The Impact Of State Empathy And Social Distancing On Third-Party Altruistic Behavior In Unfair Situations

In the process of building a socialist harmonious society,it is very important to guide individuals to take active civic initiatives and maintain social justice and fairness in order to promote pro-social behavior,and third-party altruism is an important pro-social behavior.Past studies have found that there is no single factor that influences third-party altruistic behavior,and the more common ones are personal factors and situational factors.Scholars have explored the relationship between third-party altruism based on the "empathy-altruism" hypothesis and the social distance between the third-party and the offending target.However,whether the relationship between state empathy and third-party altruism is influenced by the variable of social distance has not been investigated.In this study,college students were selected as subjects,and effective state empathy-evoking videos were screened by adding third-party bystanders to the dictator game task.Experiment 1 used a mixed experimental design of 2(state empathy: elicitation group,control group)× 5(different allocation schemes: 60:40,70:30,80:20,90:10,100:0)to explore the effect of state empathy level on third-party altruistic behavior under different allocation schemes.Experiment 2 presented third-party bystanders with violations under two social distances,and a 2(social distance: stranger,good friend)× 5(unfairness level: 60:40,70:30,80:20,90:10,100:0)within-subjects experimental design was used to explore the effects of different social distances on third-party altruistic behavior.Based on the findings of Experiment 1 and Experiment 2,Experiment 3 used a 2(state empathy: induced group,control group)× 2(social distance: stranger,good friend)mixed experimental design to explore the effects of state empathy on third-party altruistic behavior under two social distances,stranger and good friend.The main findings are as follows:(1)induced individual state empathy affects third-party altruistic behavior,and the third-party intervention rate and payoff cost are higher in the induced group compared with the control group:(2)the greater the degree of unfairness,the higher the probability of individuals making third-party altruistic behavior decisions and the greater the degree of altruism:(3)social distance affects third-party altruistic behavior,and individuals tend to choose compensation for near violators and(3)Social distance affects third-party altruism,with individuals preferring compensation for near violators and punishment for long-distance violators.Individuals tend to intervene less and pay less for near violators than for distant violators.(4)The effect of state empathy on the intensity of third-party compensation is moderated by social distance.When the individual and the violator belonged to the far social distance relationship,the compensation intensity of the induced state empathy group was significantly higher than that of the control group.In contrast,when the individual violator belonged to the near social distance relationship,the difference between the compensation intensity of the evoked and control groups was not significant.