The Impacts Of Self-control And Perception Of Social Status On Self-deception

This study aims to explore the factors of individual characteristics and social influence of self-deception,and their influence degree and association process.Compared with the previous research,this study employs the Forward-looking paradigm for the first time to research how self-control and social status influence self-deception,thus reflecting the causes and characteristics of self-deception,finally to deepen the self-control theory model and the theory of social status,enrich and develop the theoretical model of self-deception.Experiment 1 used a single-factor two-level experimental design.Subjects were asked to finish 10 true and false questions on general knowledge with and without answer hints respectively.Then they were required to predict the score of the 40 true and false questions without answer hints and then completed the questions.Results indicated that scores that they predicted with hints were significantly higher than that of without hints,and the predicted score with hints is much higher than the actual score when compared with that of without hints.Experiment 2 used a three-factor mixed experimental design.Individuals with different self-control characteristics were chosen to do operation and inspection of the perception of social status,and then finish the similar tests in the first experiment.According to the results,difference between the predicted score and actual score is more apparent in the test with hints than that without hints,and compared with the high self-control group,difference between the predicted score and actual score is more significant in low self-control group.At the same time,results showed that when compared the predicted score and actual score,individual with low social status perception got much higher than those with high social status perception in the low self-control group.In thehigh self-control group,no significant difference can be seen in the perception of social status,and in low social status perception,difference between predicted score and actual score is much significant in self-control group than in high self-control group,and no remarkable difference can be seen in high social status perception.Conclusion: in the forward-looking test,the answer hints can induce the individual self-deception,and the individual prediction is based on the co-influence of actual ability and answer hints.Compared with the individual with high self-control,low self-control individuals tend to produce more self-deception.This conclusion can also be applied to the behavior of deceiving others,which indicates that large similarity exists in self-deception and deceiving other.In addition,the perception of social status,determined by the how much resource occupied by individuals,can influence the self-control and self-deception of individuals.High social status perception can restrain the influence of low self-control on self-deception,while low social status perception will increase the low self-control's influence on self-deception.Conclusions above conform with social dominance theory and motivation theory of self-serving bias,and further enrich the two theories.