The Function Of Fate Attribution, Sense Of Control And Psychological Adjustment Under Confucian Culture

The notion of negotiable fate refers to the idea that one can negotiate with fate for gaining relative control of his or her life,so that one can enable agency to realize personal goals within limits setup by the fate.Western scholars argued that negotiable fate may corresponding to the fate concept in traditional Confucian culture,that is,“Man proposes,god disposes”.In this research,we propose three studies base on the Confucianism understanding of fate,to investigate the manifestation and influence of negotiable fate in contemporary Chinese culture.As western scholars mentioned,the negotiable fate comes from China’ s collective wisdom,which refers to the idea that one can negotiate with fate for control,and that people can exercise personal agency within the limits that fate has determined,eventually realizing personal goals through hard work.Many scholars believe that the concept of negotiable fate may correspond to the concept of fate in traditional Confucian culture,that is,“effort is controlled by the person,success is determined by fate”.In order to further clarify the manifestation of negotiable fate and it’ s influence on the contemporary Chinese,an indigenous research,which includes three studies employing method of story priming,is launched based on Confucianism ideology of fate.In Study 1,the situation of protagonist’ s continuous success or continuous failure was set to prime the different perceived control of the participants,and to explore the degree of participants’ faith in fate under different level of perceived control.It was found that in the condition of continuous failure,that is,lack of perceived control,the participants’ faith in fate would be stronger.Considering that perceived control may be affected by the importance and predictability of the event itself,in Study 2,these two variables were manipulated to further explore the extent of fate or personal attribution in different failure situations.It was found that the extent to which the participants attributed the failure to the fate would be affected by the importance and the predictability of the outcome of the event.When the outcome of the event is important and not easily predicted,to some extent,the participants would attribute the failure outcome to fate.The extent to which the participants attributed the failure to their own would be affected by the predictability of the outcome of the event.Compared with the condition that the outcome of the event is not easily predicted,the participants would be more inclined to attribute the failure to themselves when the outcome of the event is easily predicted.In addition,in the four scenarios,the participants would attribute the failure results both to fate and to themselves,but in different scenarios,the proportions of the degree of both ways of attribution were different.All in all,theflexible attribution style of the participants shows the characteristics of the negotiable fate.The negotiable fate as a concentrated expression of the concept of fate of contemporary Chinese can not only has an impact on the process of people’ s post-event attribution,but also plays an important role in the process of people’ s ex ante attribution.In Study 3,we explored the impact of the ex ante attribution of contemporary Chinese on the subsequent behavior and mental state under the premise of negotiable fate.By explaining the protagonist’ s different emotional strengths to the opposite sex in the experimental materials,personal agency of the participants was manipulated.The elements of the Chinese folk horoscope were added in materials to initiate the sense of fate of the participants,and to explore the behavioral trends and mental responses of the participants in different condition after a specific outcome.The results showed that the strengths of the feeling of the opposite sex and the concept of fate held by the participants affected their willingness to further contact to each other,their decision whether they continued to chase the opposite sex after the previous pursuit frustration,the degree of acceptance of the current unsatisfactory feelings and the degree of attributing the positive results to the godsend(Tian-given).When the evaluation of feeling and the fate clue to the opposite sex were both positive,that is,when the participants fall in love with the opposite sex at first sight and learn that the two birth time matched each other,their psychological adaptability would be the strongest.It is mainly reflected as follows: participants would actively pursue the goal and be indomitable;even if the outcome of the event was not satisfactory,they can accept it with pleasure;the level of participants attributed the satisfactory results to the godsend(Tian-given)is the highest.By reviewing the researches about the negotiable fate in China and the West,the close relationship between the negotiable fate and the individual’ s attribution style and perceived control was found.Through the above three studies,we found that,in contrast to the Confucianism ideology of fate effect on people’ s process,the perception of contemporary Chinese college students about fate showed a strong Confucian style.What they hold is actually a negotiable fate under Confucian culture.The negotiable fate under Confucian culture can help individuals attribute flexibly and increase perceived control through secondary control and control compensation,thus coping with major life events and realizing the function of psychological regulation.