COMPONENTS OF POWER

The extensive literature on social power has offered a wide array of conceptual frameworks for studying and analyzing power. (See Foucault, 1980; Clegg, 1989; Pfeffer, 1981; and Blalock, 1989 for examples.) Here, I employ a rather simple schema to organize a presentation of some of the many factors that research has shown affect people’s orientations and actions with regard to power.

“Human behavior has often been explained in terms of unilateral causation, in which behavior is depicted as either being shaped and controlled by envi­ronmental influences or driven by internal dispositions. Social cognitive theory explains psychosocial functioning in terms of triadic reciprocal causation. In this model of reciprocal causality, internal personal factors in the form of cognitive, affective, and biological events; behavioral patterns; and environmental events all operate as interactive determinants that influence one another bidirectionally” (Bandura, 1999, p. 23).

This triadic model is consistent with a dynamic view of power and conflict but allows for the categorization of factors into the three separate but interrelated categories. Below, I summarize some of the key personal and environmental factors that can interact to determine people’s behavioral patterns regarding power in social relations.

Personal Factors

Power Orientations. In his seminal work on power and motivation, McClelland (1975) presented a developmental framework for categorizing people’s experi­ences and expressions of power. He argued that people everywhere seek power through support, autonomy, assertion, and togetherness.

• Support. Obtaining assistance and support from others, often through a dependence relationship. Such relationships can serve to meet the needs of the low-power person, but they can take many forms, from benign and supportive (as in many mentor-mentee relationships) to oppressive and abusive (as with a dictatorial parent). The negative physical and psycho­logical impact of prolonged experiences of dependence and powerless­ness by adults has been shown to be dire (Sashkin, 1984) and can lead to a tendency to become more rigid, critical, controlling of others in lower power, and, ultimately, more irrational and violent (Kanter, 1977).

• Autonomy. Establishing one’s autonomy and independence from others. Scholars have referred to this approach as having “power to” or “power from,” in the sense that one has enough power to achieve one’s objec­tives without being unduly constrained by someone or something else. If individuals feel empowered in a particular situation, it reduces their need for dependence on others and opens up the possibility of acting independently, thereby bolstering their sense of self-esteem, self­efficacy, and confidence.

• Assertion. Assertively acting on, influencing, and dominating others. This approach to power has been termed “power over” and is consistent with the popular definition of power as “an ability to get another person to do something that he or she would not otherwise have done” (Dahl, 1968, p. 158). This orientation to power is commonplace and was evident in the earlier example of the CEO and his response to the employees’ initiative.

• Togetherness. Becoming part of an organization or a group. Mary Parker Follett suggested that even though power is usually conceived of as power over others, it would also be possible to develop the conception of “power with” others. She envisioned this type as jointly developed, coactive, and noncoercive (Follett, [1924] 1973). Bandura (1999) labeled this approach as one of collective agency.

McClelland proposed that as people mature, they progress sequentially through each of these stages of development and orientations to power, ideally moving toward the stage of togetherness. This is commensurate with the devel­opmental progression of humans from more egocentric to more sociocentric beings (Piaget, 1937). McClelland also stressed, however, that each of the four power orientations may be useful in any given situation, and that problems typ­ically arise for people when they become fixated on any one orientation (such as assertion), or when an individual’s chronic orientation fits poorly with the par­ticular realities or demands of a situation. From this perspective, an individual’s flexibility and responsiveness to changes in his or her environment can be seen as critical to the ability to respond effectively to situations involving power.

For example, returning to the CEO in the previous example, it is possible that he may have been operating from a chronically assertive orientation to power (power over) and therefore interpreted the employees’ offer as a competitive tac­tic (“they’re trying to humiliate me or ingratiate themselves”), was motivated to win at all costs, and saw this as morally legitimate because of a belief that low- level employees must make sacrifices for the greater good of the organization. Ulti­mately, one’s power orientation affects one’s behavior through an assessment of the feasibility of a given action (do I have the capacity to act in such a manner and what will the consequences be?), unless the orientation is excessively chronic.

