Abstract
Deference behavior is viewed from two standpoints: (a) as an attempt to influence and (2) its function in maintaining social relationships. Data reveal that psychiatric nurses attempt to influence doctors' treatment decisions by engaging in deferential actions; these actions also perform the function of maintaining the doctor-nurse relationship. Such actions are defined as power strategies-actions that are oriented to a normative order but which are not in conformity with that order. Power strategies are also reactions to a power order-based on conditions of dependency, as well as actions oriented to a normative order-in this study, the authority structure of the doctor-nurse relationship. I n recent years sociologists and social psychologists have shown an active interest in the phenomena of influence attempts1 and deference behavior.2 Researchers and writers interested in each of these phenomena, however, have not turned their attention to the connection between the two-that is, deference as social influence. The first objective of this paper will be to redress this omission by pointing out, with empirical illustrations, how deference behavior may be viewed as an influence
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