CU Boulder study: More power leads to more dehumanization (No sh*t, Sherlock)
Mar 6th
The study, to be published in the May issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, found that participants given more powerful roles in two experiments attributed fewer uniquely human traits — characteristics that distinguish people from other animals — to their peers who were given less powerful roles.
“I think a lot of us have the intuition that some powerful people can be pretty dehumanizing,” said Jason Gwinn, a doctoral student in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and lead author of the study. “But our goal was to test if power, when randomly assigned to ordinary students, would have that effect. That would say something about power itself rather than about the sort of people who have the drive to take power.”
The researchers enlisted about 300 CU-Boulder students taking an introductory psychology course to participate in two experiments. In the first experiment, students were assigned to be either a manager or an assistant for a mock hiring task. The assistants were asked to review resumes for an open job and then list the strengths and weaknesses of each applicant. The managers then reviewed the list made by their assistants and made a final decision about whom to hire.
In the second experiment, participants were asked to play a game and were assigned to be either an allocator or a recipient. For the game, one allocator and one recipient were tasked with splitting a pot of money. The allocator, the higher-power role, made the first offer, suggesting how the money be split. If the recipient, the lower-power role, accepted the offer, both people received their share of the money. If the recipient declined the offer, neither person received any of the money.
At the end of each experiment, the participants were asked to rate each other on 40 traits. The result was that students in higher-power roles assigned fewer uniquely human traits to the students in lower-power roles than vice versa. Examples of traits considered to be more uniquely human, as defined and tested in a 2007 Australian study, include being ambitious, imaginative, frivolous and insecure. Examples of traits that are less uniquely human — those that could be used to describe a pet as well as a friend, for example — include being passive, timid, friendly and shy.
The question of whether power leads to dehumanization has part of its roots in the renowned Stanford Prison Experiment conducted in 1971. Twenty-four male students were randomly assigned to play the role of either inmate or guard in a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. During the study, the guards were psychologically abusive to the prisoners, many of whom passively accepted the abuse, despite the fact that the participants knew that they were all students at the same elite university.
Though the guards were described as dehumanizing the prisoners, the term “dehumanization” was well defined at the time and the experiment was not designed to allow the researchers to confidently state that it was the increase in power that lead to the dehumanization. By contrast, Gwinn’s study, now available online, was designed specifically to test the relationship between power and dehumanization.
Gwinn cautions that the researchers cannot yet say whose perspective is being changed by the power differential imposed on participants in the CU study. It’s possible that being in a position of less power makes a person see those in power as more human rather than the other way around, or that both people are affected.
“We haven’t pinned down why this happens,” Gwinn said. “We don’t know whose perception is being affected.”
Charles Judd and Bernadette Park, both professors in CU-Boulder’s Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, co-authored the study.
Roberson Named Freshman of the Year in Pac-12
Mar 5th
Chucky Jeffery, Jen Reese, Brittany Wilson, Rachel Hargis also earned all-league honors
Senior guard Chucky Jeffery earned All-Pac-12 honors for the second consecutive season while junior guard Brittany Wilson was named to the Pac-12 All-Defensive Team. Roberson was also named to the five-member All-Freshman team.
Sophomore forward Jen Reese and Roberson earned honorable mention to the All-Pac-12 team. Contributing to one of the top defenses in the Pac-12, Jeffery, Roberson and junior center Rachel Hargis all received honorable mention to the All-Defensive Team.
Arielle Roberson named freshman of the year
Roberson, a 6-foot-1-inch forward from San Antonio, is a five-time Pac-12 Freshman of the Week this season, winning that award more than any other peer in the league. She is second on the team and ranks 15th in the Pac-12 in scoring at 12.4 points per game. She tops the Buffaloes in free-throws made and attempted (92-of-136) and is second in rebounding at 5.8 per outing. Roberson is one of the league’s better offensive rebounders with a team-best 86, ranking seventh on the league charts.
Roberson’s Freshman of the Year honor is the first of its kind for the Buffaloes in any conference. However, CU had four Big Eight Conference Newcomer of the Year winners, two of which were upperclassmen and two freshmen (Bridget Turner, 1986; Shelley Sheetz, 1992).
Jeffery, a 5-10 guard from Colorado Springs, Colo., leads Colorado in scoring (13.6 ppg), assists (4.0 apg), rebounds (8.6 rpg) and steals (2.3 spg). Jeffery has 10 double-doubles on the season, eight of which have come during conference play. She is prominent on the Pac-12 leaderboard ranking fifth in steals, assists, assist-to-turnover ratio (1.3), overall rebounding and defensive rebounds (6.6 drpg), 10th in scoring and 13th in free-throw percentage (.707).
Jeffery is the fifth Colorado player to win multiple all-conference first-team honors. Lisa Van Goor (Intermountain and Big Eight) and Shelley Sheetz (Big Eight) each won three while Tera Bjorklund and Jackie McFarland both won two (Big 12). She is also a two-time Media All-Pac-12 pick.
