Self-construction, The Influence Of Power On Altruistic Behavior

Researchers have a lot of research on altruistic behavior since 1970s. In recent years, psychologists begin to focus on the field of the self and investigate the relationship between the self-construction and some behavior (e.g., decision-making,interpersonal relationship, etc.). Their concerns focus on a very wide range of behavior, but they have not studied altruistic behavior separately. At the same time,the influence of the power to altruistic behavior has many inconsistencies and the psychological effect is based on cultural background. According to above problems,this study combined the self construction and power, exploring its effect on the altruistic behavior.Study 1 regarded the self-construction as trait variable and collected 200 subjects.At first, the study distinguished the subjects by self-construction scale, including independent self-construal and interdependent self-construal. Then, they did the dictator game experiments, the total money subjects were given in the experiments reflect the degree of altruistic behavior. Study 2 also let subjects do the self-construction scale, subjects were randomly divided into two groups, starting high or low power respectively, they did the dictator game experiment finally. This study is to find the influence of self-construction and power on altruistic behavior. Study 3 regarded self-construction as situational variable, after starting the subjects’interdependent or independent self, they participated in the dictator game experiment,by starting the self-construction of different types, this study test the influence of situational self-construction on altruistic behavior, it can also see as a basis to improve altruistic behavior in real life. After three experiments, results are as following:(1) The type of participants’ self-construal would affect their altruistic behavior:people with interdependent self-construal are more altruistic than independent self-construal.(2) Power would affect the altruistic behavior. People in low power situation were trying to show more altruistic behavior to high power situation.(3) When people were type of interdependent self-construal, whether in the high power or low power situation, there was no significant difference between altruistic behaviors; when people were type of independent self-construal, they would give less money and be less helpful in high power situation; however, they would have more altruistic behavior in low power situation.(4) Activating the different self-construction would affect the altruistic behavior of participants, when people were activated the interdependent self, they are more altruistic.