The Relationship Between Relative Deprivation And Aggressive Behavior In College Students: The Role Of Emotion Regulation Strategies And Hostility Attribution

Since delinquency,violence or aggression by college students is very socially harmful,it is important to study the causes of these antisocial behaviors.Relative deprivation is the individual’s perception of his or her own disadvantage compared to the reference group.When individuals experience situations of relative deprivation,the negative emotions that ensu can easily trigger their aggressive behavior.Although this approach can reduce their emotional experience of tension and anger,these behaviors are not socially acceptable.Therefore,in order to better help college students reduce relative deprivation and then reduce aggression in a positive and reasonable way,this study used the Relative Deprivation Scale,Buss-Perry Attack Questionnaire,Chinese WASP-hostility Scale,and ERS Emotion Regulation Questionnaire to test a total of 518 college students in two universities to explore the influence mechanism of college students’ relative deprivation on aggressive behavior.The results showed that:(1)In terms of gender,boys’ relative deprivation,expression inhibition,physical aggression and directed self-aggression were significantly greater than those of girls,and girls’ cognitive reevaluation was significantly greater than that of boys;In terms of grade,the hostility attribution and aggressive behavior of senior students were significantly lower than those of other grade students,and the expression inhibition of juniors was significantly lower than that of senior students.In terms of whether it is an only child,the expression inhibition of the only child is significantly higher than that of the non-only child.(2)College students’ relative deprivation was positively correlated with hostile attribution,expression inhibition and aggressive behavior and all dimensions.Hostile attribution was significantly positively correlated with emotion regulation strategies,aggressive behaviors and all dimensions.Cognitive reassessment is significantly negatively correlated with physical aggression and directed self-aggression in aggressive behavior.(3)Hostility attribution and expression inhibition have simple mediating effects between relative deprivation and aggressive behavior,respectively.(4)Hostility attribution and cognitive reassessment have a chain mediating effect between relative deprivation and aggressive behavior;Hostility attribution and expression suppression have a chain mediating effect between relative deprivation and aggressive behavior.