
Study: People Want Power Because They Want Autonomy - Jerry2
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/03/people-want-power-because-they-want-autonomy/474669/?single_page=true
======
codeonfire
This is obvious in the workplace. Here are some of the things that lack of
power/autonomy will lead to:

\- Being forced to do work assigned to someone else.

\- Being forced to do work for which someone else will receive credit or
compensation

\- Being forced to appear as though under someone else's control (other than
direct manager)

\- Being forced to do the more dangerous, risky, difficult, or thankless work

\- Being forced to do work far below one's qualifications

\- Being forced to take over failed projects or projects that have already
been rejected by upper management.

~~~
ux-app

      > Being forced to do work for which someone else will receive credit or compensation
    

I have a severely low level of tolerance for this. My first team leader at my
first job as a code monkey blatantly took credit for a huge improvement I made
to one of the company's long standing processes. It soon became apparent that
climbing the corporate ladder meant climbing over the backs of others. I quit
2 weeks later and never returned to a cubicle.

Autonomy is king. Without it, I personally cannot function.

~~~
erikb
And how do you achieve autonomy if not via taking power? I mean you can work
as a contractor, but the game is the same. You either make low pay, or work
for someone else, or have the power to govern other people's agenda.

~~~
feelix
Personally I made some websites and started selling my apps from then. I
quickly started making more than most salaried jobs and get complete control
without having to be horrible to anybody. I don't understand why more people
don't do it.

~~~
mdpopescu
I wanted to reply "I never get good ideas for websites / apps", but then I
realized I actually meant "I never get good ideas IN FIVE SECONDS".

Maybe I should spend more time thinking about this :)

~~~
a3n
Maybe you should spend more time making apps, whether they're a good idea or
not. Often ideas in an area come from working in the area, solving problems in
the area, talking to other people about the area, thinking about the area in
the shower ...

~~~
mdpopescu
Thank you, that is a GREAT point.

------
jhwhite
This is a really cool article that goes really well with Daniel Pink's book
Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. Pink says that people
need 3 things to truly feel motivated at work. Mastery, Autonomy, and Purpose.

That seems to be based on self-determination theory mentioned in the article
that autonomy, relatedness, and competence are human's basic psychological
needs.

The link
([http://selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2004_DeciVa...](http://selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2004_DeciVansteenkiste_SDTandBasicNeedSatisfaction.pdf))
about self-determination takes you to a paper that references a researcher,
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He has done a lot of research on optimal experience
and has written a great book about it called Flow.

~~~
ryanobjc
I think Pink was making a even stronger statement than you give him credit
for.

His statement in the book is that traditional methods of improving performance
-- more pay for more work -- just doesn't work for tasks that require problem
solving. In fact, counter-intuitively, experiments have demonstrated lower
performance when paid to accomplish problem solving tasks.

What Pink outlines is that to improve performance on problem solving tasks
(including creative tasks) you have to provide people with Purpose, Mastery
and Autonomy.

The latter thing is often missing from most managerial textbooks since most
managerial textbooks seem to have been written for industrial workers where
precise control is emphasized. This totally backfires for IT jobs (and other
types of jobs), and everyone has seen those disasters.

~~~
chrisweekly
The ~10 minute RSA Animate video for "Drive: The surprising truth about what
motivates us" is terrific:

[http://youtu.be/u6XAPnuFjJc](http://youtu.be/u6XAPnuFjJc)

------
marcus_holmes
Now all we need is a couple of independent researchers to replicate these
conclusions to verify them and we might have learned something.

I get really sceptical about these social sciences studies, especially after
the recent round of replication attempts that failed.

~~~
choxi
I completely agree, and I'm glad someone's on this thread reminding everyone
about the terrible state that social science research is in.

Human beings are complicated and difficult to study, so I can appreciate the
challenge that social science researchers have in front of them. But,
propagating conclusions from a field of research that has a 33%
reproducibility rate is just negligent journalism. It's not true just because
it's in one study and it matches our intuition or something we read in a
Malcolm Gladwell book.

1\. Over half of psychology studies fail reproducibility test.
[http://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-
studies-f...](http://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-studies-fail-
reproducibility-test-1.18248)

~~~
cJ0th
> Human beings are complicated and difficult to study

Well that's a positive way to put it. I wonder whether it is possible to find
steady cause and effect patterns at all.

