Distant Relatives Are Better Than Neighbours

In the social relationship, psychological distance is everywhere. The more intimate we are, the closer we feel psychologically. The farther the space distance is, the farther we feel psychologically. According to the Construal Level Theory, the psychological distance which people perceived from the objects determines their mental representation’s abstraction level or the construal level, which consequently affects individual’s judgment and decision-making. There are four different dimensions of psychological distance--spatial, social, temporal and hypotheticality--reflected in a similar psychology effect further influence individual’s social cognition and behavior. However, previous studies have indicated that there are inconsistent conclusions about the psychological distance and behavior. There is a view which is that the closer of the psychological distance is, the more altruistic individuals will be. Usually, people are unwilling to help those who are far away from their social distance. Another view is that even the psychological distance is far, people also will be more altruistic. Because of the impact of social norms and social desirability, under the far and future distance condition, the individuals are more willing to participate in moral altruism. Thus, even if the level of psychological distance is the same, the behavioral responses in different psychological dimensions are different. In order to explore the effect of psychological distance, spatial distance and social distance on individual’s altruistic behavior, and on the basis of predecessor’s researches, this study first discusses the relationship between spatial distance, social distance and altruistic behavior respectively. Then it further examines the difference of individual’s altruism under different levels of psychological distance, and which distance the individual is more sensitive to. Considering the fact that the individual’s behavior is influenced by values, the third research adds a variable of Social Value Orientation to explore the effect of individual’s altruism affected by psychological distance and different value orientation, as well as the sensitivity difference of psychological distance between pro-socials and pro-selfs. When faced with a help seeker in different psychological distance, whether in individual’s altruistic behavior the phenomenon of "far-off relative is better than neighbor" exists. In this research, All participants are college students. Different evaluation is adopted in the dependent variable measuring, including Likert grade evaluation and the dictator game of amount allocation. Integrated the three research results, the following conclusion is given:1. The more closer of the psychological distance, the more altruism the giver will be:individuals will be more altruistic to the help seeker with closer space distance; individuals will be more altruistic to the help seeker with closer social distance.2. Individuals are more sensitive to the social distance. Compared to the space distance, help seeker’s social distance is more likely to affect individual’s altruistic behavior.3. Compared with the pro-social, the space distance between the help seekers’and the pro-self will have a greater impact on the pro-selfs altruistic behavior.4. No matter it is the pro-social or the pro-self, either will provide more altruism to the space distance near and the social distance close (friends at the same place), compared to the space distance far-off and social distance distant (classmates in another place).5. Individuals provide more help to the distant friend than the classmates nearby, so the phenomenon" distant relatives are better than neighbor" exist.