The Higher They Are, the Harder They Fall

Fragale disagreed: Stereotypes are stereotypes, she said -- even when they harm the powerful.

"These stereotypes are no different than stereotypes about race, gender and ethnicity," she said. "They describe tendencies of groups, but they are over-applied to individuals. You can't classify these stereotypes as being more functional than others that are much more damaging."

None of this means that prosecutors should turn down the heat on Blagojevich. If anything, it suggests that society ought to be more vigilant about lawbreaking by lower-level officials.

"I am always interested in how the media portrays this, because the media are people, too, subject to the same psychological processes," Fragale said. "They think some news events are more credible than others and some explanations [of wrongdoing] are more credible."

One interesting question that springs from the experiments is whether public officials can do something to mitigate the bias against high-status people. In a series of experiments yet to be published, Fragale and her colleague, organizational behavior professor Ben Rosen, asked volunteers to evaluate the culpability of former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, who resigned this year over a sex scandal. The psychologists had volunteers read excerpts from Spitzer's public apology, published in the format of a news report. One group also saw a photo of Spitzer's wife standing by him, as she did in real life. For another group, the psychologists digitally altered the photo to replace Spitzer's wife with Oprah Winfrey.

"We wondered if there is a halo effect that comes from your friends," Rosen said. "If you have powerful friends who stand up for you, does that help you?"

Sure enough, the study participants warmed to Spitzer when he was shown with Winfrey by his side. Effectively, the psychologists said, the endorsement of a highly regarded woman such as Winfrey, widely perceived to look out for the interests of others, allowed the participants to break the link they had unconsciously formed between Spitzer's status and selfishness. Winfrey's digitally reconstructed presence convinced many that the governor was a human being who had made a mistake -- and deserved forgiveness.

The road ahead for Blagojevich seems clear: Winfrey lives in Chicago, too.