It's common for powerful public figures to use their status to lecture the rest of us about how we should live. But it's also no secret that the politicians, business leaders and entertainers who make up this elite group of decision makers in our society don't practice what they preach. And coming out of 2009, a year that may well be remembered for its scandal-ridden headlines, from admissions of extramarital affairs by elected leaders and athletes, to corporate executives preaching about free markets while taking bailout money, it may be reasonable to ask: why are powerful people hypocrites?

In a new Psychological Science paper, researchers from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University sought to determine whether power inspires hypocrisy, the tendency to hold high standards for others while performing morally suspect behaviors oneself. Predictably, the researchers found that power makes people stricter in moral judgment of others – while being less strict of their own behavior.

To simulate an experience of power, the researchers assigned roles of high-power and low-power positions to a group of study participants. Some were assigned the role of prime minister and others civil servant. The participants were then presented with moral dilemmas related to breaking traffic rules, declaring taxes, and returning a stolen bike.

Through a series of five experiments, the researchers examined the impact of power on moral hypocrisy. For example, in one experiment the "powerful" participants condemned the cheating of others while cheating more themselves. High-power participants also tended to condemn
over-reporting of travel expenses. But, when given a chance to cheat on a dice game to win lottery tickets (played alone in the privacy of a cubicle), the powerful people reported winning a higher amount of lottery tickets than did low-power participants.

Three additional experiments further examined the degree to which powerful people accept their own moral transgressions versus those committed by others. In all cases, those assigned to high-power roles showed significant moral hypocrisy by more strictly judging others for
speeding, dodging taxes and keeping a stolen bike, while finding it more acceptable to engage in these behaviors themselves.

"According to our research, power and influence can cause a severe disconnect between public judgment and private behavior, and as a result, the powerful are stricter in their judgment of others while being more lenient toward their own actions," said Galinsky, the Morris and Alice Kaplan Professor of Ethics and Decision in Management at the Kellogg School.

The researchers noted that moral hypocrisy has its greatest impact among people who are legitimately powerful. In contrast, a fifth experiment demonstrated that people who don't feel personally entitled to their power are actually harder on themselves than they are on others, which is a phenomenon the researchers dubbed "hypercrisy." The tendency to be harder on the self than on others also characterized the powerless in multiple studies.

"Ultimately, patterns of hypocrisy and hypercrisy perpetuate social inequality. The powerful impose rules and restraints on others while disregarding these restraints for themselves, whereas the powerless collaborate in reproducing social inequality because they don't feel the same entitlement," Galinsky concluded.