Development and Application of New Scales to Measure the French and Raven (1959) Bases of Social Power

Presented are results from a multistep, three-sample study that designed measures of reward, coercive, legitimate, expert, and referent power that are conceptually consistent with respect to the source of power. Construct definitions were developed and items were generated and evaluated for content validity. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and item analyses were conducted to develop perceptually distinct scales with acceptable internal consistency and stable factor structures. The independence of the scales was next examined, and discriminant validity was assessed. Finally, zero-order and partial correlation concurrent validity analyses were conducted, and conclusions were drawn concerning both the new scales and the extant literature.