The Impact Of Power Perception On Cognitive Control

Power is a fundamental aspect of everyday social life and an essential element of social interaction.Power considerations are ubiquitous in interpersonal relationships,emerging among workplace colleagues,neighbors,friends,family members,and even romantic partners.Power has a profound impact on the individual.For example,possessing power leads individuals to experience more positive and less negative emotions,pursue a more assertive approach to the world,and enjoy higher self-esteem,physical health,and longevity.The personal sense of power as a psychological construct is thus similar to expectancy beliefs or cognitive models of relationships that have been examined in prior work.In addition to the concept of perception,the goal is more likely to be related to power.In addition to perceptual concepts,particular goals are likely to be associated with power.This implies that priming power should in turn activate associated goals,eliciting goal-directed responses as a result.Some theorizing suggests that power aids goal-directed action by enhancing cognitive control.By contrast,other theorizing suggests that high power is associated with a greater reliance on automatic processing whereas low power is associated with greater control.In the present research,we examined these alternatives in an effort to illuminate the mechanisms through which high and low power affect goal-directed behavior.The research paradigm of cognitive control has the response conflict paradigms and the task switching paradigms,so in this paper,the Flanker paradigm and the task transformation paradigm are used to explore the mechanism of the influence of power on cognitive control.Experiment 1 uses a mixed experiment design of 2(power: high power and low power)× 2(consistency: consistency and inconsistency),with word search task primed method to test whether power effects on performance are due to an influence on automatic or controlled processes.In experiment 2,the experimental procedures and the primed method are consistent with the experiment 1,except that the use of event-related potential(ERP)technology to test whether high power,compared with low power,facilitates controlled processing because it enhances the detection of conflict or increases the ability to translate conflict detection into intended action.Experiment 3 uses the mixed experiment design of 2(power: high power and low power)× 2(transition condition: perseverance and distract)to test the influence of different sense of power on cognitive flexibility.In experiment 1,according to the repeated measurement of variance analysis found that Flanker effect was significant.Further multiple comparisons,in the case of consistent conditions,participants are more quicker and more accurate at the same time than in the case of inconsistent conditions.In experiment 2,according to the results of repeated measurements of variance analysis,the interaction effect between power and consistency conditions is significant in the N2 condition.On the high power level,the N2 value under the inconsistent condition is significantly larger than the N2 value under the same condition.In experiment 3,based on the results of the variance analysis of repeated measurements,it was found that the interaction between power and cognitive flexibility was significant.Under the condition of perseverance,the switching cost of the high power subjects is lower and the cognitive flexibility is higher;the switching cost of the low power is higher and the cognitive stability is higher.Based on the results of the study,the following conclusions are: the sense of power has effects on the cognitive control.(1)High-power has a higher level of self-control,and can promote goal-oriented behavior;low-power has a lower level of self-control;(2)High-power in the task switching is faster,with a higher level of cognitive flexibility;low-power in the task switching is slower,with a higher level of cognitive stability.The study provides empirical support for situational focus theory.