Authoritarianism. A classic area of research that has been found to influence people’s orientations to power is authoritarianism (Adorno, Frenkl-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford, 1950), which involves an exaggerated need to submit to and identify with strong authority. Originating from psychodynamic theory, this syndrome is thought to stem from early rearing by parents who use harsh and rigid forms of discipline, demand unquestioning obedience, are overly con­scious of distinctions of status, and are contemptuous or exploitative toward those of lower status.

Need for Power. The need for power (“nPower”, McClelland, 1975; McClelland and Burnham, 1976) has been described as an individual difference in which people high on nPower experience great satisfaction in influencing people and arousing strong emotions in them. Individuals high on nPower tend to seek out positions of authority and display a more dominating style in conflict (Bhowon, 2003). This orientation, however, is thought to interact with another personality difference, known as activity inhibition (see also Chapter Fourteen). This is, essentially, the individual’s level of self-control and general orientation to others. These two traits combine to produce two separate types of power orientation: the “personalized power orientation” and the “socialized power orientation.” Individuals high on nPower and low on activity inhibition exhibit a more per­sonalized power orientation, exemplified by a tendency to dominate others in an attempt to satisfy one’s hedonistic desires. Individuals with high nPower and high activity inhibition tend to exhibit socialized power orientation, using power for the good of a cause, an organization, or an institution. McClelland (1975) postulated that individual power orientations develop through various stages, with the personalized orientation emerging at an earlier stage of development and the socialized orientation at a later stage. This is consistent with Kohlberg’s work on moral development (1963, 1969), which has found that individuals in the latter stages of moral development place much higher value on justice, dig­nity, and equality.

Ideological Frames. Burrell and Morgan (1979) identified differences in peo­ple’s ideological frames of reference as determining of their approach to power. These frames are comprehensive belief systems about the nature of relations between individuals and society. They classified three types of ideological frames: the unitary, the radical, and the pluralist. From the unitary view, soci­ety is seen as an integrated whole where the interests of the individual and society are one and where power can be largely ignored and assumed to be used benevolently by those in authority to further the mutual goals of all parties. This perspective is common in collectivist families and cultures and in some benev­olent business organizations. In contrast, the radical frame pictures society as comprising antagonistic class interests that are “characterized by deep-rooted social and political cleavages, and held together as much by coercion as by con­sent” (Morgan, 1986, p. 186). This perspective, epitomized by Marxist doctrine, focuses on unequal distribution of power in society and the significant role that this plays in virtually every aspect of our lives. Finally, the pluralist frame views society as a space where different groups “bargain and compete for a share in the balance of power... to realize a negotiated order that creates unity out of diversity” (Morgan, 1986, p. 185). Power is seen as distributed more or less equally among the groups, and as the primary medium through which conflicts are resolved. This pluralist view of power is prevalent in the many forms of liberal democracies.

Each distinct ideological frame engenders its own set of expectations about what one can anticipate, what one should attend to, and therefore how one should respond to situations of power and conflict.

Implicit Power Theories. Research on implicit power theories (Coleman, 2004) has shed light on a central problem within the power-and-conflict dynamic, namely: the unwillingness of the powerful to share their power (wealth, infor­mation, access, authority, and so on) with those in need. Implicit theories are cognitive structures, naive, unarticulated theories about the social world, which influence the way people construe events. Research has identified two theories of power that people can hold: a limited-power theory that portrays power as a scarce resource that triggers a competitive orientation to power sharing, and an expandable-power theory that views power as an expandable resource and fos­ters a more cooperative power-sharing orientation. The two competing views of power have been shown to affect people’s decisions and actions on whether to share or withhold resources, as well as the degree to which they involve others in decision-making processes (Coleman, 2004).

