Participation and Power Equalization.

The widely held belief that participation in decision making will result in power equalization between "haves" and "have-nots" is criticized. It is hypothesized, on the contrary, that when great differences exist in the expert power of group members. the participation process will provide the more powerful persons with greater opportunities for using their expert power, with the result that their effective influence on the less powerful will increase. An experiment was designed in which two variations of Other's expert power and two variations of Subject's extent of participation with Other (Other being a paper stooge) were manipulated. Measures included pre- and post-measures of Subject's preference for a certain solution of a complex problem. As a result, the Experimenter could determine whether or not Subject had changed from his initial point of view to one in line with the opposite opinion advanced by Other and was able to find out Subject's reactions to Other and to the influence process. Two hypotheses were put to test: Hypothesis One: a higher degree of expert power (availability of relevant information) of Other will result in more effective influence by Other on Subject than lower expert power. Hypothesis Two: the more expert power possessed by Other, and the greater the extent of Subject's participation with Other in the decision-making processes, the greater Other's effective influence on Subject. Both hypotheses were strongly supported by the experimental findings. The relevance of the tested theory and of other empirical data for "democratization processes" is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]