How Do The Instrumental Learning Differ Among The Individuals With Different Power Motive Congruency

The congruency or discrepancy between implicit and explicit motives is a common psychological phenomenon in people’s life, and it is closely linked with people’s mental health, learning and life. The existence of two independent motivational systems is assumed to serve important adaptive functions. For example, explicit conscious goals can serve to override implicit motivational impulses if these are not appropriate (e.g., run counter to some long-term goal). More generally, the co-existence of implicit and explicit motivational systems allows for a more flexible regulation of behavior which has to be attuned to the social demands of one’s reference group as well as to one’s own needs. Based on motives associated with the domains achievement affiliation and power, the motive-congruency studies concern for the relationship between the congruency and people’s physical and mental health. Currently, more research is focused on the relationship between achievement or affiliation motive congruency and mental health. The power motive as one of the three social motives, reflecting the psychological tendency of individuals to influence others or the world at large, but still lacking researches mention of power motive congruency and its effect on mentality at home and abroad now. Especially under the incentives’affect, how do the individuals who have different power motive congruency differ in their mentality, yet no one has conducted a separate study. The explicit power motive is mainly measured by the corresponding subscales in the Personality Research Form (PRF), the Edwards Personality Preference Scale (EPPS),or the Personal Values Questionnaire (PVQ), there were no people prepared independent explicit power motive questionnaire, and on this basis conducted corresponding study of the power motive congruency.Study 1 includes a review of literatures of explicit power motive and implicit power motive measurement, through in-depth interviews with 30 psychology graduate students, small sample measurement and analysis, and then points out the preliminary dimensions to the concept of explicit power motive. Including six dimensions:forceful behavior, management control, spread one self’s idea, identity recognition, initiative help and emotional appeal, and on this basis, finished the preliminary compilation of explicit power motive scale.300 questionnaires were distributed and 279 valid questionnaires were taken back in the initial test. Through exploratory factor analysis, and combined with the idea of the concept and dimensions, researcher revised the preliminary questionnaire. The formal scale was composed by five factors and twenty four items. The five components are respectively:forceful behavior, reflecting the individuals wants to have strong/forceful actions which inherently have impact on other people or the world at large; management control, reflecting the desire of individuals to control or regulate others or the environment; initiative help, reflecting the individuals attempts to give help, advise or support that is not explicitly solicited; Identity recognition, referring to the individuals want to impressing others or the world at large, mention of or concern of fame, prestige, and reputation; emotional appeal, referring to any strong (positive or negative) emotional reaction in one person(group, nation, etc)to the action of another person.600 questionnaires were distributed and 541 valid questionnaires were taken back in the formal test. The Cronbach a coefficient was used as an indicator in the reliability test, and the results showed that the dimensions and total scale has good internal consistency reliability; validity tests have shown that the explicit power motive scale’s validity is good.Study 2 analyze the relationship between implicit and explicit power motive; and investigate how difference individuals’instrumental learning for power motive behaviors, under different power motive congruency. Improve Schultheiss’s(2005) operant-conditioning task, apply the power motive incongruence as between-subjects factors and types of reinforcement as within subjects factors, and the instrumental learning’s accuracy and react time as dependent factors. The results reveal that:there is no significant relationship between implicit and explicit power motives. Surprise face signaling another person’s low dominance represent positive incentives and reinforce the perceiver’s behavior, whereas anger face represent negative incentives and inhibit the perceiver’s behavior. Individuals in the power motive congruent present group performed higher accuracy than the ones in the power motive incongruent group, and their accuracy is higher under the surprise face’s rewarding effects than under the anger face’s punishing effects and the neutral face’s no reinforcement. And when under the surprise face’s rewarding effects, individuals in the power motive congruent present group performed higher accuracy than the ones in the power motive incongruent group and the ones in the power motive congruent absent group.