Differences in Power Acquisition Between Only and Non-only Children: The Effects of Cooperative Orientation, Competitive Orientation, and Dependency on Parents.

Yan Rong,Yulan Han,Linping Dong,Huijuan Bi

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.778726

Abstract

Drawing upon a developmental perspective, we investigated the differences in power acquisition (i.e., rank at work and leader role occupancy in university) between only and non-only children as well as the mediating role of cooperative and competitive orientations and the moderating role of dependency on parents. To test our hypotheses, we conducted two field studies in 155 part-time Master of Business Administration (MBA) students (Study 1) and 375 senior students (Study 2). Results showed that: (1) non-only children were more likely to achieve higher rank at work than only children; (2) only children were less likely than non-only children to acquire power in organizations because they scored lower in cooperative orientation; however, the mediating effect of competitive orientation was not significant; (3) the difference in cooperative orientation between only and non-only children was smaller when dependency on parents was high, whereas it became larger when dependency on parents was low. Our research contributes to the understanding of how family structure influences individual power acquisition.

Highlights

Numerous researchers have investigated the antecedents of power acquisition, such as physical characteristics, personalities, needs, and motivations (Keltner et al, 2003; Galinsky et al, 2015)
Cooperative and competitive orientation will explain the disadvantages of only children in power acquisitions
Child status was negatively correlated with rank (r = –0.28, p < 0.001), and cooperative orientation (r = –0.26, p = 0.01) but was not significantly correlated with competitive orientation (r = 0.06, p = 0.47)

Summary

Introduction

Numerous researchers have investigated the antecedents of power acquisition, such as physical characteristics, personalities, needs, and motivations (Keltner et al, 2003; Galinsky et al, 2015). Power acquisition is a dynamic process across the lifespan, and the factors that determine an individual’s power may derive from early family life (Andeweg and Berg, 2003). It has been shown that family factors inevitably influence the development of sociability and leadership (Trent and Spitze, 2011; Liu et al, 2019), which are associated with elevated power (Keltner et al, 2003; Reitan and Stenberg, 2019). One of the most profound early-life experiences is growing up with siblings (Falbo and Polit, 1986; Feng, 2000; Cameron et al, 2013); a large number of only children are deprived of such an experience. It is estimated that there were over 220 million only children in mainland China at the end of 2015 (Li et al, 2018); the number of American women who decided to have

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