Kurt Lewin address: influence, power, religion, and the mechanisms of social control

Journal of Social Issues, Spring, 1999

Aside from social coordination, we can all cite religious restrictions that are maladaptive, such as restrictions on accepting blood transfusions, or use of contraceptive devices to avoid venereal disease or excessive births. But how many lives were saved because of religious restrictions against the consumption of pork products and shellfish in the Middle East, at a time when there was no refrigeration? Or even in more modern times, by religions that proscribe the consumption of tobacco, alcohol, coffee, narcotics, and other substances later determined to be unhealthy and life-threatening (Paloutzian & Kirkpatrick, 1995)?

Campbell is then "convinced that in past human history, an adaptive social evolution of organizational principles, moral norms, and transcendent belief systems took place . . . [but] sociocultural evolutionary studies [do not give] attention to the mechanism that would make an adaptive evolutionary progress possible" (p. 1106). Religions, then, despite their failings, have contributed significantly to social control and the protection of society. It is my purpose here to examine some such mechanisms, and to further explore some of the effects of such mechanisms, positive and negative.

I should say at the outset that I must admit some inadequacies on my part in such an analysis. I can make no claim to being an expert on religions, nor at this point do I have the time and energy to develop such an expertise. And what I do know is restricted to only a segment of world religions, those that stem from the Judeo-Christian tradition. But I propose that an understanding of the social psychological mechanisms of social control, through an analysis of the bases of power, might help us to understand how religion and other agencies operate in the interests of positive social evolution, as well as how these same mechanisms might lead to harmful effects if they are utilized improperly or manipulatively.

A Power/Interaction Model of Interpersonal Influence

The expanded Power/Interaction Model of Interpersonal Influence draws on a number of sources, including various works by Cartwright (1959, 1965), Festinger (1953), Kelman (1958), Kipnis (1976), Lewin (1944/1951), and many others. From our original focus on supervisor/subordinate relationships, our application of the model has been extended to many others: doctor/patient, doctor/nurse, counselor/counselee, parent/child, political confrontations. Could the model also be applied to the analysis of religions as mechanisms of social control? First, a few words about the expanded model:

Originally, we proposed six bases of power, resources that an influencing agent can utilize in changing the beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors of a target: reward, coercion, legitimacy, expertise, reference, and information.(1) (See Table 1.) We further proposed that, as compared with the other bases of social power, the changed behavior resulting from Information would be maintained without continued social dependence on the influencing agent. For reward and coercion, maintenance of the change would be socially dependent: It would specifically depend on surveillance by the influencing agent. Change following legitimate, expert and referent power would initially be socially dependent on the influencing agent, but would not require surveillance. On the basis of research and experience, there have been many other developments and elaborations on the original theory. Let me mention just a few of these here.