Effects of legitimate and coercive power on supervisor's influence of counselors' acceptance of negative feedback

A counseling supervisor's reputation and verbal behavior were manipulated to form different conditions of legitimate and coercive power in order to determine the effects of these types of power on social influence. Ninety graduate students in counseling served as subjects, and were assigned randomly to one of six conditions: (a) high legitimacy-high coercion, Condition I; (b) high legitimacy-low coercion. Condition II; (c) low legitimacy-high coercion. Condition III; (d) low legitimacy-low coercion. Condition IV; (e) no endorsement-high coercion. Condition V; and (f) no endorsement-low coercion. Condition VI. Subjects in each condition viewed a 20- minute videotaped supervision session, followed by an evaluative summary by the supervisor of the trainee's skills. After viewing the tape, subjects rated their perceptions of the trainee on the Counselor Rating Form-Short Version (CRF-S; Corrigan, 1981). It was hypothesized that subjects' ratings would be influenced more by: (a) a supervisor with high legitimate power than by a supervisor with low legitimate power; (b) a supervisor displaying low levels of coercive power than by a supervisor displaying high levels of coercive power; and (c) a coercive supervisor with high legitimacy than by one with low legitimacy. None of the hypothesized effects was supported by the data. Implications for social power theory are discussed, particularly with regard to legitimate power, and suggestions for future research are offered.