The Anatomy of Interpersonal Power
Abstract
<p>SOCIAL POWER may be roughly denned as the potential that one person has for influencing a particular other in some particular respect. The authors of the present volume intend to convince us that we need such a concept to understand many of the phenomena of interpersonal behavior. They pursue this goal by the dual strategy of presenting a variety of empirical studies in which the concept of power is employed, and by making a serious attempt at conceptual analysis along field-theoretical lines. The result is a rather curious but on the whole useful and impressive collection.</p><p>This volume is an institutional venture in that each chapter was authored by a staff member of the Michigan Research Center for Group Dynamics. In actual content, the book comprises an orienting chapter (Cartwright's 1953 SPSSI address), portions of five doctoral dissertations, two other empirical reports, and three concluding theoretical chapters. Though none of this material has been published elsewhere, four of the dissertations were completed in 1953, the fifth in 1955. This chronology presumably explains why most of the distinctions drawn in the theoretical chapters are not reflected in the design and interpretation of the empirical studies.</p><p>Of the seven empirical studies reported,