Social Class And The Intentions To Seek Positions Of Power:Beliefs Of Class Mobility As A Moderator

Abstract:Power is one of the most important subjects in social psychology.In the process of the pursuit of power,the individual's intention to seek positions of power is a critical factor.Exploring the related factors and internal mechanisms of power pursuit intentions will help explain the reality of power mobility,further explain and reflect class mobility,and provide some suggestions for social governance.Social class is a direct factor on how to affect the power acquisition.So how does it influence the intentions to seek power?Foreign scholars put forward that social class is going to positively predict the intentions to seek power.In the context of China,is this relation still established?According to the System Justice Theory(STJ),the World Unfair Belief and the Model of Action Phase,it can be concluded that in the pursuit of the goal of power,the beliefs of class mobility will play as a moderator.Research hypothesis 1 is that the higher the social class is,the higher the willingness to pursue power;hypothesis 2 is that in the process of social class's influence on the desire to pursue power,social mobility beliefs plays a moderating role.Under the condition of lower class mobility belief,social class is positively predicting the willingness to pursue power;under the belief of high class mobility,social class can not predict the intentions to seek power.In order to verify the hypothesis,three small studies have been made in this study by using the relevant and experimental methods.In Study 1,62 social adults and 508 students were used to explore whether the social class was able to predict the intentions to seek power.The results are as follows:the higher the individual's social class is,the higher the intention to seek power is.In Study 2,the experimental method was used to verify the moderator role of the beliefs of class mobility in the process of social class affecting the intentions to seek power.The experiment was a 2(social class:upper/lower)*2(intentions to seek power:upper/lower)between-subjects design,and 125 students were randomly assigned to the experimental groups,and then their intentions to seek power were measured.The results are as follows:the higher the social class,the higher the desire for seeking power,and the beliefs of class mobility play as a moderator.Study 3 was to further verify the moderator role of beliefs of class mobility in the process of social class affecting the desire for seeking power.329 valid questionnaires were collected.The results are as follows:the higher the social class,the higher the intentions for seeking power,and beliefs of class mobility played as moderator.Consistent with the conclusions of study 1 and Study 2,the hypothesis model of this study was supported.This research explores the current status of power seeking willingnes's in different social class in China,and somehow reveals the psychological boundary conditions of social class's influence on the willingness to pursue power.It can partly explain the causes of little upward mobility of the lower social class and provide a possible reference for the social governance.