The Interaction Between Self And Other's Social Class In Empathy

Social class is the difference in the status of people in social life,and has an important impact on the individual's psychology and behavior.Empathy can help individuals form stable social relationships and is an important part of social life.In the previous studies of the influence of social class on empathy,the researchers mainly focused on the influence of one aspect of one's own social class and other's social class on empathy,and less on the interaction between one's own social class and other's social class on empathy.In fact,one's own social class and other's social class usually work together on the process of individual empathy with others.Exploring only one aspect is not conducive to revealing the interaction between one's own and other's social class in the process of affecting empathy.Although the existing similarity hypothesis and the positive self-concept threat hypothesis can predict this problem,the results of the two hypotheses are not consistent.Therefore,in order to explore how the social class of oneself and others work together in the process of empathy,explore which theoretical hypothesis can better explain the role of social class in empathy.We use different methods of investigation and experiment to explore the influence of self social class and other's social class on empathy.Research 1 aims to explore the relationship between self social class and other's social class and empathy.The study measured the social class of 121 college students and the empathy to others of different social classes through questionnaires.The research found that the main effect of self social class is significant,and the main effect of other's social class is significant.The interaction between self social class and other's social class is significant.The simple effect analysis found that when empathy to people in diferent social classes,the low social class group's empathy to the low social class others was significantly higher than that of the high social class;the high social class group's empathy to the low social class others was significantlyhigher than that of the high social class.From the other perspective,when empathy with other people in the lower social class,the empathy of the participants in the low social class is significantly higher than that in the high social class;when empathy with other people in the high social class,There was no significant difference in the empathy between the low social class participants and the high social class participants.Study 2 aims to explore the impact of self social class and other's social class on empathy.The study used the previous research methods to manipulate the social class of 66 subjects.The research design is a 2×2 mixed design,the social class is the between-participant factor(low VS high),the other's social class is the within-participant factor(low VS high),and the dependent variable is empathy.The study found that the main effect of self social class is marginally significant,and the main effect of other's social class is significant.The interaction between self social class and other's social class is significant.The simple effect analysis found that when empathy to people in diferent social classes,the low social class group's empathy to the low social class others was significantly higher than that of the high social class;the high social class group's empathy to the low social class others was significantly higher than that of the high social class.From the other perspective,when empathy with other people in the lower social class,the empathy of the participants in the low social class is significantly higher than that in the high social class;when empathy with other people in the high social class,There was no significant difference in the empathy between the low social class participants and the high social class participants.Study 3 is aimed at the inadequacy of previous research methods and dynamically manipulated the social class of 40 participants through the form of role-playing games.The study design was designed for 2 × 2 within-participant factorial design.The independent variables were self social class(low VS high)and other's social class(low VS high),and the dependent variable was empathy.The results show that the main effect of self social class is significant,and the main effect of other's social class is significant.The interaction between self social class and other's social class is significant.The simple effect analysis found that when empathy to people in diferent social classes,the low social class group's empathy to the low social class others was significantly higher than that of the high social class;there wasno significantly difference between the high social class group's empathy to the low social class others and high social class others.From the other perspective,when empathy with other people in the lower social class,the empathy of the participants in the low social class is significantly higher than that in the high social class;when empathy with other people in the high social class,There was no significant difference in the empathy between the low social class participants and the high social class participants.The main conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)Individuals with lower social class have higher empathy for others.This effect is stronger when it comes to empathy for others in the lower social class than when it comes to empathy for others in the high social class.(2)The individual's empathy to others in the low social class is higher than the empathy of others in the high social class.This effect is stronger when the individual's own social class is lower.(3)The positive self-concept threat hypothesis can explain the interaction between self and other social class in empathy more reasonably.