Power comes in many flavors: wealth, social status and influence over others, just to name a few. And for good reason: Understanding the effects of power can help us select stronger leaders, design better organizations and make healthier choices in our personal lives. In recent years, Guinote and other researchers have made strides toward figuring out how power-or a lack of it-affects the way we think and behave. 'Power is everywhere,' says Ana Guinote, PhD, an experimental psychologist at University College, London, who studies social hierarchies.
Power dynamics are present in nearly every human social interaction-between workers and managers, parents and children, romantic partners and friends. But it's not just government leaders and head honchos who are subject to the influence of power. Reports of abuses of power are common enough to be cliché. Politicians who lie about sexual affairs.
Financial executives who bend the rules until they break.