Same goes for economy (which IS basically a proxy for human behavior). You can
certainly have a go at documenting its history but the present and future are
probably not predictable because they are subject to evolutionary responses.
When I had to take an economics 101 class negative interest rates were out of
the question and look what we have now.

------
cylinder
This is what has been bothering me all day / week and just before I clicked
this. I _cannot stand_ being micromanaged. I'm being driven crazy by it now,
and it makes me want to go back to entrepreneurship.

~~~
danieltillett
Can I ask you a question. Is your boss able to (in practice) fire you?

I have been a manager in situations where I could fire at will and others
where I had no ability to fire. When I could fire I could just explain to my
reports what needed to be done and leave them to get on with - when I couldn't
fire the only way to get the work done was by micromanaging. I hated every
moment of micromanaging, but there was no other way to get done what had to be
done. Responsibility without power is a nightmare.

~~~
gregpilling
BOSS::Make those sales numbers! You have 12 dealers in that territory who
should be feeding you leads!

ME(1997)::Uh, boss about that. Those 12 dealers hate my program because they
get 10% commission instead of 30% commission like they usually do. They
actively work against me! Instead of feeding me leads, they are trying to sell
competitors product because they make more money!! They hate my program! They
make less money!

BOSS:: (hits loop phase of discussion) You have 12 dealers in that territory
who should be feeding you leads! Make those sales numbers or your fired!

ME:: well, shit. <proceeds to make sales numbers by not telling dealers
anything>

When money fell from the sky, dealers didn't seem to care if it was 10% or 30%
money because it showed up like free money. 0 effort for them. It was hell
working with a group that not only I couldn't fire, the corporation could not
even discipline them. They were independent dealers. I could make a sale, and
they could refuse to process it (happened a few times). In those cases it was
then a no-sale. I had to sell the customer and the dealer. Or do the deal
without the dealer knowing about it until they received the check. After a
year of free money, the worst dealer became the best dealer. He had been
around 30 years, a grumpy old codger who was king of his area and all his
customers trusted him 100%. His change in opinion (in his area alone) was
worth about $25,000 a year in commissions in 1998. Thanks again Bob!

I vowed to myself to never get in a position where I had all the
responsibility to make something happen, but none of the authority to make it
happen. That vow has kept me out of some situations, and whenever I break it
is when I get miserable again. Then I re-vow ...

------
danharaj
As a shill for libertarian socialism, i am obviously glad to see controlled
experiments that validate my prejudices about human nature. I switched jobs a
few months ago from a steady job with good benefits to a less steady job with
no benefits because it gave me far more autonomy and independence. I know many
people who are very ambitious and want to be their own bosses: few of them
want to rule others. In fact, of the bosses i know, all of them are
_frustrated_ by having to order and direct people.

There is one pattern of thought that i think is missed by this experiment, but
another one could just as well measure it too and i hope someone decides to:
it's easier to order people to do what you think is right than it is to
convince them that you are right. I think under circumstances where a person
feels frustrated that their point of view isn't being validated by others they
will have a greater tendency towards authoritarian power as opposed to
autonomous power.

Certainly, how many of us have gone through the phase of growing up where we
think that if everyone just _listened to us and did what we said_ , everyone
would be better off? I think well intentioned paternalism is a greater cause
for authoritarian desires than narcissism and ego validation.

~~~
smartscience
Lest we forget, that well-intentioned paternalism is sometimes entirely on
target: on Reddit at the moment there's a link 'Engineer Who Blamed Himself
For Not Stopping Challenger Launch Dies'
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/challenger-engineer-
bob-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/challenger-engineer-bob-ebeling-
dies_us_56f09f3be4b09bf44a9e41f2)

