The Effect Of Visual Cues With Different Valence On Individual Cooperative Behavior

How to solve the social dilemma in cooperation has always been the focus of researchers’ attention and discussion.In recent years,researchers have been trying to explore cooperative behavior from the perspective of input environmental stimuli,and the emergence of visual cues in the environment has increasingly attracted the interest of researchers.Visual cues are a kind of evolutionarily relevant cues,and also a social cue,social existence or environmental cue.Although some studies have explored the influence of visual cues on cooperative behavior,the conclusions reached are quite different,and the theoretical explanations given are not consistent.Some researchers believe that visual cues can increase people’s cooperative behavior,even if such cues are weak;however,some researchers have found that visual cues have no direct effect on cooperative behavior,and some researchers believe that the existence of visual cues is conditional.One reason for this is that most of the current research uses neutral eye images,but has not yet explicitly focused on the nature and valences of visual cues,so it is possible to explore cooperative behavior when presenting positive or negative eye images.Further to explain the different effects of visual cues.Based on the relevant literature,this study examines the effects of visual cues with different valence on individual cooperative behavior and the mechanism.This paper reports a pre-study and four formal experimental studies in which the purpose of the pre-study is to screen out positive,negative,and neutral eye picture materials to manipulate different valence of visual cues in formal experiments.The formal experiment used the paradigm of public goods dilemma to detect cooperative behavior,and the experiment 1 examined the influence of visual cues(eyes picture vs.none)on cooperative behavior;Experiment 2 further examined the effects of visual cues(positive vs.negative vs.control)with different valence on cooperative behavior;Experiment 3,based on relevant literature,introduces emotion as a potential mediator variable to detect its mediating role between positive and negative visual cues and cooperative behavior;Based on the relevant literature,Experiment 4 introduces social distance as a potential moderate variable,in order to clarify the external boundary conditions of positive and negative visual cues affecting cooperative behavior on the basis of Experiment 3,and construct an mediate-moderate model.The results showed that:(1)compared with no visual cues,the cooperative behavior of individuals increases significantly under the condition of visual cues;(2)compared with negative visual cues and control conditions,individuals are more willing to increase their cooperativebehavior under positive visual cues;(3)emotion mediated the influence of the valence of visual cues on cooperative behavior.Compared with negative visual cues,individuals have higher positive emotions under positive visual cues,and thus their level of cooperation is higher;(4)Social distance indirectly moderate the influence of the valence of visual cues on cooperative behavior through emotion,that is,there is an mediate-moderate model.Individuals who make decisions for themselves and make decisions for others generate more positive emotions under positive visual cues,thereby increasing their cooperative behavior,but individuals who make decisions for themselves are more affected by visual cues.As a result,visual cues in the environment will have different effects on cooperation due to different valences,which can further enrich the research in the field of environmental stimuli and cooperation,and also provide some inspiration for solving cooperative problems in social distress to some extent.It provides a reference for the use of social norms and cooperative societies in related fields.