The Process of Chinese Ingratiation. Social Exchange Theory

Research Paper from the year 2014 in the subject Psychology - Social Psychology, , language: English, abstract: The existing literature does not effectively explain the process of ingratiation. Thus, the purpose of this study is to understand the process with social exchange theory. Using an online questionnaire survey, this study interviewed 113 participants from Hong Kong and investigated how ingratiation affects interpersonal relation through the enhancement of interpersonal attraction, exchange of renqing and exchange of mianzi. The results showed that the participants may ingratiate others with five tactics, including self-presentation, conformity, favor-rendering, other-enhancement and modesty. The results also proposed three possible processes of ingratiation: (1) favor-rendering induces exchange of renqing, but exchange of renqing does not impact on interpersonal attraction; (2) all the ingratiation tactics except modesty promote exchange of mianzi, but exchange of mianzi has not influences to interpersonal relation; (3) self-presentation and favor-rendering enhance interpersonal attraction and in turn improve interpersonal relation. It is also suggested that if ingratiation can enhance interpersonal attraction, it will have greater contributions to interpersonal relation.