The Influence Of Relative Deprivation, Relative Satisfaction And Power Level On Social Decision-making

Social comparison is a ubiquitous phenomenon.People will compare with others inadvertently.The results of comparison will be good or bad.If you feel better than others,you will feel relatively gratified.If you feel worse than others,then it will produce a sense of relative deprivation.Relative gratification and relative deprivation have different psychological processes,but the results will lead to intergroup prejudice and hostile behavior.As a part of the social environment,power affects all aspects of people's lives.The most obvious is the influence of power level on individual behavior.Previous studies have shown that high-powered individuals may become greed or bullying others,but they may also benefit the people,concern and help vulnerable groups.Therefore,this study will explore the different social decisions taken by individuals who feel relative deprivation or relative satisfaction at different levels of power.In order to understand the effect of relative gratification and relative deprivation on social decision making under different levels of power,in this study the relative deprivation,relative gratification and control group as between-subject factors,and different levels of power as within-subject factors.Using a modified ultimatum game to analyze social decision making under the conditions of interpersonal decision making and intergroup decision making.To distinguish between interpersonal decision making and intergroup decision making,the study consists of two studies:In study 1,under the condition of interpersonal decision making,the relatively deprived group,relatively gratified group and control group were tested in social decision-making behavior under different power levels.The experiment used the paradigm of Moscatelli(2014)to initiate the relative deprivation and relative gratification.Then the modified ultimatum game was used to set the power level of the participants and measured their social decision-making results.The experiment found that the relative deprivation and relative gratification had significant influence in interpersonal social decision making under different power level.The three groups of participants all significantly reduced the amount of money allocated to each other with the increase of their own power.The control group was more equitable,and when the power was the largest(?=1),the amount of money allocated to each other was significantly higher than the other two groups.In study 2,under the condition of intergroup decision making,the social decision-making behavior of participants in relatively deprived group,relatively gratified group and control group were tested under different power levels.The experiment also used Moscatelli's paradigm and the modified ultimatum game to measure social decision making.The experimental results showed that under the intergroup decision-making conditions,the relatively deprived group and the relatively gratified group significantly reduced the amount allocated to the outgroup with the increase of their own power.The relatively gratified group allocated more money to outgroup than the other two groups because of the mediating effect of self-inflation.Those who were affected by group polarization under intergroup decision making will be more hostile than under interpersonal decision making.But the difference of relative gratification between the two decision making conditions was not significant.Overall,under interpersonal decision-making conditions,individuals reduced the amount of money allocated to each other as their power increases.Individuals affected by relative deprivation and relative gratification will show more hostility and exploitation.Under intergroup decision-making conditions,compared with the other two groups,individuals with relative gratification will be mediated by self-inflation and show higher prosocial tendency.