Wilson, a 5-7 guard from Long Beach, Calif., anchors one of the Pac-12’s best defenses, which is on pace to smash team records for scoring and field-goal percentage defense. She consistently draws the other team’s best back court player and has repeatedly held her opponent well below their season averages. Wilson has 42 steals on the season, helping a CU defense that averages 10 per game, ranking second in the Pac-12. The Buffaloes also rank second in the Pac-12 in scoring defense (53.7 ppg) and third in field-goal percentage defense (.348).
Reese, a 6-2 sophomore, from Clackamas, Ore., is one of the Pac-12’s top bench players averaging 8.9 points and 4.9 rebounds per game, both figures ranking third on the team. She was an honorable mention to the Pac-12 All-Freshman team in 2012. Hargis, a 6-4 junior from Robinson, Texas, tops Colorado and ranks 12th in the Pac-12 in blocked shots at 1.1 per contest. She also has a career season-best 25 steals.
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B-ball honors rolling in for Jeffery and Roberson
Mar 4th
CU’s Chucky Jeffery was named to a All-Conference Team and freshman Arielle Roberson was named to the All-Freshman Team.
Additionally, Roberson was named Pac-12 Freshman of the Week for the fifth time and for the second consecutive week.
Freshman Arielle was named toAll-PAC Freshman team.
Jeffery, a 5-foot-10-inch guard from Colorado Springs, Colo., earns All-Pac-12 Media honors for the second straight season. She leads Colorado in scoring (13.6 ppg), assists (4.0 apg), rebounds (8.6 rpg) and steals (2.3 spg). Jeffery has 10 double-doubles on the season, eight of which have come during conference play. She is prominent on the Pac-12 leaderboard ranking fifth in steals, assists, assist-to-turnover ratio (1.3), overall rebounding and defensive rebounds (6.6 drpg), 10th in scoring and 13th in free-throw percentage (.707).
Jeffery was named to the media-chosen All Conference team
Roberson, a 6-1 forward from San Antonio, is second on the team and ranks 15th in the Pac-12 in scoring at 12.4 points per game. She tops the Buffaloes in free-throws made and attempted (92-of-136) and is second in rebounding at 5.8 per outing. Roberson is one of the league’s better offensive rebounders with a team-best 86, ranking seventh on the league charts.
She scored her fifth Pac-12 Freshman of the week honor after averaging 13 points and 7.5 rebounds as the Buffaloes extended their winning streak to nine with road wins at the Oregon schools. She had a game-high 16 points on 6-of-11 from the field against Oregon, including a perfect 2-of-2 from 3-point range which gave her 9 on just 15 attempts over a four-game span. She also recorded four rebounds, one block and one steal.
Roberson recorded her second career double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds in the come-from-behind win at Oregon State. Roberson had eight offensive rebounds alone, matching her personal best, and which ties for the eighth best single-game performance in team history. She hit 6-of-7 from the free throw line, including a pair of free throws with six seconds left in overtime that provided the final winning margin (66-63).
Roberson earned the Pac-12 Freshman of the Week award three times during the nonconference schedule, and was the inaugural recipient of that honor on Nov. 12 after scoring 16 points on 7-of-13 shooting with six rebounds, five steals, two assists and two blocks in her collegiate debut – a 70-65 win over Idaho on Nov. 11.
The Pac-12 added Freshman of the Week to its weekly honors for the first time this season, joining the standard Player of the Week honor which this week went to Stanford’s Chiney Ogwumike. Roberson has won Freshman of the Week more than any other player (three others have three: Jillian Alleyne, Oregon; Lia Galdeira, Washington State; Talia Walton, Washington).
Roberson’s honor is CU’s eighth weekly award in the Pac-12 since the Buffaloes joined the conference in 2011, and seventh this season alone. Jeffery has earned two Pac-12 Player of the Week honors this season. Roberson’s five weekly conference awards in one season are the most by any Buffalo in the Big-12, Pac-12 era (since 1996-97).
The Pac-12 coaches’ awards will be announced later this week.
2013 Pac-12 Media All-Pac-12:
Brittany Boyd, CAL; Gennifer Brandon, CAL; Alyssia Brewer, UCLA; Michelle Plouffe, UTAH; Layshia Clarendon, CAL; Jazmine Davis, WASH; Lia Galdeira, WSU; Cassie Harberts, USC; Chucky Jeffery, COLO; Kristi Kingma, WASH; Atonye Nyingifa, UCLA; Chiney Ogwumike, STAN; Joslyn Tinkle, STAN; Markel Walker, UCLA; Davellyn Whyte, ARIZ.
2013 Media All-Defensive Team:
Brittany Boyd, CAL; Lia Galdeira, WSU; Chiney Ogwumike, STAN; Eliza Pierre, CAL; Joslyn Tinkle, STAN; Markel Walker, UCLA.
2013 Pac-12 Media All-Freshman Team:
Jillian Alleyne, ORE; Lia Galdeira, WSU; Arielle Roberson, COLO; Talia Walton, WASH; Jamie Weisner, OSU.
Player of the Year: Chiney Ogwumike, STAN
Freshman of the Year: Jillian Alleyne, ORE
Defensive Player of the Year: Chiney Ogwumike, STAN
Coach of the Year: Lindsay Gottlieb, CAL
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