Gender, interpersonal power, and social influence

Journal of Social Issues, Spring, 1999 by Linda L. Carli

How do women influence others? Are they disadvantaged as leaders? Are they less powerful than men are? These questions focus on a current and serious social issue, the relative inequities in social power between men and women. The issue of women's power, relative to men, is not merely academic. Gender differences in power have real consequences for women. For example, although women have made gains in the workplace, with more women working than in the past and women possessing approximately a third of all management positions (Colwill, 1993), women continue to experience wage discrimination, be excluded from the most powerful executive positions, advance more slowly in their careers, and experience fewer benefits from obtaining education or work experience (Federal Glass Ceiling Commission, 1995), and are included in fewer networks (Ragins & Sundstrom, 1989) and exert less authority (Colwill; Lyness & Thompson, 1997) than men in similar positions. A number of researchers have linked career advancement and access to benefits and resources within organizations to an effective use of power (Ely, 1995; Kanter, 1977; Kipnis & Schmidt, 1988; Ragins & Sundstrom, 1989). An understanding of women's power, relative to men, is therefore essential to overcoming women's disadvantage in the workplace and other domains.

Research examining gender effects in social influence has tended to focus on gender differences in influenceability, that is, differences between men and women in how much others influence them. In this article, I examine the way men and women exert influence by changing the opinions of others, and the way people perceive and respond to men and women as influence agents. Although the literature on gender differences in social influence is not extensive, it does reveal that men and women do differ in their ability to influence others and that these differences correspond to gender differences in power.

Many researchers have acknowledged that men have greater access to social or interpersonal power than women do (e.g., Depret & Fiske, 1993; Johnson, 1976; Kanter, 1977; Lips, 1991; Lorber, 1998). In general, interpersonal or social power (i.e., power over) has been defined as having the potential to influence or control others (French & Raven, 1959; Henley, 1977; Johnson, 1976) or having control over valued resources or outcomes (Depret & Fiske; Kanter). These definitions presume that power derives from the structural and external advantages of one group or individual over another. Men generally have more power than women do because men generally are more likely to possess those advantages than women are. For example, according to expectation states theorists, women are presumed to be less competent than men, and consequently, in group interactions, people give men more opportunities to speak than women, overtly agree more often with men's contributions than with women's, and ultimately defer more often to the opinions of men than those of women (Berger, Fisek, Norman, & Zelditch, 1977; Wagner & Berger, 1997). Eagly (1987) argues that women's lower power occurs as a result of the different social roles to which men and women are assigned, with men occupying the worker role more than women and women occupying traditional roles in the home more than men.

Gender and Interpersonal Power

French and Raven (1959) developed one typology of social power that has particular utility for understanding gender differences in social influence. Their model specifically delineated different sources of social power as bases by which people exert social influence. According to this model, the extent to which a person, P, may be influenced by another individual or group, O, depends on the relationship between the two individuals and, in particular, the way P perceives O. The model presents five sources of power: reward, coercive, expert, legitimate, and referent. An individual possesses reward power when others believe that he or she can provide them with desired rewards and coercive power when they believe that he or she can punish them. Bosses, therefore, would have both reward and coercive power over their subordinates because of their perceived ability to provide rewards, such as giving workers raises and promotions, and to provide punishments, such as firing or demoting workers. Individuals perceived to have expertise or knowledge, in a specific domain or more generally, possess expert power. Physicians typically have expert power relative to their patients and lawyers relative to their clients, at least with regard to their knowledge of medicine and law, respectively. An individual possesses legitimate power to the extent that others believe that he or she has the right to exert influence over others. This may occur because the individual holds a particular social role that commands respect or authority or because others feel a certain obligation to defer to that individual. Parents typically have legitimate power with respect to their children, as do priests or ministers with respect to members of their congregations. Finally, referent power refers to an individual's or group's likeableness or social attractiveness to others. Friends have referent power in relation to each other and a social group may have referent power with respect to an adolescent who would like membership in the group.