11/12-11/18 Post 3: Reward-Punishment Power

The one concept from the assigned reading comes from chapter twelve that I found interesting and/or intriguing/useful. It is the reward-punishment power. The book defines this as, "Those who can effectively reward or punish other members of the group hold another type of power, that is, to the extent that we can effectively praise or humiliate fellow group members," (215). It's interesting because it can be a boss or an assistant. This type of power is rather old school, in my opinion. For example my parents were a part of the baby boom era and nonetheless foreigners. So the way I grew up was very much exerted in either getting rewarded or punished for my actions. Going to Catholic school and gymnastics, both of those groups also faced reward-punishment power from their leaders. When it comes to power in group conflict I feel like this one can be misused and is a lot of the time. The reason why I picked this concept is probably because I can relate to it.