H. 8 Power

Question 1

Coersive Power

Answer 1

the capacity to threaten and to punish those that do not cooperate

Question 2

Reverent Power

Answer 2

influence based on the identification with and the attraction to and respect of others (charisma: to attribute an extraordinary skill and worth to a leader).

Question 3

Statement of Milgram’s experiment

All the bases of power that were present with the authoritative person. (3)

Answer 3

• The researcher seemed like an expert and had a lot of coercive, legitimate, and informational power.
• People wanted the person with power (the researcher) to think well of them.
• They were convinced that the researcher had the right to determine their actions, and that the student had no rights in quitting.

Question 4

foot-in-the-door-technique

Answer 4

letting a big request precede a small request, so that when someone consents to the small request, they will also consent to the big one (Milgram)

Question 5

Brainwashing (power tactic)

Answer 5

making bigger and bigger request, that people will consent to every time, until they belong for example to a certain group. The attitude and values of people often didn’t chance, but they still obeyed.

Question 6

Pecking order

Answer 6

A stable and ordered pattern of individual variations in respect, status, and authority of members of the group. Often it are the non-verbal deeds that give people status (handshake, expressions); verbal as well: telling others what to do, interpreting someone’s statement, questioning the view of others and summarizing/concluding things.

Question 7

Social dominance orientation (SDO)

Answer 7

the inclination to accept the circumstances and to prefer those that carry with them social inequality, and who have as well a general preference for hierarchical social structures.
> Someone who scores high on this point, has the inclination to enlarge the differences between the group members, and wants to maintain the hierarchy. These are more often men than women.

Question 8

Expectation-status theory

Answer 8

explains how groups decide who want status and who don’t, the members look at each others ‘status characteristics’ (personal qualities of which they think that that are indicators of skill or status). Members who have a lot of those characteristics are implicitly chosen to undertake group actions and to have more input in the group, after which they get more influence.

Question 9

Specific Status Characteristics

Answer 9

Indicators of behavior, personal qualities that people consider when they compare their own relative skill, ability and social status with that of others.

Question 10

Diffuse Status Characteristics

Answer 10

the general qualities (age, race, wealth, and etnicity), when people compare themselves with others in skill etc.

Question 11

Status generalization

Answer 11

when someone has (gotten) a high status in a certain area, it gives him/her automatically more status in other unrelated contexts. (European Americans have more status and authority in groups than African Americans.)

Question 12

Solo status

Answer 12

When someone is the only group member that is a representative candidate for a certain social category in an otherwise homogeneous group (which has as a result that they cannot identify themselves well with the group, they are less loyal, and that their performances are unfairly judged).

Question 13

Iron law of oligarchy (Michels)

Answer 13

the principle of political and social control that predicts that in each group the power is in the hands of a few individuals (oligarchy), that undertake action in ways that protects their power and enlarges it.

Question 14

Participation equalization effect

Answer 14

When a group comes together online, the effects of status on the participation are less (everyone joins immediately, and have no advantages over others).

Question 15

Interpersonal complementarity hypothesis

Answer 15

every deed done by a member will cause a response of another member.

Question 16

Power of complementarity

Answer 16

: Sometimes a dominant person and a submissive person can manage a lot together.
→ The hierarchy seems good for the efficiency in groups: research with testosterone showed that when everybody wanted power, the communication and connections were less → better division of power.

Question 17

Approach-inhibition theory

Answer 17

conceptual analysis of power, that states that power (having, using and thinking about it) causes changes (psychological and personal) for the people that have power (activation of behavior) and those that do not have it (recessionary).
→ when the ruler uses harsh techniques, like punishments and sanctions that lead to negative emotions, the effects of power are more present than with softer techniques, like personal rewards.

Question 18

6 Positive effects of power

Answer 18

• Higher activity level, pro-active, the want to make the first step
• More positive emotions, feeling more often good about things, looking for more satisfaction and rewards
• Small evidence that the powerful people can handle stress well, because they are more positively challenged instead of threatened by difficult circumstances
• More intensely trying to reach goals, more motivation
• Makes executive functions like attention, planning and selection of goals is made more easy
• Protects people from the influence of others, people behave more like how they want to

Question 19

6 Negative effects of power

Answer 19

• Pro-active, but sometimes the actions are full of risks, unethical, or indecent (crossing lines)
• Being happy themselves, but cause sometimes negative emotions in subordinates.
• Subordinates often do not understand or judged wrongly without the ruler noticing (negative thoughts)
• Can lead to unrealistic and positive self-evaluation
• Influences others even in situations when this is not necessary (using power)
• Powerful feelings could lead to a mistreating others, especially when they are very self-centered → Bathsheba syndrome: inclination of the powerful members to demand unfair and inappropriate privileges and evidence, including sexual activities

Question 20

Revolutionar coalition

Answer 20

subgroup that is formed and that is against the authority of the group (they want change).

Question 21

Agentic state

Answer 21

the psychological state that is present when the subordinates in a hierarchy follow the higher authority, and cannot resist the orders of them (the have no own responsibility for actions, but they have a responsibility to the authority).
→ Stanford Prison Experiment: the participants were overwhelmed with the power they got in the situation
→ Lucifer effect: inclination of people to be corrupt in a negative group environment.

Question 22

Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)

Answer 22

blaming the personality (attribution) of persons in a situation, while not looking at the circumstances of the situation (underestimating the power of the group’s processes).