Author(s)

Xinyue Huang, Pinyu Meng, Chen Chen

Department of Business Administration, College of Management, Jinan University, Guangdong, China.

Power, as an important and long-term research topic of politics field, has attracted extensive attention. In recent years, power has become a hot research field of social psychology. Power as a kind of psychological variables, affects the individual’s cognition, emotion and behavior. At present, the opinion that power affects individual decisions, attracts more and more attention of researchers. Among many factors that affect the individual’s decision behavior, social environment and group’s role cannot be ignored. The research takes the game experiment to study decision, form the sense of social norms and power, recruiting 124 students in University, starting high level and low level of power respectively, then displaying descriptive social norms. Next, game experiment begins, observing differences between subjects facing different forms of power in the course of the game to make choices and decisions. The results show that the sense of power level and social norms influence power decision-making behavior. The sense of power has a significant influence on the acquisition of the blue symbol (legitimacy) and the acquisition and use of the red symbol (force) (p < 0.05); social norms have a significant influence on the acquisition of the red symbol (force) and the acquisition and use of the blue symbol (legitimacy) (p < 0.05); power and social norms influence the remaining sum of the blue symbol (legitimacy) with interaction (p < 0.05). The result shows that the higher power people use more force to satisfy their own needs, and the lower authority uses more legitimacy to satisfy their own needs.

Power, Social Norms, Decision Making Behavior, Game Experiment, Force, Legitimacy

Huang, X. , Meng, P. and Chen, C. (2020) The Effects of Power and Social Norms on Power Decision Making. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 8, 124-142. doi: 10.4236/jss.2020.84009.