It's in the psyche
Making of a dictator
Egypt's toppled tyrant
Famously sadistic dictators like Saddam Hussein and Joseph Stalin share a personality profile marked by narcissism and paranoia, political psychologists say. But what of authoritarian-style dictators like Hosni Mubarak? Could an ordinary, well-meaning person turn into a repressive despot? Perhaps not overnight, but power does have an effect on the psyche, according to psychological research. The most famous example is the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, in which students were randomly assigned to be either "prisoners" or "guards" in a makeshift "prison." The guards became so abusive, and the prisoners so passive, that the experiment was shut down after less than a week. Extremes aside, more mundane sorts of power can also influence behavior. A 2010 study published in the journal Psychological Science found that people primed to think of themselves as well-off were worse at reading other people's emotionsthan people primed to think of themselves as poor. The reason, said study co-author Dacher Keltner of the University of California-Berkeley, may be that people without much power need to build alliances with one another to get by. People in charge, on the other hand, can do what they please. It may also isolate you from others. A 2006 study, also published in Psychological Science, used an unusual method to demonstrate this phenomenon: The researchers had participants draw a letter "E" on their foreheads. First, though, the volunteers were primed to think of themselves as either more or less powerful. The more powerful group was three times more likely to draw the "E" on their forehead so that it would be backwards to others. The implication, the researchers reported, is that powerful people become more self-oriented and care less about the perspectives of others. A third study, this one published in 2009 in Psychological Science, found that people trained to think of themselves as powerful were more likely to believe they had control over a situation even when they were participating in a random activity such as rolling dice.
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