page_title: French and Raven's bases of power
section_title: Coercive power
hierarchical_section_title: French and Raven's bases of power / Bases of power / Coercive power
caption_attribution_description: Cover of Blackbeard, Buccaneer: Blackbeard and his crew boards a ship
context_page_description: In a notable study of power conducted by social psychologists John R. P. French and Bertram Raven in 1959, power is divided into five separate and distinct forms. They identified those five bases of power as coercive, reward, legitimate, referent, and expert. This was followed by Raven's subsequent identification in 1965 of a sixth separate and distinct base of power: informational power.
  French and Raven defined social influence as a change in the belief, attitude, or behavior of a person that results from the action of another person, and they defined social power as the potential for such influence, that is, the ability of the agent to bring about such a change using available resources.
  Relating to social communication studies, power in social influence settings has introduced a large realm of research pertaining to persuasion tactics and leadership practices. Through social communication studies, it has been theorized that leadership and power are closely linked. It has been further presumed that different forms of power affect one's leadership and success. This idea is used often in organizational communication and throughout the workforce.
context_section_description: Coercive power uses the threat of force to gain compliance from another. Force may include physical, social, emotional, political, or economic means. Coercion is not always recognized by the target of influence. This type of power is based upon the idea of coercion. The main idea behind this concept is that someone is forced to do something that he/she does not desire to do. The main goal of coercion is compliance. Coercive power's influence is socially dependent on how the target relates to the change being desired by the influence agent.  Furthermore, a person would have to be consistently watched by the influencing agent in order for the change to remain in effect.
caption: Blackbeard the infamous pirate
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