PTF Parent Up Distinguished Speaker Dacher Keltner Discusses the Power Paradox

More than 230 parents and community members attended the first Parent Up Distinguished Speaker series featuring Dr. Dacher Keltner, professor of psychology at UC Berkeley, in Hurlbut Theater last Friday.

Dr. Keltner’s most recent book, The Power Paradox, upends our traditional Machiavellian view of top down, authoritarian styles of power. Instead, Dr. Keltner details through a wide array of topics the ways that power is strongest when gained through empathy and power sharing.

Power, broadly defined, is the capacity to alter the state of others. Yet as Dr. Keltner points out, power is not something only for the boardroom or the Pentagon. Instead it defines all of our social relationships -- between colleagues, spouses, children or strangers. With greater diversity, globalization, and gender equality we find ourselves in a “radically shifting world” that requires taking the perspective of others and valuing divergent viewpoints. Power emerges horizontally through empathy, collaboration and consensus. As Dr. Keltner points out, “Collectives give power to those who enhance the greater good.”

Dr. Keltner also found that power once gained can corrupt, leading to the title of his book, The Power Paradox. Even when power evolves through empathy and collaboration, it has the potential to become self-serving. Lab studies such as the Cookie Monster study support that even those who are arbitrarily assigned power in a small group will assert it over others by taking the last extra cookie. Or that those with higher status (determined by categories of cars) are less likely to stop for pedestrians stepping into a crosswalk.

Yet there is hope for positive power. In one of the more intriguing studies Dr. Keltner outlined, researchers studied positive touch among professional basketball players. High fives, fist bumps, and flying chest bumps were coded per player. Players who touched the most were those that rated highest on performance and whose teams worked most collaboratively to get the most out of that player’s abilities. Dr. Keltner explained that touch releases oxytocin that promotes trust and reduces stress-producing cortisol. When players relax they are better at problem solving and working together toward objectives.

The potential impact of shared power is significant. Dr. Keltner began and ended his talk with a personal story of spending some of his formative years on the poorest street in the poorest county in California. During this time he witnessed the disproportionate mental, emotional and physical stress that affected those in his community. The ills of poverty, Dr. Keltner suggests, can be traced to a deficiency of power. Lack of power in everyday life increases cortisol levels leading to inflammation, stress and ultimately a reduction of life expectancy. Race, gender, sexual orientation, poverty or the sense of not having a voice in one’s life are all factors that can trigger a physiological consequence. Shared power, empathy and collaboration may just be one of the best antidotes, Dr. Keltner says.

Dr. Keltner is a consultant with Facebook and Google and his work with emotions provided the theoretical grounding to the Pixar film, Inside Out. You can purchase Dr. Keltner’s book The Power Paradox on Amazon.

Please be sure to join us for the next presentation in Parent Up Distinguished Speaker Series on Friday, November 18 at 9 a.m. in Hurlbut Theather when journalist and author Anand Giridharadas discusses moral storytelling in shaping thoughts and prompting action.