The Effects Of National Pride On The Willingness Of International Aid In College Students

National pride is a positive feeling individuals can experience when faced wish stimulus about national symbols and achievements,derived from national identity.International aid is a type of outgroup helping at the level of country.This study uses Chinese achievement on high-speed railway to appeal national pride,and Chinese climate introduction as neutral material.The present study using college students as participants is to examine the role of national pride in the willingness of international aid by two experiments.The helping condition in Study 1 is a country badly affected by earthquakes.The objective is to explore if appeal to national pride can prompt college students’willingness to help the affected country.Data from this experiment shows that only in collective level the participants’ helping willingness in pride emotion is significantly higher than participants’ in neutral emotion,the two groups’ helping willingness in individual level have no significant difference.The condition in Study 2 is more difficult and costlier to help impoverished country.And participants are told that China always have foreign aid program for those impoverished areas.Besides emotion type,the level of national identity(high and low)is another independent variable in study 2.The objective is to explore effects of these two variables on college students’ help willingness,and the interaction between the two factors.The results show that main effects of both emotion type and the level of national identity are significant,but the interaction between these two factors is not significant.Data from two experiments demonstrated that,(1)national pride can prompt college students’ willingness of international aid in collective level.(2)The level of national identity can have an effect on college students’ helping willingness,the high identifiers are more willing to help impoverished country.(3)No matter high identifiers or low identifiers,national pride has the same effect on their willingness to help impoverished country.