Subsequent research on implicit power theories has demonstrated that the social environment can play a critical role in influencing their use by making dif­ferent theories more or less cognitively salient. For example, in a study conducted in China, participants portraying managers in an organizational simulation were found to share more power (information and assistance) with subordinates when they were led to believe that their organization had a history of approaching organizational power as an expandable resource than when it was portrayed as traditionally viewing and approaching power as a scarce resource (Tjosvold, Coleman, and Sun, 2003). This research emphasizes the critical role the context plays in triggering and fostering differences in implicit theories. Thus, social and organizational structures, norms and climate around empowerment, as well as more informal influences such as myths and legends regarding preferred ways of interacting, may be formative and go a long way in providing a context of meaning through which to interpret the value of power sharing.

Social Dominance Orientation. A more recent model relevant to power and conflict comes from social dominance theory (Sidanius and Pratto, 1999), which contends that societies worldwide organize according to group-based hierarchies, with dominant social groups possessing a disproportionate share of positive social value (wealth, health, status, and so on). These hierarchies are main­tained by several key factors, including the social dominance orientation (SDO) of members of the groups. SDO is defined as a very general orientation express­ing antiegalitarianism; a view of human existence as zero-sum with relentless competition between groups; the desire for generalized, hierarchical relation­ships between groups; and a desire for in-group dominance over out-groups. The research on SDO has identified consistent gender differences in women’s and men’s levels of SDO (Sidanius, Pratto, and Bobo, 1994), with men having significantly higher levels of SDO than women. We could expect this type of general orientation to group relations to contribute to a chronically competitive orientation (assertion) to power differences.

Other individual differences—as wide-ranging as interpersonal orientation (high or low sensitivity to others), Machiavellianism, interpersonal trust, and gender—are relevant to discussing people’s orientation to power, but space does not allow for further elaboration. (See Lewicki, Litterer, Minton, and Saunders, 1994, for discussion of these variables). Each of the distinct personal factors described here can work in concert to contribute to a chronic orientation and fixation on any one of the power orientations (such as powerlessness). These orientations affect how people perceive conflict, how they evaluate authority relations, and ultimately the decisions and responses they make to power dif­ferences in conflict situations. However, except for extreme cases, the influences of these individual difference factors need to be understood as operating in inter­action with the individual’s environment.

Environmental Factors

Again, the environmental factors affecting personal differences and behavioral patterns regarding power are innumerable. (See Deutsch, 2004 and Blalock, 1989 for summaries.) Following are a few major factors.

Deep Structure. A few scholars propose that the deep structure of most con­flicts is dictated by preexisting power relations (Chomsky, 2002). This structure, established through past relations between the parties, their differential access to resources, and existing norms and roles, has been historically constructed. This history is composed of the decisions and actions, victories and defeats, jus­tices and injustices experienced by those who came before us: members of our families, our gender, our communities, our race, our nation, and so on. These cumulative experiences have in many ways defined the rules of the power game. This perspective emphasizes the influences exerted on power by factors such as class and race relations, intergroup conflicts of interest and social competi­tion, inequity between social groups on highly valued dimensions, opportunity structures and the educational systems that perpetuate them, the relative sta­bility of status and power differences, and the perceived legitimacy of all of these factors. Understanding the historical context encourages us to look beyond the current surface manifestations of secondary power and into the processes of primary power. From this perspective, people are seen as agents or carriers of power relations embedded in the wider structure of history and society. They can learn to understand the rules but are rarely able to change them significantly.

Culture. The culture in which we are immersed is another important influence on our experience of power. Hofstede (1980) identified power distance as a dimension of social relations that is determined by and varies across cultures. He defined it as the extent to which the less powerful persons in a society accept inequality in power and consider it as normal. Hofstede argued that inequality exists within every culture, but the degree to which it is tolerated by society varies from one culture to another. So, for example, in some high-power-distance cultures (such as in parts of India) the notion of empowering employees through participation in decisions and delegation of authority is considered inappropri­ate and insubordinate by the employees themselves. This cultural difference regarding power not only is the source of much cross-cultural misunderstand­ing and conflict, but it also significantly affects how individuals from different cultures respond to conflicts with others in high and low power.

