Not lonely at the top

Folk wisdom tells us it’s lonely at the top. This makes intuitive sense: To occupy the sole position atop a hierarchy, to have the sole authority for tough decisions nobody else wants to (or can) make, and to bear the sole responsibility for the consequences of those decisions is, almost by definition, to be alone. Power implies isolation.

Yet behavioral science research has demonstrated that power confers psychological resources on its holders that might help stave off the loneliness that can accompany isolation. In recent years, studies have found that power enhances power-holders’ beliefs that they control their own fates, buffers them from stress and creates the perception that others’ are consistently “in their corner.”

So is it lonely at the top or not? To find out, we tested the relationship between power and loneliness in a series of studies to be published in a forthcoming issue of Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. Our research suggests that it is not, in fact, lonely at the top – not because you’re not alone, but because being alone is not the same as feeling alone.

We began by presenting a sample of 309 people from around the world with questionnaires assessing their general feelings of power and general feelings of loneliness. The loneliness questionnaire asked them to indicate how often they felt, for example, “I lack companionship,” and the power questionnaire asked them how much they agreed or disagreed with statements such as “In my relationships with others, I think I have a great deal of power.” We then computed loneliness and power scores for each participant.

Our results revealed a sizable and statistically significant negative relationship between the two: The more powerful people perceived themselves to be in their everyday lives, the less frequently they reported feeling lonely.

We also conducted several experiments with US adults and college students. First, we induced them to momentarily experience feelings of high or low power (for example, by asking one group of participants to write about the ways they had power in their daily lives and asking another group to write about the ways they lacked power in their daily lives). Then we gave them questionnaires that asked how often they felt left out, isolated and lacking in companionship. People who reflected on having power reported feeling less lonely than did people who reflected on lacking power.

Another study involved participants drawn from Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk, an online marketplace for advertising and accepting all manner of jobs. We created a boss-subordinate relationship by asking one group of participants to choose seven tasks (e.g., a proofreading assignment, a logic game) for another participant in the marketplace to perform. Other participants, in the subordinate role, were given these assignments to complete. Again, those in the “boss” role consistently reported experiencing less loneliness than participants in the “subordinate” role.

In five other studies, we manipulated participants’ feelings of power with a decision task that those in power often face: allocating money and resources. We assigned some participants to divide up a small windfall of money ($1 to $12) with another participant any way they liked (with the option of giving the other participant everything or nothing) and assigned other participants as potential recipients of these allocations. Participants given power over making these financial decisions consistently reported experiencing less loneliness than participants given no financial decision-making power.

How to explain these results? We speculate that the psychological benefits of power can substitute for the human need to belong to social groups. In two of our studies, we included a separate questionnaire assessing how much participants experienced this need to belong. The results were clear: Power decreased loneliness by reducing the felt need for affiliation with others.

Being alone is not the same as feeling alone. You can have thousands of friends and feel lonely, or have only a single friend and feel connected. The separation from others – in stature, rank or responsibility – that power confers does not translate into loneliness. In fact, power has the opposite effect on its possessors, alleviating the need to belong and making them feel less alone.

Our research should give further enticement to power-seekers and further angst to those who resent those in power. Not only is it not so lonely at the top; it is far lonelier at the bottom.

Adam Waytz is an assistant professor of management and organizations at Northwestern University. Eileen Chou is an assistant professor of public policy at the University of Virginia. Joe Magee is an associate professor of management and organizations at New York University. Adam Galinsky is a professor of management at Columbia University.