关键词: 权力, 趋近系统, 心理距离, 控制错觉

Abstract: Power refers to the ability to control valued resources and outcome of others, which is evolved for helping groups attain important goals, improving social cooperation, and promoting collective interests. However, instead of wielding power for the greater good, powerholders might also be tempted to use power in self-serving ways. To explore what causes the powerholders to act in ways that go for/against the fundamental goals of social power has attracted much attention in field of psychology. Recently, it was identified that power was not only a structural variable, a property of social relationship but also a psychological property of the individual. Once the cue relevant to power appeared, the psychological state of experiencing power would be activated. On the basis of these findings, results of studies further demonstrated that there were three psychological processes underlying the effects of experiencing power, they are, 1) approach system, which was a motive system to regulate behavior related to sex, food, safety, achievement and social attachment; 2) psychological distance, which referred to a subjective experience that something was close or far away from the self, here, and now; and 3) illusory control, which was defined as the belief that one had the capability to influence outcomes that were beyond their control. In the present paper, first we reviewed how the three psychological mechanisms of power (approach system, psychological distance and illusory control) affected the powerholders’ cognition, emotion and motivation as well as their judgment, decision making and behaviors separately. Then we analyzed how each psychological process and its influence went for/against the fundamental goals of social power briefly. The activated approach system guided powerholders to change their focus of attention flexibly and act in a risk-seeking fashion. Further, the activated approach system led powerholders to be more sensitive to information relevant to rewards and helped them to pursue goals associated with the rewards. However, the reward approaching was found to be more likely to tempt the powerholders to use power for personal interests at the expense of others. Experiencing power enlarged psychological distance from others. As a result, construals of powerholders became more abstract. The abstract thinking improved complex decision making and creativeness of powerholders by integrating information to extract the gist, detecting patterns and relationships in complex situations and generation of new ideas. Psychological distance also increased stereotyping and prejudice, consequently, biased the social judgments of powerholders, played a negative role on cooperation and collective interests. Experiencing power initiated illusory control of individuals. Illusory control was found a mediator of the relationship between the experience of power and self-esteem, optimism as well as action in goal pursuit. Illusory control was also found to encourage powerholders to overestimate the importance of themselves, but nevertheless the overestimation is associated with errors in decision making by reducing advice taking. Finally, we analyzed the relationship between the three psychological processes of power and proposed that illusory control possibly was the central mechanism for power experiencing; it may be a mediator of power experiencing and reward approach as well as a mediator of power experiencing and psychological distance. We also suggest that future research should pay attention to the potential factors (e.g., motivation) which may activate or suppress the psychological mechanisms of power. We hope this work could make contributions to limitation of power from the psychological perspective.

Key words: power, approach system, psychological distance, illusory control