, less com- mitted to their marriages. For future research, Inesi plans to explore this phenomenon further by examining how power holders' self-worth becomes intertwined with how others view them. She is now working with Sunyoung Lee of London Business School and Kim- berly Rios of the University of Chicago in Illinois to collect data on how the power- ful invest time and money on objects and actions that provide visible proof of how much power they possess. Ena Inesi Deborah Gruenfeld Adam Galinsky "How Power Corrupts Relationships: Cynical Attribu- tions for Others' Generous Acts" is forthcoming in an issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Andreas Mueller, assis- tant professor of finance and economics at Columbia Business School in New York City, has been award- ed the 2012 Arnbergska Prize by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The prize, which comes with an award of 70,000 kronor (approximately US$10,500), recognized Mueller for his research on the composi- tional changes in the pool of unemployed workers in the United States from 1979 to 2008. He found that in recessions, the pool of the unemployed shifts toward high-wage workers, which had not been docu- mented previously. BizEd May/June 2012 65