Legitimizing Myths. The extent to which power disparities between people and between groups are accepted in any society is embedded and constructed within a contradictory set of “legitimizing myths” about hierarchy and group superior­ity present in every society (Sidanius and Pratto, 1999). These myths, or sys­tems of beliefs, tend to either support and enhance hierarchical relationships and dominant group superiority (examples include sexism, racism, classism, meritocracy, and conservatism) or challenge and attenuate these social arrange­ments (for example, feminism, multiculturalism, pluralism, egalitarianism, and liberalism). These divergent sets of myths exist in a state of oppositional tension in many social systems (for example, conservatism versus liberalism), which can provide important checks and balances against the fanaticism of either side. In some settings, these myths become infused into the “fairness-making” and “conflict-resolving” structures, thereby institutionalizing group dominance, bias, and conflict (Rapoport, 1974).

Roles. Another powerful aspect of the structure of many social situations is the roles people assume. Role theory views power relations as if they were scripted theater. The theory holds that the roles we have in society or in our organiza­tions (manager, laborer) often dictate the social rules or norms for our behavior. These roles establish shared expectations among members of a system, which in most cases came into existence long before the individuals who now inhabit them. It argues that we largely act out these preexisting scripts in our institu­tions and organizations, and that it is these roles, these shared norms and scripts, that dictate our experiences, our expectations, and our responses to power. So, for example, role theory argues that the CEO from our initial exam­ple was acting more or less consistently with what would be expected from someone in his position. Furthermore, if any one of his employees had been in the same position, they would have made essentially the same decision; for it is within the underlying structure of the organization and its place in society that power relations between groups are largely predetermined and thereby con­strained and perpetuated.

One of the most blatant examples of the power of roles to determine behav­ior is the classic experiment conducted at Stanford University on the effects of deindividuated roles on behavior in institutional settings (Haney, Banks, and Zimbardo, 1973). Student subjects were recruited for this study and randomly assigned to play the role of either a guard or a prisoner in a simulated prison environment for two weeks. From the very beginning, the “guards” abused and denigrated the “prisoners,” showing increasingly brutal, sadistic, and dehu­manizing behavior over time. The research observations were so disturbing that the study was called off after only six days.

Hierarchy. A related component of structure is hierarchy. Barnard (1946) argued that distinctions of status and authority are ultimately necessary for effective functioning and survival of any group above a certain size. As a result, most groups form some type of formal or informal hierarchical structure to func­tion efficiently. Often, the greater advantages associated with higher positions lead to competition for these scarce positions and an attempt by those in authority to maintain their status. This is consistent with the findings of social dominance theory discussed previously (Sidanius and Pratto, 1999).

However, a hierarchical structure does not necessarily lead to competitive or destructive power relations within a group. In a series of studies on power and goal interdependence, Tjosvold (1997) found that variation in goal interdepen­dence (task, reward, and outcome goals) affected the likelihood of constructive use of power between high-power and low-power persons. Cooperative goals, when compared to competitive and independent goals, were found to induce “higher expectations of assistance, more assistance, greater support, more per­suasion and less coercion and more trusting and friendly attitudes” between superiors and subordinates (Tjosvold, 1997, p. 297). The abundant research on cooperative and competitive goal interdependence (see Chapters One and Three in this book) has consistently demonstrated the contrasting effects of these goal structures on people’s attitudes and behaviors in social relations. Among other things, competition fosters “attempts to enhance the power differences between oneself and the other,” in contrast with cooperation, which fosters “an orientation toward enhancing mutual power rather than power differences” (Deutsch, 1973). In cooperative situations, people want others to perform effectively and to use their joint resources to promote common objectives.

Inequitable Opportunity Structures. At the structural level we also see the establishment of opportunity structures that often grant the powerful unequal or exclusive access to positions of leadership, jobs, decent housing, education, health care, nutrition, and the like. Galtung (1969) labeled the effects of this “structural violence” because of its insidious and deleterious effects on mar­ginalized communities. These inequities contribute to a setting where difficult material circumstances and political conflict lead to social disorganization, which makes it harder for some people to get their basic physical and psycho­logical needs met. This results in a pervasive sense of powerlessness for many members of low-power groups. The privileged circumstances of the powerful, on the contrary, insulates them and contributes to their lack of attention and response to the concerns of those in low power until a crisis, such as an orga­nized or violent act of protest, demands their attention (Deutsch, 1985). Typi­cally, the powerful respond to such acts of protest with “pro-social” violence to quell the disturbance and maintain the status quo.

