Two Categories of Power
Stanford Prison Experiments
Position Power
Power is the Potential to Influence
- Position power results from authority
- Designation of resources, decision making, control and hierarchies
- For example, police officers, supervisors and managers, government leaders and even leaders
- Punishments initially started with minimal severity such as making the prisoners/students do pushups for minor infringements
- However this built over the days with the punishments getting more severe and the guards getting more into character
- Special cells were set up for prisoners that followed the rules while solitary confinement was set aside for those that didn't
- A group of 24 students were paid to take part in a prison experiment
- All of them undertook personality profiles and returned normal results. half were made prisoners the other half guards.
- The environment was altered in order to create a real prison environment
- The guards received no training but were made to maintain order in a way that they saw fit
- Towards the end of the experiment the guards were getting so into their roles that the punishments started to become sadistic.
- Some volunteer prisoners had to pull out of the experiment due to mental issues
- Due to the abuse of power that the guards who were actually students were demonstrating, along with the mental effect that it was having on the student prisoners. The experiment was canceled 7 days into its two week duration
“Power involves authority and responsibility relating to people and products” (Parse, 2004)
“Power is a set of resources that social actors employ selectively to reach goals in social activities.” (Chiang, 2009)
"An individual's relative capacity to modify other's states by providing or witholding resources or administering punishments." (Keltner, Gruenfeld and Anderson, 2003)
Influence
Personal Attractiveness
The power that is associated with the characteristics and behaviour of a person.
Influence is the use of power. It is the mechanism through which people use power to change behaviours or attitudes (Harvard Business Essentials, p. xiv)
Outline
Influence Strategies: Three Rs
‘As you move up in any company or organization, as you get more formal power, paradoxically influence is even more important.’ (Cohn, 2010)
Expertise Power
Effort
1. Retribution
• Intimidation (pressure)
2. Reciprocity
• Bargaining/exchange (obligating)
3. Reason
• Using persuasive arguments
Personal Power
Power due to the fact that a person has task relevant knowledge or expertise in a particular area.
People that apply a higher than expected amount of commitment and time into given tasks will have a greater success and higher levels of conferred power
Theories of Persuasion
- Social Judgement Theory
- Theory of Reasoned Action
- Theory of Planned Behaviour
- Elaboration Likelihood Model
Legitimacy
The type of power that is consistent with organisational norms
Theory
of Reasoned Action
Social Judgement Theory
Theory
of Planned Behaviour
In addition to attitudes and social norms, perceived behavioural control also impacts behaviour intentions
- Attempts to explain how likely a person might be to change their opinion, the probable direction of that change, their tolerance toward the opinion of others, and their level of commitment to their position
- Regions of the Attitude Continuum
- Latitude of acceptance
- Latitude of non-commitment
- Latitude of rejection
- A general account of the determinants of volitional (freely-chosen) behaviour
- There are three conditions under which a person’s intentions to perform a given behaviour may change:
- If the attitudinal component changes
- If the normative component changes
- If the relative weighting of the 2 factors above change
Power
Categories of Power
Bases of Power
Stanford Prison Experiments
Miligram Experiments
Influence
The Three Rs
Persuasion
Theories of Persuasion
Conclusion
Bases of Power
Elaboration Likelihood
Model
- Elaboration: Engagement in issue-relevant thinking
- Central and peripheral routes to persuasion
Legitimate Power
Coercive Power
Reward Power
Persuasion
Based on the idea that people will work harder or put in more effort if there is a reward
- Power that depends on fear and suppression of free will
- Open to abuse
- Power associated with formal authority
- Using this formal authority to control other individuals behaviours in an organisation
Expert Power
Referent Power
- Attributed to specialised knowledge, skill and expertise.
- Well known example is the Miligram experiments
In its most basic form, persuasion involves changing a person’s mental state, usually as a precursor to behavioural change (OKeefe, 2004)
Persuasion is the act of motivating an audience through communication to voluntarily change a particular belief, attitude or behaviour (Adler & Elmhorst, 2005)
- Based on admiration, respect, esteem and loyalty
- Prestige and value
- Mirror attitudes, values and beliefs
- Informal and not based on formal positions and titles
- Conducted in the 1960's
- 1000 volunteers used to demonstrate the relationship between being told to inflict pain on others by an expert
- 62.5% of subjects administered the lethal amount based on what the white coated experimenter said
- This is a form of expert power as subjects trusted in the experimenter's knowledge in the experiment
Questions
1. What kind of power base would it be if Viv used her position as a tutor to demand you went to all tutorials and lectures or she would deduct marks?
2. What are some repercussions of Retribution Strategy?
3. If people are highly ego-centric, what latitude are they most likely to adopt?
Informational Power
What Makes a Message Persuasive?
Message Characteristics
Source Factors
- Charisma
- Authority
- Credibility
- Social Attractiveness
- Message structure
- Sequential request strategies:
- Foot in the door
- Door in the face
- Message content
- Language
- Involves control over information
- Gaining, sharing, withholding, manipulating and misrepresenting information
Contextual Factors
- Primacy/Recency
- Medium
- Persistence
Conclusion
Reference List
- Steven C. P, (1977), Milgram's Shocking Experiments, Philosophy, 52(202), pp. 425-440
- Parse, R.R, (2004), Power in Position, Nursing Science Quarterly, 17(2), Pp. 101
- Chiang, S.Y, (2009), Personal power and positional power in a power-full `I', Discourse & Communication, 3(255), Pp. 255-271
- Lines, R. (2007). Using Power to Install Strategy: The Relationships between Expert Power, Position Power, Influence Tactics and Implementation Success. Journal Of Change Management, 7(2), 143-170
- Eyuboglu, N., & Atac, O. A. (1991). Informational power: A means for increased control in channels of distribution. Psychology & Marketing, 8(3), Pp.197.
- French, J.R.P, Jr., & Raven, B.H. (1959). The bases of Social Power. In D. Cartwright (Ed.) Studies in Social Power. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Pp 371-381
- Zimbardo, P. (1999). Stanford Prison Experiment (needs to be italicicsed). Retrieved from http://www.prisonexp.org/
- H. Cenk Sozen. (2012). Social networks and power in organizations: A research on the roles and positions of the junior level secretaries in an organizational network. Personnel Review, Vol. 41 Iss: 4, pp.487 – 512. Retrieved from http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/doi/full/10.1108/00483481211229393
Views of Power
Power viewed as a trait
- Once an individual is powerful he will always be powerful. e.g. royal families.
Relational Power
Conferred Power
Power and Persuasion
Power is not absolute but can be socially conferred.
The power that is held by one person in control of a resource or service that is valued by the other person.