Research On The Relationship Between Personal Power And Self-interest Orientation

Power is an important form of social relationship.Researchers have mostly focused on the high-power individuals and believe that the influence of power is linear.Thus,they ignore the characteristics of low-power individuals.Given the basic orientation of self-interest,this research explores the relationship between personal power and self-interest orientation and its mechanism.Three studies have been conducted in this research.Study 1 included one pilot study and three experiments.The pilot study,Study 1a,and Study 1b explore the relationship between power and self-interest orientation from the perspective of dispositional sense of power and situational power,self-interest motive and self-interest behavior.The results indicate a U-shaped curve relationship between dispositional sense of power and self-interest motive,between situational power and self-interest motive,as well as between situational power and self-interest behavior.That is,the self-interest orientation of hish-power individuals and low-powered individuals is significantly higher than the control group,and there is no significant difference between high-power individuals and low-powered individuals.Study 1c further explores the moderation role of self-interest behavior’s degree of immorality between power and self-interest behavior with cheating situation and assignment situation.The results show that the U-shaped curve relationship between power and self-interest behavior is limited to the situation when the self-interest behavior is perceived slightly immoral.When the self-interest behavior is perceived highly immoral,high-power individuals still perform significantly more self-interest behavior than low-powered individuals and the control group,while low-power individuals and the control group have no significant difference.Study 2 adopts cooperative and competitive situation to examine goal dependence’s moderation effect between power and self-interest orientation.The results reveal that in the competitive situation,the self-interest orientation of high-power individuals and low-powered individuals is significantly higher than that of the control group,and there is no significant difference between high-power individuals and low-power individuals,which supports the U-shaped curve relationship between power and self-interest orientation.While in the context of cooperation,power has no significant effect on self-interest orientation.Study 3 explores social exchange style’s mediation role between power and self-interest orientation.The results show that the Equitable Alliance Building(EAB)dimension in the social exchange style plays a mediating role in the relationship between power and self-interest orientation.For those with low power,as the sense of power rises,the level of EAB decreases and then the self-interest orientation tends to decrease.For those with high power,as the sense of power rises,the level of EAB rises and the self-interest orientation tends to increase.In summary,this research suggests that there is a U-curve relationship between power and self-interest orientation,including self-interest motive and self-interest behavior.But the U-curve relationship between power and self-interest behavior only appears w-hen the self-interest behavior perceived slightly immoral.Moreover,the relationship between power and self-interest orientation is moderated by goal dependence,and Equitable Alliance Building(EAB)in the social exchange style plays a mediating role in the relationship between power and self-interest orientation.The significance,limitation and future research directions of this research are further discussed.