One explanation of institutional aggression (otherwsie known as IA) are dispositional factors, this means that aggression is determined by a persons pre-existing disposition and personal characteristics that will impact on how aggressive they behave. The theory states that for example, if a large amount of people with aforementioned characteristics are in an institution then it is the norm and IA will occur.…
In my organization, there is a definite perception of abuse of power. There have been several instances where both coercive and reward power has been present. “Coercive power is dependent on fear.” (Robbins & Judge, 2009 p 452) Coercive and reward are both formal powers. At one point in time, employees within a particular department lived in constant fear for their job security. It was no secret that the company was eliminating positions and right sizing. Because the management team had the power to decide who stayed, it became apparent that they were using a coercive power to make their decisions. The assigned tasks and expectations were perceived by employees as unreasonable. It was also clear that they were using reward power as well. Reward power is the ability to, “give someone something of positive value or remove something of negative value.” (Robbins & Judge, 2009 p 452) The employees considered favorites were not held to the same standard and were given lesser expectations. While this did not directly affect communication within the group, it did affect morale, as well as, the level of trust given to upper management.…
Power is a great story line for many novels throughout the ages. Also power is a horrible life guide that many people live with throughout their lives. Within the novels One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and Wuthering Heights, it is easy to recognize different cases of power and how power hungry individuals work. Nurse Ratched, featured in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, is a power obsessed middle-aged nurse who is the head of a mental institute and thrives off of the power she creates over the residents at the facility. Another version of power would be one of creating fear and a longing for revenge. In the novel Wuthering Heights, a, once orphan boy named Heathcliff fell in love with a young lady, which betrayed her and left him. He then felt compelled to…
Throughout history, we have seen how power can change people. Hitler took millions of innocent lives because he wanted power. Tyrants destroyed their own family to gain power. The Mongols destroyed anyone or anything that came in their path from taking their power away. Siblings poisoned each other to become king if their father dies. What's common about our history is that when people have power, their morality had to be broken. That's how they have controlled people and have had enemies fear them. A person can't gain, and hold on to their power while adhering to values and a moral code.…
A leader with coercive power has control over punishments; people comply to avoid those punishments.…
Module Overview: Part 1 Why people do harm to others? • Exposing the authoritarian personality • Just following orders? • Learning from watching Module Overview: Part 2 What determines human behaviour?…
Nobody like him had ever been in the ward before. He came in singing and…
Violence, greed, and suffering are all great examples of power being abused negatively. When someone has power, they have the decision to either use that power in a positive or negative way. Sadly, some people decide to use their power in a negative way that affects others. Power can have a negative effect on others by using fear and manipulation.…
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Throughout the novel we see the pain and suffering that the slaves go through. Slavery not only affected the slaves, it affected the moral health of the slaveholders as well. We can clearly see how the power of slavery corrupted Thomas Auld, Sophia Auld, and Edward Covey in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.…
Ever since the beginning of the human race, individuals have felt a need to overpower others. They accomplish this through bullying and harassing other people. My question is what causes people to want power over other people? Is it human nature or are we conditioned this way? I think their behavior is based on how they were raised and their environment, not by the type of day they are having.…
Covert and overt abuse of power is where a superior of any form would discriminate against a person of lower class or of a lower rank. Covert abuse is abuse where the person is not fully aware they are being abused or when the abuser is not carrying out the abuse obviously, an example of covert abuse of power would be if a consultant doctor favours one trainee doctor or nurse over another for unfair reasons and gives one good jobs and another unimportant, boring jobs and tasks. Overt abuse is where the person is very clearly being abused and the person that is doing the abusing is making it very obvious that they are doing so. An example of overt abuse of power would be if a superior does not give a job to a person with a certain protected characteristic such as skin colour, race, religion etc... and gives the job to someone else with exactly the same qualifications solely due to those reasons. These types of abuse can cause many long term, short term, physical, emotional and social problems. For example if someone is overtly abused for a long period of time then they may lose a significant amount of self confidence which could also affect their professional life as confidence is important in carrying out a job effectively.…
William J. Fulbright, a democratic Senator from Arkansas, was Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1966 when The Arrogance of Power was published. In an excerpt from Fulbright’s book, he analyzes the misguided thinking behind America's global interventionism and its delusion of righteous all-powerfulness. These symptoms are a confusion of power and virtue. Fulbright defines the arrogance of power as, “a psychological need that nations seem to have in order to prove that they are bigger, better, or stronger than other nations” (2). William J. Fulbright uses persuasive appeals in his well structured book, The Arrogance of Power to help convey his views on U.S. war strategies.…
In Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment the main protagonist, Rodion Roskolnikov, is driven by a passionate admiration for “great men”; men who had power. This passionate admiration manifests itself into an illusion for Roskolnikov; an illusion that is created and perpetuated by constant reaffirmation of his intelligence by his loved ones and peers. In perusal of aligning himself to his hero, Napoleon Bonaparte, Roskolnikov spends his time patronizing the human race and glorifying his own existence. It is because of his struggle to be a hero and his embedded feelings of self-righteousness that he chooses to murder the pawn broker Alyona Ivanova. After the murder of Alyona (and by default her sister, Lizaveta) Roskolnikov is unable to cope with the guilt of the murders and is unable to cope with the burdens that he has created for his friends, family, and girlfriend.…
Many people see coercive power as a negative power. Coercive power is having power over a person and using fear, punishment or threat to make that person do things. Most jobs have guides that tell you what could happen if you will not do, your job is that consider a coercive power. Coercive power is about what a person do not want.…
Power is the control over one’s self or another person or thing. In the poem “Adam and Eve” by Tony Hoagland a man and woman strived mentally for power over each other. Instead of having the happy and loving relationship that couples are “thought” to have, at the first sign of disagreement these two instantly worked against each other to have a personal gain of their own. In this poem the speaker, Adam, and the woman, who is assumed to be Eve, struggle for power over one another to make themselves superior to one another. They use their reactions and emotions against each other to steal and regain power.…