ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to develop a theory of expectations about interpersonal power. It reviews the existing literature on interpersonal power. The chapter outlines a theory of expectations about power and derives from it implications about stability, emergence, amount, and visibility of power. It considers some of the factors that increase or decrease the magnitude of the effects that expectations have on power. The chapter reviews selectively just three kinds of theories of power: power-dependence theories, deterministic utility theories, and subjective expected utility theories. If the law of shared awareness holds, only incongruence between an actor's second-order expectations and actual preferences, resources, and likely reactions gives rise to change in expectations. Expectations in fact appear often in the literature on power as "reputational" effects of power. Power in an exchange relation depends on resources and their control.
