… When we learn of injustice, it’s only human to focus on how to eliminate or punish the person responsible. But my research into the social psychology of power suggests that — without exculpating corrupt individuals — we also need to take a hard look at the social systems in which they commit their abuses.
For 25 years, I and other social scientists have documented how feeling powerful can change how ordinary citizens behave — what might be called the banality of the abuses of power. CONT.
Dacher Keltner, Berkeley