The environmental factors of deep structure, culture, myths, roles, hierarchy, and inequitable opportunity structures again interact with various individual-level factors to both encourage and constrain responses to power inequality and con­flict. In the next section, I outline some of the resulting principles derived from this and other theory and research on the dynamics of power and conflict.

Principles of Power-Conflict Dynamics

The following set of principles is grounded in the assumption that power dif­ferences affect conflict processes, which in turn can affect power differences. In addition, the various personal, environmental, and behavioral factors involved are themselves mutually influential in determining the exact nature of the power-conflict dynamic in any setting.

Significant changes in the status quo of the balance of power between parties can affect experiences of relative deprivation and increase conflict aspirations. Relative deprivation theory is a central model of the origins of conflict, which specifies the conditions under which need deprivation produces conflict (Merton and Kitt, 1950; see Chapter Thirty-Seven in this book). Relative deprivation is said to occur when need achievement falls short of a reasonable standard deter­mined by what one has achieved in the past, what relevant comparison others are achieving, what law or custom entitles one to, or what one expects to achieve. Research has shown that people compare themselves with others who are salient or similar to themselves in group membership, attitudes, values, or social status (Major, 1994). However, when changes in the status quo lead to a reordering of relative group status (such as through changes brought on by elections or military coups), new comparisons will be made to the previously dominant (and incomparable) groups leading to an increase in awareness of deprivation relative to those groups (Gurr, 1970). Such changes are likely to increase demands for change by those experiencing deprivation, and thus to the open expression of conflict. This dynamic has been central to many social movements in the United States, such as the civil rights and women’s rights movements.

Obvious power asymmetries contain conflict escalation while power ambigu­ities foster escalation. Research suggests that situations where there exist sig­nificant imbalances of power between groups are more likely to discourage open expressions of conflict and conflict escalation than situations of relatively bal­anced power (Deutsch, 1973). For instance, in an historical analysis of wars between 1816 and 1989, Moul (2003) found that approximate parity in power capabilities (abilities to oppose individual states) encouraged wars between great power disputants. Sidanius and Pratto (1999) have argued that this can account for the utility and ubiquity of asymmetrical group status hierarchies worldwide. However, research in the interpersonal realm has shown that the relationship between power symmetry and destructive conflict is moderated by trust; when parties of equal power are trusting of each other they will choose more cooperative strategies to resolve their differences (Davidson, McElwee, and Hannan, 2004).

Sustainable resolutions to conflict require progression from unbalanced power relations between the parties to relatively balanced relations. Adam Curle (1971), a mediator working in Africa, proposed a particularly useful model for under­standing the longitudinal relationships between conflict, power, and sustainable outcomes (see Lederach, 1997 for more detail). He suggested that as conflicts moved from unpeaceful to peaceful relationships, their course could be charted on a matrix that compares two elements: the level of power between the dis­putants and the level of awareness of the conflict. Curle described this progres­sion toward peace as involving four stages. In the first stage, conflict is “hidden” to some of the parties because they are unaware of the imbalances of power and injustices that affect their lives. Here, any activities or events resulting in con- scientization (erasing ignorance and raising awareness of inequalities and inequities) move the conflict forward. This is where the experience of relative deprivation fits it. An increase in awareness of injustice leads to the second stage, confrontation, when demands for change from the weaker party bring the con­flict to the surface. Confrontations, of course, can take many forms from coop­erative to nonviolent to violent. Under some conditions, these confrontations result in the stage of negotiations, which are aimed at achieving a rebalancing of power in the relationship in order for those in low power to increase their capacities to address their basic needs. Successful negotiations can move the con­flict to the final stage of sustainable peace, if they lead to a restructuring of the relationship that addresses effectively the substantive and procedural concerns of those involved. Support for this model is anecdotal and could be considerably enhanced through case studies and longitudinal survey research.

