The Influence Of Different Types Of Social Norms On Pro-social Behavior: The Moderating Effect Of Multiple Factors

Prosocial behavior is beneficial to individuals and society,and exploring its effective influencing factors is of great significance to promote the harmonious development of society.Current studies generally show that social norms can promote prosocial behavior,but the impact of different types of social norms on prosocial behavior is still controversial.On the one hand,normative focus theory holds that people are more likely to follow descriptive norms because they use fewer cognitive resources;On the other hand,the theory of social identity holds that people will follow imperative norms more often,because imperative norms can stimulate behavior across situations.It is possible that the boundary conditions of the relationship between the two have not been sufficiently concerned by the existing studies.Therefore,this study further examines the influence of different types of social norms on prosocial behavior,and introduces the expression of social norms and social context to explore the moderating factors of social norms on prosocial behavior.This study further explored the secondary moderating effect of visual cues on prosocial behavior in different situations.This study includes 1 pre-experiment and 4 formal experiments.The purpose of the pre-experiment is to evaluate two social situations(social gain vs.social loss)for formal experiments and to provide an effective data reference for the manipulation of social norms.First,experiment 1 examines the impact of different types of social norms(descriptive specification vs.imperative specification)on prosocial behavior through field experiments.Secondly,from the perspective of the internal factors of social norms,experiment 2 discusses the moderating role of positive and negative statements(definitely vs.negative)in the influence of social norms on prosocial behavior.From the external environmental factors of social norms,experiment 3 discusses the moderating effect of social situations(benefits vs.losses)on prosocial behaviors influenced by social norms.Finally,in order to explore the multi-level interaction between social norms,social situations and visual cues,experiment 4 introduced visual cues as an environmental factor on the basis of experiment 3.Experiment 4 attempts to construct a secondary moderating effect of the influence of social norms on prosocial behavior by visual cues(yes vs.no)in different social situations.The result shows that:(1)Prosocial behavior in both imperative and descriptive norms is significantly higher than that in non-normative group,and descriptive norms can improve individual prosocial behavior level more than imperative norms.(2)The negative statement can promote the prosocial level of individuals more than the positive statement of social norms,and the way of statement regulates the influence of social norms on prosocial behavior.Specifically,the prosocial behavior under the condition of positive statement is significantly higher than that under the condition of imperative statement.Under the condition of negative statement,there is no significant difference in prosocial behavior between the two social norms.(3)Compared with the social loss situation,the prosocial level of the individual in the social benefit situation is higher,and the social situation adjusts the influence of social norms on prosocial behavior.Specifically,in the context of social benefit,the prosocial level of descriptive norms is higher than that of imperative norms;in the context of social loss,there is no significant difference in prosocial behavior between the two social norms.(4)The third-order interaction of social norms,social situations,and visual cues is significant,and there is a secondary moderating effect in which social norms affect prosocial behavior.Specifically,under the condition of visual cues in social benefit situations,descriptive norms can participants' behavior better than imperative norms.In the context of social loss,descriptive norms with visual cues can promote prosocial behaviors more than imperative norms,and descriptive norms can promote prosocial behavior more than imperative norms without visual cues.In summary,the results of this study show that the influence of social norms on individual prosocial behavior is regulated by the internal presentation mode and external social situation factors of social norms,and there is a secondary regulation effect of visual cues.To some extent,this provides a basis for discussing clearly the boundary conditions of social norms influencing prosocial behaviors,and also provides a reference for relevant organizations and departments to guide their individual prosocial behaviors by using social norms.