Alpha Culture Power

During this simulation you can see that power plays in important role especially in the Alpha culture. According to French and Raven, there are “five different types of power” (Power Theory, pp3). The five types of power are, Referent, Legitimate, Expert, Reward, and Coercive. The Alpha culture as dominate legitimate and referent power that be seen immediately. In the Alpha culture the males are a dominate figure. One can see this through referent and legitimate power as the Alpha males are always the leader in game play. Another example of Alpha male power is their ability to escort an outsider out of the room if they are disrespectful. The Alpha males use their power to protect the woman in its own culture. The idea of expert power can be seen in both cultures during the games of each

Expert power is having expertise in the area (Power Theory, pp6). In the Beta culture, everyone in that culture had expert power when playing their card came over anyone who came into the culture. The same goes for the Alpha culture. Reward power can also be seen in both the Alpha and Beta cultures. In many situations one can have reward power by having the ability to punish and reward others. In the Beta culture this is seen from the points that a Beta receives for having the entire sequence of cards, 1-7. The Betas card game was like a business so thinking of in that way, the one that was able to trade and sell “cards” received the reward of being financially stable. In the Alpha culture, during their game if someone would win you would receive a chip. Though the Alphas didn’t care how many chips one had, it was still a reward of knowing how well you were doing. Of all the powers, coercive was a hard one to identify within the Bafa, Bafa simulation. Where it could be seen is the power the males of Alpha had to kick out and escort people of others that came in uninvited or acted as a threat