权力感与助人行为:社会距离的中介和责任感的调节

The Impact of Power on Helping Behavior:The Mediating Role of Social Distance and the Moderating Role of Responsibility

本研究通过两个子研究考察权力感对助人行为的影响,及社会距离的中介作用与责任感的调节作用。研究1通过问卷法考察权力感与助人行为意愿的关系,并检验社会距离的中介作用;研究2通过实验法检验权力感对助人行为的影响,社会距离的中介作用及责任感的调节作用。结果发现,权力感以社会距离为中介,抑制助人行为;责任感能调节权力感的直接效应,控制条件下权力感抑制助人行为,责任增强条件下权力感的影响不显著。

Power is one of the fundamental feature of social relations which describes asymmetric control over valued resources. According to the social distance theory of power, high-power individuals depend less on low-power individuals and thus feel more distant from them. Greater social distance leads to higher lever construal and reduces high power individuals’ propensity and accuracy to take the perspective of others, which may further result in less helping behavior. While according to the situated focus theory of power, power makes individuals act more consistently to their inner intention or situation goals. Therefore, feelings of responsibility which can lead to feelings of closeness and helping intentions may buffer the effect of power on social distance and helping behavior. Based on these, the present work was conducted to explore the impact of power on helping behavior, the mediation effect of social distance and the moderation effect of responsibility. 2 studies are presented to verify the hypotheses. Study 1 adopted a survey research method. 185 individuals participated in the research and completed the Generalized Sense of Power Scale, and the Social Distance Scale. The helping intention was measured through their intentions to donate for a cancer patient. We analyzed the mediation effect of social distance in SPSS macro PROCESS. These results indicated that social distance played a partially mediating role in the relationship between power and helping intention.In Study 2, we manipulated the level of power(high vs. low) and responsibility(high vs. control). 133 students were recruited in the study and randomly assigned to the 4 conditions. Power were manipulated through recalling an event in which they had power to control others or were controlled over. Responsibility was manipulated through text reading. All the participants completed the same measure as in Study 1. Then they were told that the experiment was over and they could decide whether to participate in extra surveys to earn money for the patient and helping behavior was measured through the amount of items they completed. We analyzed the moderated mediation effect of the hypothesis model in SPSS macro PROCESS. The results showed that responsibility could not moderate the mediation effect of social distance. However, it could moderate the direct effect of power. For individuals with high responsibility, power would not impact helping behavior while for individuals in control condition, power reduced helping behavior and social distance played a mediating role. To sum up, the results indicate that high power may lead to less helping behavior partially through enlarging social distance. However, high responsibility can buffer this impact. This study verifies the social distance theory of power and shows that power does not always corrupt. It shows a way to cope with the negative side of power on social behavior by enhancing sense of responsibility.