Former FBI Director Louis Freeh's Report accuses four powerful Penn State officials of “callous and
shocking disregard” for the victims of now-convicted child abuser
Jerry Sandusky. Football coach Joe Paterno seems to have persuaded
the other three—athletic director Tim Curley, vice-president Gary
Schultz, and president Graham Spanier—not to report the accusations
against Sandusky to the authorities, in order to avoid negative
publicity for the university and its football program. For almost 14
years, they did not take any action to protect children on their
campus.
Published excerpts from the Freeh
Report reminded me of findings from research on the effects of power.
In psychological studies, power is manipulated either by creating a
heirarchical relationship to accomplish a laboratory task, or by
priming the concept of power by reminding subjects of past incidents
in which they had a lot of or very little power.
The four men who made the decisions in
the Sandusky case “exhibited a striking lack of empathy” for the
least powerful people in this incident—Sandusky's (at the time)
alleged victims.
“There is no indication that Spanier, Schultz, Paterno, Curley or any other leader
at Penn State made any effort to determine the identity of the child
in the shower or whether the child had been harmed.”
First, an exercise. As quickly as you
can, with the index finger of your dominant hand, draw a capital
letter “E” on your forehead.
Did you draw the “E” as if you
yourself were reading it, or as though a person facing you was
reading it? Social psychologist Adam Galinsky has found that drawing
the “E” in the other-oriented direction is the dominant response,
but when people are made to feel more powerful—in this case, by
recalling an incident in which they had power over another
individual—they are three times more likely to draw the “E” in
the self-oriented direction than when they are made to feel less
powerful. This is an exercise in perspective-taking. High power
people are less likely to take another person's perspective, which in
turn makes them more likely to show in-group favoritism and to
stereotype other people.
Susan Fiske has studied the consequences of high and low power for people's perceptions of those
with whom they interact. She defines power as control over other
people's outcomes. People pay attention to those who control their
outcomes, in order to predict and attempt to influence what is going
to happen to them. As a result, powerless people form fairly
detailed impressions of the powerful. On the other hand, powerful
people have no incentive to form accurate impressions of their
subordinates, since no important outcomes are at stake. To the
extent that powerful people think about their subordinates at all,
they tend to stereotype them rather than treat them as unique
individuals. Thus attention flows upward in a social hierarchy. The
secretaries know more about the bosses than the bosses know about the
secretaries.
In a clear demonstration of the
effect of power on its holders, Goodwin and Fiske gave college
participants the power to evaluate summer job applications by high
school students. The researchers varied the weight given to the
participants' evaluations in the final decision. The more power
these participants had, the less
attention they paid to the qualifications of the applicants. It
should be noted that this effect can be reversed by explicitly
reminding powerholders of their humanitarian values, but these
ethical prompts are unlikely to be present in everyday life.
Although
the Penn State decision makers were not concerned with the welfare of
possible victims, they were concerned with the reputation of the
university. Ultimately, however, they disregarded these concerns.
“[Mr. Spanier] concluded with: 'The only downside for us is if the message isn't
'
"heard" and acted upon, and then we become vulnerable for not having reported it. But that can be assessed down the road.'”
"heard" and acted upon, and then we become vulnerable for not having reported it. But that can be assessed down the road.'”
Anderson and Galinsky reported five studies showing that people primed to take a high-power perspective
had a more optimistic perception of dangers in the real world,
recommended more risky courses of action in hypothetical dilemmas,
and reported behaving in a more risky manner in actual negotiations.
Their final study shows that the effect of power on risk-taking is
mediated by optimistic risk perceptions. Regardless of what Mr.
Spanier meant by “down the road,” the actual course of events
suggests that they waited to engage in damage control until it was
much too late.
“(T)here is an overemphasis on 'The Penn State Way' as an approach to
decision-making, a resistance to outside perspectives, and an
extensive focus on athletics that can, if not recognized, negatively
impact the University's reputation as a progressive institution.”
Even before this scandal, the general
perception was that Joe Paterno was more powerful than his nominal
bosses, including the university president. The Freeh report
describes the athletic department as a closed community that followed
its own rules rather than those of the university. In a 2007 incident in which 15 football players participated in a downtown
brawl, Paterno told players not to cooperate with the campus judicial
board or they would be kicked off the team, and ultimately decided on
a ridiculously lenient punishment for them (picking up litter at the
stadium).
I don't know any university faculty
member who doesn't think that athletic departments, especially men's
football and basketball programs, have far too much influence on
college campuses. They use their power to bully not only their own
players, but faculty and administrators as well. They provide
entertainment for the students and the community, but their
activities are largely irrelevant to the educational goals of the
university. Because most athletic departments lose money, they are a drain on
resources that should be used for academic purposes. They often
involve the university in ethical violations, including grade-fixing
and covering up criminal conduct.
There has been discussion about an
appropriate “punishment” for the Penn State football program.
Supporters point out that suspending the team would punish the wrong
people, since current and future Penn State players and coaches are
not guilty of any wrongdoing. Rather than focusing on punishment, I
would suggest that Penn State enact structural reforms to bring the
athletic department under university control. This should include
removing coaches and athletic directors from direct participation in
university fund-raising.
The great god Joe-Pa hails a cab: This statue must come down. |
All rights reserved by Catriona Cornett |
A final note: Regular readers of this blog will recall than I am not convinced that Jerry Sandusky is guilty of all the crimes of which he was convicted, due to the suggestive questioning techniques used by the Pennsylvania state police. However, regardless of his degree of guilt or innocence, it is obvious that Penn State administrators should have reported the charges to authorities rather than covering them up.
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