~~~
jessaustin
How on earth could one consider that case to exemplify paternalism in any
fashion? "Detail-oriented engineers overruled by schedule-obsessed
management." Film at eleven.

~~~
smartscience
He talked about bringing a shotgun to work to stop the launch. Perhaps it
would be better to say it exemplifies what the paternalists imagine they are
doing.

------
graycat
The classic explanation is from E. Fromm, _The Art of Loving_ with, to
paraphrase,

"For humans the fundamental problem of life is getting a feeling of security
in the face of the anxiety from our realization that alone we are vulnerable
to the hostile forces of nature and society."

rough quote from memory.

So, alone we feel vulnerable. So, we want security in the face of that
vulnerability.

Notably, Fromm does not say that money or power will give that feeling of
security and, instead, claims that the first recommended solution is a good
romantic relationship, that is, with "knowledge, caring, respect, and
responsiveness" where the _knowledge_ means the couple readily exchanges
knowledge of themselves.

Sure, one can try to use autonomy and self-sufficiency, and those via, say,
money and/or power to get the feeling of security. But if only by omission,
Fromm is saying that being so alone won't work well.

~~~
zappo2938
+1 for Erich Fromm!

My entire concept of office politics is based on a work by Fromm, Escape From
Freedom. His Premise in the book is that people don't want to have to make
decisions or be responsible, that they would rather have other people make
decisions for them. He makes a point there there is a relationship, like a
ratio, between being responsible and freedom. People would gladly give up
freedom over being responsible.

~~~
Delmania
This is something I struggle with. A part of me just wants to put my brain on
autopilot and simply let my manager tell me what to do. That usually doesn't
end well for me.

However, I realize that people who want less responsibility and make no
decisions are looking for a sense of stability and security in their lives.
They want to wake up each morning, go to work, come home, and get paid on a
regular basis. They want the regular paycheck.

The irony of this, of course, is that this course of action is no less risky
than entrepreneurship, because, at a moment's notice, your employer could fire
you and destroy the illusion, even if you've worked over a decade for them. No
matter what path you take in life, you need to own it. The days of working for
a company for a few decades following a defined path were brief.

------
kijin
I don't think the distinction between autonomy and influence/power is so
clear-cut in practice.

The article defines autonomy as the absence of unwanted influence. But in a
human society, unwanted influence is not something you can simply opt out of.
Having autonomy without isolating yourself from the rest of the society means
having at least some degree of influence over those who would like to
influence you in unwanted ways.

As long as there are people out there (politicians, marketers, burglars,
terrorists, etc.) who are trying their damnedest to influence you, the only
way you can achieve autonomy is to be able to tell them to get the fuck off
your lawn. Sometimes you need to push people physically off your lawn.
Sometimes you need to kill them, because they would kill you if you don't. An
autonomous person without effective power will quickly cease to be autonomous.

So autonomy is just another form of power. Some might even say that
_everything_ is power, and it's not just empty rhetoric.

~~~
digi_owl
Makes me think of something i ran into about the freedom concept that was
bouncing around at the time of the American revolution (and thus inspiring and
influencing the founding fathers).

I think it boiled down to freedom being the absence of coercion in any form.

------
erikb
Well, it's different things at work, right? Yes on one side people want
autonomy. This very much so applies to many developers. But power is actually
also exciting, for some people even sexual. Why do I think that? Well,
computer games and porn for instance. In both you already get your agenda. But
there are games and porn that gives you explicitely power over another
(virtual) person. And people still like that, when they already have power
over themselves.

~~~
viiaezumu
To add to this: Women are attracted to men who are leaders, be that in the
work place, in social situations or, yes, in the bedroom. A lot of books on
seduction advocate this.

~~~
groby_b
A lot of books on seduction are full of bullshit. And that's putting it
kindly.

------
Semiapies
"Mostly", because quite a few people still just want control over others. And
someone striving for "autonomy" through power still just wants to make you a
tool for achieving their autonomy.

------
tdeck
I remember seeing a talk a while back where the presenter was attempting to
define the utility function that characterizes intelligent agents. His thesis
was that an intelligent agent would work to maximize, up to some event
horizon, its number of possible courses of action. This reminded me of that
talk - money, power, etc... are all ways to increase one's freedom of choice
and thus autonomy.

------
Jedd
Is this really the results of a new study?

I'm sure I was reading results of studies > 10 years ago, about stress levels
of people within some number of large organisations, and finding people
towards the top of the hierarchy were less stressed than those at the bottom.
It was possibly speculative, though I'm sure I recall they'd confirmed it
somehow, that it was due to people towards the bottom of an organisational
structure had far less control over what their day or week looked like, and
how they could plan out their tasks, than those at the top.

