School psychologists' perceptions of social power bases in teacher consultation

There have been different views expressed about which social power bases (F rench & Raven, 1959) are most relevant to school consultation. Martin (1978 ) posited that only expert power and referent power could maximize the effe ctiveness of the consultant-consultee relationship. More recently, Erchul a nd Raven (1997) proposed that, in light of Raven's (1992) expanded social p ower model, several other bases are also relevant. We studied school psycho logists' perceptions of social power within consultation and hypothesized t hat psychologists would see "soft" bases as more successful than "harsh" ba ses when attempting to influence teachers who are initially reluctant to co mply with requests. A modified version of the Interpersonal Power Inventory (Raven et al., 1998) was completed by 101 members of a state school psycho logy association. Results indicated that psychologists endorsed soft over h arsh bases, thereby supporting the central hypothesis; and the power bases that operate within the psychologist-teacher consulting relationship can be summarized by four factors that were labeled position power, impersonal sa nctions, personal power, and credibility.