Effects Of Perceived Justice On Collective Action Tendency：the Mediating Role Of Anger

After the reform and open policy, our country has entered into a rapiddevelopment of economic and social transition period. In order to adapt to the newsystem of Socialist Market Economy, significant changes of social operationmechanism and social interest structure have taken place. Economic growthstimulated the people’s material and cultural needs, but in a short period of time, theexisting social productivity level still cannot meet the increasing demands. It is thisfact that creates a sense of relative deprivation. Combined with the transitional periodof society all sorts of drawbacks exposed, which deepened the public’s sense ofrelative deprivation and injustice. Due to the lack of effective mechanism ofemotional catharsis, some ordinary events became the fuse of the mass incidentswhich attract the public attentions. These events have brought about great socialinfluence, causing the property losses and casualties, increasing the original sense ofrelative deprivation and injustice. The most important is that these events becomeunderlying causes which threat social stability. In view of this, research and developan early warning mechanism of mass incidents is extremely urgent. Occurrence ofmass incidents in China is a typical representative of the collective action. Therefore,this study aims to explore the influence factors of collective action and the role of thefactors in providing theoretical references.This research adopts the experimental and questionnaire investigation method,using a total of522college students as subjects. The measurement included belief in ajust world scale, questionnaire of collective action tendency, the family socialeconomy status questionnaire and Buss-Perry aggression questionnaire. The stimulusmaterial of experimental group and control group are different. By using the methodsof correlation analysis and regression analysis, we examine the relationship among the belief in a just world, family socioeconomic status, gender, individual aggression,sense of justice and anger and collective action tendency. Main conclusions are asfollows:(1) The exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis of collective actiontendency questionnaire suggests that the questionnaire consists of two factors—verbal participation and physical actions involved.(2)Both collective action tendency and physical actions involved exist significantgender differences. Scores of men on collective action tendency and physical actionsinvolved are higher than women’.(3) Family socioeconomic status significantly predicts collective action andverbal participation. Additionally, the differences on scores of verbal participationamong low level, medium level and high level of family SES are salient. Specifically,the scores of verbal participation on low level of family SES are significantly higherthan that on high level of family SES. The scores of verbal participation on low levelof family SES are significantly higher than that on medium level of family SES.There are no significant differences between the scores of verbal participation onmedium level of family SES and the scores of verbal participation on high level offamily SES.(4) Individual aggression and its dimensions significantly predict the collectiveaction tendency included verbal participation and physical actions involved.Specifically, individual aggression significantly predict the collective actiontendency，verbal participation and physical actions involved. Physical aggressionsignificantly predict the collective action tendency included verbal participation andphysical actions involved. Verbal aggression significantly predicts the collectiveaction tendency and verbal participation. Anger significantly predicts the collectiveaction tendency included verbal participation and physical actions involved. Hostilitysignificantly predicts the collective action tendency and verbal participation.(5) Personal belief in a just world does not have significant correlation with senseof justice. General belief in a just world does not have significant correlation withsense of justice. Both personal belief in a just world and general belief in a just world are not significantly associated with collective action tendency.(6) Sense of justice correlates negatively with the collective action tendency andverbal participation.(7)Anger significantly predicts the collective action tendency, verbalparticipation and physical actions involved. The scores of high anger group and lowanger group on collective action tendency and verbal participation are significantlydifference, respectively.(8)Anger acts as the mediator between sense of justice and the collective actiontendency. Anger acts as the mediator between sense of justice and the verbalparticipation.