The Study Of Sense Of Power In Intimate Relationships

The power in intimate relationships has been gotten the attention of areas of sociology and psychology,many fields regard the power as a kind of interpersonal structure variables,psychology research started relatively late,and gradually understand it as a kind of psychological variables.The cognition of one's own ability to influence others is known as sense of power,it can affect attitude and behavior more than the real power the individual have.Power theory mainly includes: the social exchange theory,interdependence theory,approach/inhibition theory and the situated focus theory.Intimacy focuses on the close cooperation and sharing,while power focuses on the control and influence of interpersonal relationships.When intimacy meets power,how males and females perceive about it,what factors influence sense of power,and how influences do it to intimate relationships,what factors do it to the influence,it will be research in this study.Current research aims to use quantitative and qualitative research method to study the power perception in intimate relationships under Chinese culture background.Most studies of sense of power use self-report measures,the study at present stage lack implicit measurement of power perception,so study 1 combines explicit measure and implicit measure on sense of power in intimate relationships using the sexual relationship power scale(SRPS)and the single category implicit association test(SC-IAT),the subjects are pairs of heterosexual couples.The results indicate that there are differences on sense of power between males and females no matter what kinds of measurement methods we use.There was significant difference between male and female in explicit power perception.Female felt more powerful than male.The male's sense of power is at the medium level,while the female's sense of power is at high level.Gender difference was also significant in implicit measures.However,male felt more powerful than female in their power perception.Male felt relative balance of power with each other,while female felt that power has closer connection with male.No significant correlation was found between explicit and implicit power perception.We adopt actors-partner interdependent model(APIM)to analyze the relationship between power perception and relationship satisfaction.The results show that the sense of power can predict relationship satisfaction positively.Specifically,the higher male's explicit power perception is,the more satisfactory the relationship is.The higher female's implicit power perception is,the more satisfactory the relationship is.In order to further explore different manifestation of power perception,the factors which influence the sense of power and the influence of power on relationship satisfaction,and focus on the subjective feeling of the individuals in the relationships,Study 2 adopts qualitative method conducts semi-structured interviews on heterosexual subjects,then interview transcribed into electronic text,Nvivo10 qualitative analysis software was used to encode the text,then manage text with methods of categorization analysis and scenario analysis using grounded theory.It is found that,firstly,the understanding of power in intimate relationships mainly includes the right to make final decisions,the ability to control,influence,independence to relationship and responsibility.Secondly,the factors which impact on the sense of power include personal factors(e.g.relatively emotional involvement,alternatives,ability and character)and family environmental factors.Finally,there is no exact corresponding relation between power perception and relationship outcomes.Whether value power or not and the ideal power type will have an effect on it.