------
linhchi
It's like I'm motivated to work like crazy until the point I can afford to be
nothing.

------
noam87
> To be free in an age like ours, one must be in a position of authority. That
> in itself would be enough to make me ambitious. (Ernest Renan)

------
Aloha
I don't mean to be glib - but they needed a study for this?

I think this is one of the primary reasons people have chased power for
millennia - either to have control over themselves, change the world they live
in, or lord over (seek retribution) those who've wronged (done arbitrary
things to) them (perceived or otherwise).

~~~
qq66
You just listed three things, and the study is suggesting that it's the first,
not the second two.

~~~
sgift
The study suggests that it is the first for the majority of people. It doesn't
suggest that there is no one who wants number two or three.

~~~
qq66
A study can show that men are taller than women without showing that every man
is taller than every woman.

------
daodedickinson
Man, I never got to BLARP as an undergrad. I feel so left out.

~~~
jschwartzi
I've been BLARPing since I graduated.

------
PaulHoule
"If I was black, and I lived here I'd want to be a big man in the FBI Or the
CIA.

But as I'm not, And as I'm free, white and 21 I don't need more power than
I've got... Except sometimes, when I'm broke"

------
pink_dinner
This is why I started my own company: So nobody could tell me what to do. It's
not really even about the money.

~~~
anon987
My view has been that someone always works for someone else. Even the most
powerful board members answer to shareholders and entrepreneurs answer to
their customers - lest they go out of business.

Tell me about why you don't think you have to answer to your customers.

~~~
tikhonj
Customers are a constraint, to be sure, but so are the laws of physics.
Customer preferences are just market conditions, and adopting to market
conditions is closer to dealing with physical constraints in your product
design than it is to being told what to do by your boss.

I mean, sure, in some sense you're "working for" your customers and "working
for" a boss, but that's just using the same phrase to describe two
fundamentally different relationships. Customers have no meaningful say in
anything beyond buying your product or not; they can't dictate culture, they
can't play politics, they can't drag you down with pointless meetings... etc.

Customers are many. They're distributed and decentralized and independent.
Especially for consumer-oriented products, they're faceless. In a hierarchy,
you have one immediate boss and a some bounded number of executives above
them, all of whom operate more or less as a single entity. You can't just
decide to ignore a segment of your management the way you can change focus to
a different class of clients. And you have to deal with your boss one-on-one
in a way that you can avoid for any individual customer.

And hey, customers don't misbehave in the same ways. They fundamentally can't
micromanage or claim credit for your work. Any customer by themselves probably
has relatively little direct power over you which means they have less
latitude to be jerks and if they are, it's easier to deal with.

Obviously, this isn't true for all customers. If you're beholden to a small
handful of large customers or you're consulting, the relationship is a lot
more like having a boss. But for consumer-oriented products and any businesses
that scale—basically anything you could reasonably describe as a
product—having customers is completely different from having a boss.

~~~
mdpopescu
I believe this is the most important difference, at least for me:

> Customers are many. They're distributed and decentralized and independent

This gives me freedom. Sure, it would be best if I just received a one billion
dollar gift (I don't think small :P) but until then, having the freedom to
choose what projects I'm willing to work on is amazing.

------
sridca
My feeling is that it is impossible to achieve autonomy in the workplace for
no other reason than the fact that the factors for what you end up doing in
day-to-day job is, ultimately (if not immediately), dictated by the investors
of the company. Essentially I am exchanging my skills, expertise and time for
money.

~~~
troels
It is not a law of nature that companies need have investors.

~~~
danieltillett
Even workers cooperatives have investors (the workers themselves). Unless you
have a business with no capital requirements then you must have investors.

~~~
im3w1l
Bootstrapping (or simply being rich) is a thing.

~~~
danieltillett
When bootstrapping or being rich then you are the investor :)

~~~
im3w1l
Sure but we are talking about this in the context of being autonomous. So
while you could say that you yourself are the investor, it ultimately doesn't
matter for the overall argument.

~~~
danieltillett
I was just responding to the claim that it is not a law of nature that
companies have investors - in fact it is :)

