The Influence Of Social Exclusion On The Prosocial Behavior Of Hearing Impaired College Students: The Mediating Role Of Emotional Emotion And State Affection

It’s a fundamental and pervasive need to form and maintain social connection among human beings, and a vast amount of evidence has shown consistently that social exclusion has detrimental effects on one’s physical health, psychological well-being and prosocial behavior in the short and long term. For hearing-impaired individuals in late adolescence, the society, in particular, the hearing group is becoming more and more important contexts especially after the transition to college life and society, and participation in this group is vital for integration just as in their hearing-impaired group. The truth is, hearing loss affects social experiences, hearing-impaired students often have an array of difficulties integrating into mainstream society, which threatens their prosocial behavior.Thus far, people spend more on hearing-impaired students’rehabilitation, while few studies have focused on hearing-impaired students’social development. Relatively, little is known about hearing-impaired their’prosocial behavior and empathy. The normal development of empathy has been proposed to be imperative to mankind’s prosocial behavior, there is still much about the way of social exclusion and empathy acting on prosocial behavior that isn’t known. The current research pays attention to effects of social exclusion on prosocial behavior and the mediator role of dispositional empathy and state empathy in social exclusion and prosocial behavior.The main objective of Study 1 was to examine the levels of perceived social acceptance, social exclusion, and prosocial behavior among hearing-impaired undergraduates with distinct education placement experience. Meanwhile, trait empathy’s hypothesized role linking social acceptance and exclusion to prosocial behavior was also explored. A battery of questionnaires, including the Acceptability to Others Scale, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, and the Prosocial Tendencies Measure, was administered to 174 hearing-impaired undergraduates and 212 normal undergraduates. The results showed that:(1)The overall levels of prosocial behavior tendencies among hearing-impaired and normal undergraduates were relatively high and manifested no significant difference, besides, the sorting status of prosocial behavior tendencies across specific situations among two samples was consistent. (2)Hearing-impaired undergraduates’ genuine prosocial behavior, i.e., voluntary experience, was significantly less than that of normal students. (3)The level of hearing-impaired students’ trait empathy was significantly lower than that of normal student. (4)Compared with hearing-impaired students with no experience of learning in regular class, those who once learned in regular class failed to gain a salient elevation in their social acceptance perception. (5)Among hearing-impaired students, trait empathy served as a full mediator between perceived social acceptance and prosocial behavior. Nevertheless, trait empathy was a partial mediator among normal students.In Study 2, the group where help seekers belonged was divided into in-and out-group. The study examined the impact of manipulation-induced social exclusion on prosocial behavior, the variation of state empathy, and its mediating effect between social exclusion and prosocial behavior among hearing-impaired undergraduates.In Experiment 1, prosocial behavior in non-urgent situations was examined. First, participants filled out the Group Identification Inventory. Afterwards, the cyberball program was employed to trigger participants’social exclusion perception. Then they completed a questionnaire including the measure of exclusion perception and a revised state empathy scale. Two-way covariance analysis showed that:(1)In the social acceptance situation, regardless of whether help seekers were from in- or out-group, participants’ willingness to provide help in a non-urgent situation was close to average level and showed no difference. However, in the social exclusion situation, a significant difference was found among in-versus out-group member. (2)When help seeker was a in-group member, participants’ willingness to provide help in the social acceptance versus social exclusion situation displayed no difference. (3)When help seeker was a out-group member, a significant difference was identified in the willingness to help in the social acceptance versus exclusion situation. (4)There was a marginally significant difference in state empathy level in two distinct situations. (5)State empathy played a fully mediating role between exclusion and prosocial behavior in non-urgent situation.Furthermore, the author explored prosocial behavior status in urgent situations in Experiment 2. The results of two-way covariance analysis were largely identical to those of Experiment 2. Additionally, state empathy played a partial mediating role between social exclusion and prosocial behavior.Based on the forementioned studies, the main conclusions can be drawn as follows:(1)Hearing-impaired undergraduates showed prosocial behavior tendencies to some degree, but they lacked the genuine prosocial behavior and displayed a relatively low level of empathy.(2)In general, hearing-impaired undergraduates displayed relatively low social acceptance perception. Moreover, those who once learned in regular class failed to gain an evident promotion in perceived social acceptance, which means this measure’s role in encourage special students to merge into normal peer groups is somehow limited.(3)The perceived social exclusion exerted an influence on hearing-impaired students’ prosocial behavior through the mediating effect of empathy.(4)In the social exclusion situation, when the help seeker was an in-group member, hearing-impaired students’ prosocial behavior remained to be the same level.Therefore, their willingness to provide help to a in-group member was fairly stable. However, hearing-impaired students’ prosocial behavior substantially declined when the help seeker was an out-group member. In addition, this tendency was duplicated both in the non-urgent and urgent situation.