Definition
Power is defined as an individual’s ability to influence or produce an effect from others, or to control another person’s resources and/or outcomes (Fast and Chen 2009). Power can be categorized in two general ways: formal power, often evident in groups or in the workplace (i.e., reward, coercive, and legitimate power; French and Raven 1959), and personal power (i.e., referent and expert power). Reward power involves the ability to reward other individuals for good performance with tangible benefits such as pay or promotion. Coercive power involves the ability to punish other individuals for poor performance or behavior with the absence or downgrade of pay, demotion, or layoff (French and Raven 1959). Indeed, power is sometimes operationalized as a combination of reward and coercive power (Keltner et al. 2003). However, a third type of formal power, legitimate power, is provided by formal titles – for example, employees who have...
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Halper, L.R., Rios, K. (2018). Power. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1806-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1806-1
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