A Paradigm for the Study of Coercive Power

Abstract

Over the past decade several appeals have been made to social psychologists to focus more of their research time and skills on the study of social power (Cartwright, 1959; Clark, 1965). It is now quite clear that in-creasing attention is being given to the study of strategic interactions, in which individuals perceive themselves as competing for scarce resources or seeking mutually incompatible goals. Within the context of social conflict, individuals are likely to attempt to use power to resolve the issues. Bachrach and Baratz (1963) suggest that there are three relational characteristics associated with social power: (1) There must be a conflict of interest be-tween two or more persons or groups; (2) Power exists only if the target actually bows to the source’s wishes; and (3) Power exists only if the source can threaten to use sanc-tions. Therefore, power is defined as the pro-cess of affecting the policies of others by the threat of deprivations for nonconformity to the policies requested. The insistence that power should be equated only with successful coercion has led Bach-’Research reported in the present paper was i