ABSTRACT
The Albany Symposia on Power and Influence are an attempt to facilitate the development of theories of power and influence. Of all the social scientists, social psychologists are probably most prone to fractionate their interests into small subareas of research and to develop miniature theories to handle the data in their domains of research. The social influence process minimally involves a source, a message or influence mode, and a target. There has been an almost exclusive focus in social psychology upon the target of influence. Questions important to social psychologists that arise in the study of political power include the sources of institutional authority, the basis of legitimacy of those who hold office in the political system, and the processes which tend to undermine authority and to produce revolution or insurrection. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
