This chapter begins to build and test a theory that explains why reward power and punishment power have such different effects on social exchange. Its focus is one of the most consistent and surprising findings of the previous experiments: the infrequent use of coercion by actors in all structural positions. I assume that the low use of coercion is the immediate cause of the weak effects of punishment power; to explain those effects, we must first explain why actors use coercion so rarely. Chapters 6 through 8 address that question. In this chapter, I consider when and how power use is induced by the structure of power alone; in Chapters 7 and 8, I examine factors that affect strategic power use.

The assumption that structural power is effective only if it is used is consistent with exchange theory; the suggestion that power use is problematic is not. Emerson assumed that if actors possessed a structural power advantage, they would use it. The incentive to use power was inherent in power itself. This chapter shows that this principle holds only for reward power and explains why.

I argue that the coercive use of punishment power, unlike the use of reward power, is not induced by a structural power advantage. This is the primary reason that it is used less frequently. I show that when this difference between reward and punishment power is eliminated, by creating experimental conditions in which a structural advantage on either base of power does induce the use of that power, the hypothesis of structural equivalency is supported: the two bases of power have equivalent effects on the distribution of exchange.