| People generally yearn for and pursue "evenly matched" love,but there is widespread power inequality in romantic relationships,which not only easily leads to relationship conflict,but also affects the resolution of conflict.This study focuses on the phenomenon of power inequality and conflict in the romantic relationship among 18-25 year old college students in China,explores the influence of sense of power on the coping strategies of love conflict,and finally introduces self-construal to observe how the intimacy or alienation of self-partner relationship affects the sense of power effect in love conflict.In the first study,203 participants,all with love experience as below,were selected for a questionnaire survey on the characteristics of power and coping strategies in love conflict.The survey shows that there is power inequality in the romantic relationship of domestic college students.And it presented the following characteristics:(1)Women’s sense of power is higher than that of men;(2)Individuals with higher family socioeconomic status have higher sense of power than individuals with lower family socioeconomic status;(3)Individuals with low sense of power are more likely to perceive inequality in the romantic relationships than individuals with high sense of power.In the second study,based on three specific love conflict situations,we selected 143 participants to explore the effect of sense of power and trait-state power matching on the coping strategies of love conflict,by using 2(trait power: high,low)x 2(state power: high,low)experimental design between subjects.The result reveals that1.the effect of sense of power in coping strategies of love conflict is consistent with the selfish behavior hypothesis:in love conflict,individuals with high-power may tend to adopt passive coping strategies of exit and neglect,while individuals with low-power may tend to adopt positive coping strategies of loyalty.2.The trait-state power matching will strengthen the power effect in love conflict: compared with the trait-state power mismatch,the individual with high trait-high state power matching adopt a higher level of exit strategy in conflict.Low trait-low state power perception matching,individuals adopt a higher level of loyalty strategy in conflictIn the third study,based on three specific love conflict situations,we selected 200 participants to explore the moderating role of independence/dependent self-construal between the sense of power and coping strategies in love conflict,by using 2(state power: high,low)x2(self-construal: independence,dependence)experimental design between subjects.The result shows that in love conflicts,when individuals with high sense of power perceive a close psychological distance from their partner(activating dependent self-construal),it will promote their loyal behavior tendency,and when individuals with low sense of power perceive long psychological distance from their partner(activating independent self-construal),it will also lead to an increase in their tendency to exit and ignore behavior.Research conclusions:(1)There is power inequality in love conflict,and women’s sense of power is higher than that of men,the sense of power of individuals with higher family socioeconomic status is higher,and the low sense of power is more likely to perceive the inequality in relationships.(2)The power effect in coping strategies for romantic conflicts is consistent with the selfish behavior hypothesis.(3)There is a power matching effect in coping strategies for romantic conflicts.(4)Dependent self-construal can weaken the selfish behavior effect of sense of power. |
