Self-perpetuating inequality

Norm is amazed by Michael Lewis's story of how an arbitary inequality can create a sense of entitlement.I'm amazed he's amazed, because this is consistent with other evidence that people's behaviour can be shaped by randomly-imposed inequalities, for example:

- In the Stanford prison experiment, randomly-appointed "guards" behaved brutally to randomly-assigned "prisoners".

- The Oak School experiment shows that pupils who are randomly deemed intelligent do better than others; this is the Pygmalion effect, whereby people live up or down to expectations.

- People who are primed to conform to a stereotype of poor academic achievement (African Americans (pdf), low-caste Indians, women on maths tests) do worse in tests than people who are not so primed.

These experiments suggest that it is inequality that generates behaviour, rather than behaviour that generates inequality. In Lewis's story, the boss is greedy because s/he is the boss - she's not the boss because she's greedy. In the Stanford experiment, guards are brutal because they are guards, not because they become guards because they have a nasty nature. And people can differ in academic ability not (just) because of innate differences but because they live up and down to stereotypes.

There are other ways in which this can happen. People who achieve some success become (over-)confident, and others mistake confidence for actual ability, and so believe that the over-confident person deserves his success. And people who adopt high-power poses (pdf) - either by occupying positions of power or just randomly - become more confident and risk-loving. 

There are two big messages here. One is that people's behaviour is shaped less by their nature and more by social context than we think.

The other is that even arbitrary and undeserved inequality can very easily feed on itself. The successful quickly get a sense of entitlement and deference from others, whilst the unsuccessful lose confidence and ability. In these ways even unjust inequalities will appear to be legitimate.

Comments

[Luis Enrique]

like Norm I was surprised - I'd have expected dividing the cookie equally to be the most common response. Lewis does not say what proportion of times the 'leader' ate the fourth cookie. Salacious details ("ate it with gusto: lips smacking, mouth open, drool at the corners of their mouths") also make me a bit suspicious.

[Tom Addison]

It's a shame that the Pygmalion effect doesn't apply to the England national football team, although I suppose at least some degree of intelligence is required for it to have a positive effect (i.e. John Terry getting skinned by a German goal kick).

[golookgoread]

Imagine how much worst this becomes once that kind of conformity is maintained for a sustained period of time! That's how tangled up we now are. I am not much reasured that we now have some evidence!

[Agog]

LE - Lewis is only adding a tiny bit more colour than the original authors:

"Coding of the videotaped interactions also revealed that high-power individuals were more likely to chew with their mouths open and to get crumbs on their faces and on the table."

(from a review, http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/dacherkeltner/docs/keltner.power.psychreview.2003.pdf)

[Account Deleted]

The problem with this experiment, and the Stanford and Oak Hill ones, is that it relies on students. While the general conclusions about power are probably sound, I can't help feeling that using biddable ingenues amplifies the result.

You'd hope an experiment using adults with some political nous or negotiating skills would have resulted in a few of the groups challenging the leader.

[Keith]

The last comment misses the point. Being a student is occupying a social niche involving a form of social conformity. So students are no different than any other group subject to social expectation. Look at the power struggles among professors in Academia, it is quite the same. Do only virtuous professors win the struggle? Or the ones with more power from social expectations. Ask Paul Krugman.

[rogerh]

Interesting - and the comments. Could we consider the means by which privileged groups go on to boost, categorise, sideline and eject members who succeed, show specialist abilities, prove not so good and prove unsatisfactory or rebellious. I am thinking of military officer training, management training and academic teams. Influences to consider might be innate ability, expected ability (family history), string-pulling, coaching in subject skills and coaching in political skills. Are there any good readable and focussed studies in this area?