Social Power

is the ability to influence another person’s outcome.

This influence could be harmful or beneficial to the person.

Needs

are requirements for surviving or thriving.

Survival (biological) needs include food, water, sleep, and shelter.

Thrival (psychological) needs include autonomy of actions, social bonds, and competent skills.

Harmful social power is based in blocking a person from meeting a need (Pratto, 2016).

Ideologies such as meritocracy help to determine who can have and use social power.

An ideology is a socially shared belief of how things should be (Foels & Pratto, 2016).

Ideologies can create or can maintain social power differences between groups.

Social power differences are maintained through tautological reasoning, where a person starts with an outcome and then assumes from that outcome what the cause is. In this type of circular reasoning a mistaken belief is reinforced by that belief, rather than evidence. If instead of looking at the outcome as if it was the cause of itself, we looked at the cause that led to the outcome, we would see that racism is the cause of different outcomes for different racial groups. The different outcomes are a product of the discrepancy in resources given to low power groups, which keeps them from fulfilling their needs including educational attainment and autonomy of choices.

If a person has their freedom of autonomy blocked to a severe enough extent, then they are socially paralyzed from moving about the world. Tautologically other people can blame that person for being lazy, rather than the actual cause: laws and norms that restrict certain groups from engaging in many behaviors.

If a person attends a poorly funded school then they are less likely to fully develop their cognitive skills. Tautologically other people can blame that person for being stupid, rather than focusing on the actual cause: a society that refuses to adequately fund education.

Foels, R., & Pratto, F. (2015). The hidden dynamics of discrimination: How ideologies organize power and influence intergroup relations. In M. Mikulincer, P. R. Shaver, J. F. Dovidio, & J. A. Simpson (Eds.), APA Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology: Volume 2. Group Processes (pp. 341-369). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Pratto, F. (2016). On power and empowerment. British Journal of Social Psychology, 55(1), 1-20.