Effects Of Social Dominance Orientation And Stereotype On Social Distance

As the rapid development is taking place in China, the gap between the rich and poor is enlarging and the stratum differentiation becomes more obvious. Therefore, to promote harmonious development of our society, we should shorten social distance between different hierarchy, and strengthen social integration of them. In light of these issues mentioned, the paper, mainly from the perspective of individual differences, explored the influence that individual social dominance orientation and stratum cognition(stereotypes for different hierarchy) exerted on the social distance; meanwhile, it investigated the integration of different social hierarchy, that is, upper, middle and lower. In the first three experiments, the college students as the sample of middle stratum were chosen as object of study to explore their social distance with the upper and lower hierarchy and influence mechanism of them as well. And in following three experiments, waiters and migrant workers as the sample of lower stratum were chosen to further explore their social distance with the upper stratum and influence mechanism of them. Specifically, experiment 1 and experiment 4 explored the influence of individual social dominance orientation on the stratum society distance; experiment 2 and experiment 5 explored the influence of individual’s stereotype on social distance; experiment3 and experiment6,based on the other four, further explored whether mediating effect existed in the process during which social dominance orientation affected social distance in terms of stratum stereotype.The results are as follows:(1)In the group of middle stratum, individuals with high social dominance orientation feel stranger to upper stratum but closer to lower stratum;(2) the individuals who hold more positive stereotype to the upper stratum feel stranger to the lower stratum but closer to the upper stratum in comparison with these who hold negative one;(3) the stereotype acts as a mediator between social dominance orientation and social distance;(4) No matter whether individuals have high or low social dominance orientation or hold positive or negative stereotypes, the social distance between lower and upper hierarchy is much further than that between middle and upper hierarchy. Key words: hierarchy; socia...