Our orientations to power influence our preferred strategies in conflict. How we experience power affects how we perceive conflict and how we respond to it. Salacuse (2001) applied McClelland’s four power orientations to a discussion of four grand strategies for achieving goals in international conflict resolution. Like the four orientations, these strategies, which he labeled dependence, autonomy, assertion, and community, can be seen as different but complementary approaches to managing power differences in conflict, each being more or less effective in a given situation.

With a dependent strategy, low-power parties seek help and support from more powerful others either by becoming dependent on them or by making use of their dependence. For example, a daughter in a conflict with her parents over her curfew could seek support from an aunt or a family friend who is under­standing of her perspective and is willing and able to influence her parents’ thinking on the subject.

This is in contrast with an autonomous strategy, where parties seek to limit their dependence on the other by restricting their interactions or by removing themselves from the conflict or the relationship altogether. One method of reducing dependence in conflict is by developing a strong BATNA (best alter­native to a negotiated agreement; Fisher, Ury, and Patton, 1991). The daughter might explore other means of getting her social needs met, such as having sleep­overs at her home or organizing daytime parties during the weekend. Having these as options reduces her need to remain in conflict with her parents over the curfew.

An assertive strategy is the traditional power-over approach, very common among the powerful. This is the unilateral attempt to use the power resources at one’s disposal to impose a solution that one favors. This approach is con­trasted with the community strategy, whereby a party attempts to become a member of an organization or a community that includes the other. If the cur­few conflict escalates and persists, it might be useful for the family to join a par­ent-adolescent support group where family conflict of this sort is explored openly and normalized. Joining groups or organizations that involve the other party can put the conflict into a broader perspective and help emphasize the commonalities that both parties share. Once again, what is important is that individuals (and groups and nations) avoid becoming chronically committed to any one strategy, instead remaining skilled at each of them, particularly when trying to achieve enhanced environmental or personal power.

A chronic competitive (assertive) orientation to power is often costly. From a practical perspective, a chronic competitive approach to power has harmful consequences. Deutsch (1973) suggested that reliance on competitive and coer­cive strategies of influence by power holders produces alienation and resistance in those subjected to the power. This, in turn, limits the power holder’s ability to use other types of power based on trust (such as normative, expert, referent, and reward power) and increases the demand for scrutiny and control of sub­ordinates. A parent who demands obedience from an adolescent in a climate of mutual distrust fosters more distrust and must be prepared to keep the young­ster under surveillance. If the goal of the power holder is to achieve commit­ment from subordinates (rather than merely short-term compliance), excessive reliance on a power-over strategy eventually proves to be costly as well as largely ineffective. Research by Kipnis (1976) supported this contention by demonstrating that a leader’s dependence on coercive strategies of influence has considerable costs in undermining relationships with followers and in com­promising goal achievement.

Furthermore, it is evident that when power holders have a chronic competi­tive perspective on power, it reduces their chance to see sharing power with members of low-power groups as an opportunity to enhance their own personal or environmental power (Coleman, 2004). From this chronic competitive per­spective, power sharing is typically experienced as a threat to achieving one’s goals, and the opportunities afforded by power sharing are invisible. If the father views the conflict over curfew as a win-lose power struggle, he is unlikely to reflect on the advantages of involving his daughter in reaching a solution and thereby engendering in her an improved sense of responsibility, collaboration, and trust.

Cooperative interdependence in conflict leads to an orientation of gaining “power with” others. When conflicts occur in situations that have cooperative task, reward, or outcome interdependence structures, or between disputants sharing a cooperative psychological orientation, there is more cooperative power (Tjosvold, 1981, 1997). In other words, in these situations conflict is often framed as a mutual problem to be solved by both parties, which leads to an increased tendency to minimize power differences between the disputants and to mutually enhance each other’s power in order to work together effectively to achieve their shared goals. Thus, if the parents can recognize that their daugh­ter’s social needs and their own needs to have a close family life are positively linked, then they may be more likely to involve her in the problem-solving and decision-making processes, thereby enhancing her power and their ability to find mutually satisfying solutions to the conflict.

