The Influence Of Social Class On Prosocial Behavior

Prosocial behavior refers to all the behaviors in line with the well-being of others,communities or the whole society,and ultimately conducive to individual growth and the social harmony as a whole.Social class has a deep influence on people's psychological activities and behavior;its effect on prosocial behavior,however,is a controversial issue in academic circles.From the perspective of positive psychology,the study explores the influence of social class on prosocial behavior.On the other hand,character strengths as the mediating variable and relative deprivation as the moderating variable,the study aims at discovering the affecting mechanism and conditions of social class.Study 1,a subjective social economic status MacArthur scale is used to measure the research object of subjective social class,using annual family income level,parents and their own highest level of education the four objective indicators to measure the objective social class,with donation willingness and behavior questionnaire to measure the prosocial behavior,use a brief strengths scale to measure character strengths.This study discusses the influence of social class on prosocial behavior and the mediating effect of character strengths.Study 2,social class was measured using the same indicators,Prosocial Tendencies Measure is used to measure the prosocial behavior,Chinese Virtues Questionnaire is used to measure the character strengths,Personal Relative Deprivation Scale is used to measure the personal relative deprivation,further study the relationship of social class and social behavior and verify the mediation effect of character strengths and inspection regulation effect of personal relative deprivation.The results are as follows:(1)Subjective social class has significant positive predictive effect on character strengths and prosocial behavior;Character strengths dominance also has significant positive predictive effect on prosocial behavior.(2)Character strengths play a complete mediating role between subjective social class and prosocial behavior.(3)Relative deprivation has a adjusting effect on subjective social class and character strengths.(4)Relative deprivation negatively adjusts the mediating effect of character strengths between subjective social class and prosocial behavior significantly.Namely,in the context of low relative deprivation,the mediating effect is enhanced,and vice versa.The conclusions are as follows:(1)Individuals with higher social class show more prosocial behavior;(2)Character strengths play a complete mediating role between social class and prosocial behavior;(3)Relative deprivation moderates the relationship between social class and prosocial behavior.