The Influence Of Subjective Social Class On Cooperative Behavior In Social Dilemma:Expectation Or Empathy

In recent years,many studies have discussed the influence of subjective social class on prosocial behavior,and the results are inconsistent.Some studies have found that people with higher subjective social class have more prosocial behaviors such as helping others,trust and donation,while others have found that people with lower subjective social class have more of the above behaviors.In the interpretation of relevant research results,some researchers focus on the cognitive path(such as the expectation of others’ cooperative behavior),while others focus on the emotional path(such as empathy),which has not yet formed a complete picture.In addition,the existing studies pay less attention to the cooperation of people from different subjective social strata in the social dilemma of individual and collective interest conflict,and do not comprehensively investigate and compare the cooperative behavior under the two different frameworks of "giving" and "taking".Based on previous studies,this study intends to take the subjects’ performance in the two social dilemma tasks of public goods game("give")and public resources game("take")as the indicators of cooperative behavior,and comprehensively investigate the differences of cooperative behavior between high and low subjective social strata and their potential psychological mechanisms and influencing conditions.This study intends to answer three questions: 1 Whether and how does subjective social class affect cooperative behavior in social dilemma? 2.Why does subjective social class affect cooperative behavior in social dilemma? 3.What conditions regulate the role of subjective social stratum in cooperative behavior in social dilemma? In order to answer these questions,this study consists of three interrelated and relatively independent research institutes.Study 1 included two experiments: Experiment 1 used subjective social class scale and cooperation intention questionnaire to explore the relationship between subjective social class and overall cooperation intention;Experiment 2 adopts the experimental design of 2(subjective social class: high / low)* 2(given task: public goods/ public resources).Observe the amount given and taken by the high and low social classes on the tasks of public goods game and public resources game as the index of their cooperative behavior,and investigate the similarities and differences of their cooperative behavior.Through the comprehensive analysis of the data of the two studies,to answer the above question 1.In view of the existing problem of which is the more important cognitive and emotional path of subjective social class affecting prosocial behavior,study2 discusses the intermediary mechanism of subjective social class affecting cooperative behavior in social dilemma through three studies.Experiment 3 explored whether the expectation of others’ cooperative behavior(cooperative expectation)mediated the relationship between subjective social class and cooperative behavior;Experiment 4explored whether empathy mediated the relationship between subjective social class and cooperative behavior;Experiment 5 explored the relationship between cooperative expectation and empathy and their relative role.In Study 3,the social value orientation as personal factors and the social stratum as the object of the game as external factors are selected as regulatory variables to investigate whether they will change the relationship between subjective social stratum and cooperative behavior and their complex interaction effects.In Experiment 6,the experimental design of 2(subjective social class: high / low)* 2(opposite social class: high / low)* 2(given task: public goods / public resources)was used to investigate the regulatory effect of the social class of the game object;Based on the experimental 6 data,a moderated mediation model is established to explore the moderating effect of the social stratum of the game object on the mediation path.Experiment 7 used an experimental design of 2(subjective social class: high / low)* 2(social value orientation: Pro social / personal)* 2(given task: public goods / public resources)to investigate the regulatory effect of social value orientation;Based on the experimental 7 data,a regulated intermediary model is established to explore the regulatory role of social value orientation in the intermediary path.The results show that: 1 Both in terms of cooperation intention and cooperation behavior,subjective social class positively predicts cooperation.Overall,the level of individual cooperative behavior under the "give" task framework is slightly higher than that under the "take" framework.2.Cooperation expectation plays an intermediary role between subjective social stratum and cooperative behavior in "giving" and "taking" tasks;Empathy only mediates the relationship between subjective social class and cooperative behavior in the task of "giving".The parallel mediating model of expectation and empathy is established,and the mediating effect of cooperative expectation is greater than that of empathy.3.The social stratum and social value orientation of the other party play a regulatory role: the latter half of the intermediary path of "subjective social stratum empathy cooperative behavior" and "subjective social stratum cooperative expectation cooperative behavior" in the "giving" task play a regulatory role,and the latter half of the intermediary path of "subjective social stratum cooperative expectation cooperative behavior" in the "taking" task also plays a regulatory role;Social value orientation plays a regulatory role in the second half of the intermediary path of "subjective social stratum cooperative expectation cooperative behavior" and "subjective social stratum empathy cooperative behavior" in the task of "giving".The above research results show that,in general,those with higher subjective social class show more cooperative behavior in the two social dilemma tasks of "giving" and "taking",but the psychological mechanisms of "giving" and "taking" are different.The former is more mediated by cooperative expectation,and the latter is more mediated by empathy.Relatively speaking,in the task of "giving",the role of subjective social stratum on cooperative behavior is more stable,and the expected role is greater than the role of empathy.This study systematically reveals the psychological mechanism and boundary conditions of subjective social stratum affecting cooperative behavior,deepens the understanding of the relationship between social stratum and cooperative behavior,and enriches the research results in related fields.