The overwhelming evidence seems to indicate that the powerful tend to like power, use it, justify having it, and attempt to keep it. The powerful tend to be more satisfied and less personally discontent than those not enjoying high power; they have a longer time perspective and more freedom to act and there­fore can plan further into the future. These higher levels of satisfaction lead to vested interests in the status quo and development of rationales for maintain­ing power, such as the power holders’ belief in their own superior competence and superior moral value (Deutsch, 1973). Kipnis (1976) argued that much of this may be the result of the corrupting nature of power itself. He proposed that having power and exercising it successfully over time lead to an acquired “taste for power,” inflated sense of self, devaluing of those of lesser power, and temp­tation to use power illegally to enhance one’s position.

Fiske (1993) has demonstrated that powerful people tend to pay less atten­tion to those in low power because they view them as not affecting their out­comes, they are often too busy to pay attention, and they are often motivated by their own high need to dominate others. Inattention to the powerless makes pow­erful people more vulnerable to use of stereotypes and implicit theories when interacting with the powerless. Mindell (1995) explained the state of unaware­ness that having privilege often fosters in this way: “Rank is a drug. The more you have, the less aware you are of how it affects others negatively” (p. 56).

Thus, in conflict situations high power holders and members of high-power groups (HPGs) often neglect to analyze—as well as underestimate—the power of low power holders and members of low-power groups (LPGs; Salacuse, 2001). Additionally, they usually attempt to dominate the relationship, to use pressure tactics, to offer few concessions, to have high aspirations, and to use con­tentious tactics. HPGs, therefore, make it difficult to arrive at negotiated agree­ments that are satisfactory to all parties.

When met with a substantial challenge to their power from LPGs, the com­mon responses of members of HPGs fall into the categories of repression or ambivalent tolerance (Duckitt, 1992). If the validity of the concerns of the LPG is not recognized, HPGs are likely to use force to quell the challenge of the LPG. But if the challenges are acknowledged as legitimate, HPGs may respond with tolerant attitudes and expressions of concern—though ultimately with resistance to implementing any real change in their power relations (Duckitt, 1992). This has been termed the attitude-implementation gap.

In light of their unreflective tendency to dominate, it becomes critical for members of HPGs to be aware of the likelihood that they will elicit resistance and alienation (from members of LPGs with whom they are in conflict) through using illegitimate techniques, inappropriate sanctions, or influence that is con­sidered excessive for the situation (Deutsch, 1973). The cost to the HPG is not only ill will but also the need to be continuously vigilant and mobilized to pre­vent retaliation by the LPG.

The tendencies for members of LPGs are opposite to those of members of HPGs, with one important exception. LPG members tend to be dependent on others, to have short time perspectives, to be unable to plan far ahead, and to be generally discontent. Often, LPG members attempt to rid themselves of the negative feel­ings associated with their experiences of powerlessness and dependence (such as rage and fear) by projecting blame onto even less powerful groups or onto rela­tively safe in-group targets. The latter can result in a breakdown of LPG in-group solidarity (Kanter, 1977) and impair their capacities for group mobilization in conflict. Intense negative feelings may also limit the LPG members’ capacities to respond constructively in conflict with HPGs and impel such destructive impulses as violent destruction of property (Deutsch, 1973).

Several tactics can enhance the power of LPGs. The first is for the group to amass more power for assertion—either by increasing their own resources, orga­nization, cohesion, and motivation for change or by decreasing the resources of (or increasing the costs for) the HPGs (see Chapter Three). The latter can be accomplished through acts of civil disobedience, militancy, or by what Alinsky (1971) described as “Jujitsu tactics”: using the imbalance of power in the rela­tionship against the more powerful. Another approach available to LPG mem­bers is to attempt to appeal to the better side of the members of the HPG by trying to induce them (through such tactics as ingratiation, guilt, and helpless­ness) to use their power more benevolently or by trying to raise the HPG’s awareness of any injustice that they may be party to. LPGs would also do well to develop a broad menu of tactics and skills in implementing the strategies of autonomy, dependence, and community.