The Relationship Between Social Exclusion And Prosocial Behavior Tendency:The Mediating Role Of Relative Deprivation And The Moderating Role Of Emotional Regulation Strategies

Social exclusion and prosocial behavior have long been the focus of research in the fields of sociology and psychology.Researchers have also done a lot of research on the relationship between the two,but get contradictory results.Some researchers believe that the lack of analysis on different forms of social exclusion,or the lack of in-depth discussion on the constraints of social exclusion affecting prosocial behaviors,such as some mediating and moderating mechanisms,may lead to contradictory results in this field.Based on previous studies and theories,this study explored the mediating effect of relative deprivation and the moderating effect of emotional regulation strategies through one pre-experiment and three experiments,and explored the psychological and behavioral mechanism of prosocial behavior from the perspectives of individuals and the environment.The social exclusion pre-experiment takes “cyberball” as the experimental material to explore whether social exclusion is successfully manipulated.Thirty-three subjects were recruited on the online platform of TCL Psychology,and a total of 30 valid samples were collected.The results of the independent sample t-test show that the score of the participants in the social rejection group is significantly higher than that in the social acceptance group,indicating that the social exclusion manipulation is effective.In Experiment 1,the “cyberball” was used to induce social exclusion(exclusion/acceptance),the relative deprivation questionnaire was used to measure the relative deprivation,and the dictator game paradigm was used to measure the prosocial behavior toward the excluded person.Participants were recruited online,and 145 valid samples were collected.The results show that:(1)Social exclusion has a significantly negative predictive effect on prosocial behavior tendency;(2)Social exclusion has a significantly positive predictive effect on relative deprivation(3)Relative deprivation plays a mediating role between social exclusion and prosocial behavior.In Experiment 2,the “classical recall paradigm” was used to induce social exclusion(social rejection/social neglect/control group),Ma Ai’s relative deprivation questionnaire measures relative deprivation,and the public goods game paradigm in cooperative behavior measures prosocial behavior toward the ostracizer..A total of 122 valid samples were collected.The results showed that:(1)There was no significant difference in relative deprivation between the social rejection group and the social neglect group,but they were both significantly higher than the control group.The margin of prosocial behavior in the social rejection group was significantly lower than that in the social neglect group,and both social rejection and social neglect prosocial behavior were significantly lower than those in the control group.(2)With the control group as the reference,the mediating effect of the social neglect group is not significant,while the social rejection group is significant.In Experiment 3,the “classical recall paradigm” was used to induce social exclusion,the relative deprivation questionnaire was used to measure relative deprivation,the emotional regulation strategy guidance language was used to control emotional regulation strategy(cognitive reappraisal/expression suppression/control group),and the public goods game paradigm in cooperative behavior was used to measure prosocial behavior.Subjects were recruited from a university in Hubei Province,and 109 valid samples were collected.The results showed that: when taking the control group as the reference:(1)for the social neglect group.When there was no emotion regulation strategy,the social neglect group could completely mediate prosocial behavior through relative deprivation.(2)For the social rejection group,when there was no emotion regulation strategy,the mediating effect of relative deprivation in the social rejection group was the largest;when the cognitive reappraisal strategy was used,the mediating effect was small;when the expression inhibition strategy was used,the mediating effect did not exist.Based on the analysis results of the above three experiments,this study draws the following conclusions:(1)social exclusion negatively affects prosocial behavior,and the negative impact of social rejection is higher than that of social neglect;(2)Relative deprivation plays a mediating role in the relationship between social exclusion and prosocial behavior.Specifically,social rejection can affect the prosocial behavior of familiar individuals and strange individuals through the mediation of relative deprivation,while social neglect can completely mediate the effect of relative deprivation on the prosocial behavior of strange individuals.(3)Emotion regulation strategies can alleviate the adverse effects of social exclusion on prosocial behavior through relative deprivation,and the effect of expression inhibition is the best.The research conclusions reveal the internal mechanism of different types of social exclusion affecting different prosocial behavior and the boundary conditions of social exclusion effect,which has certain enlightenment significance for promoting the development of prosocial behavior of college students,and provides important reference and effective practical guidance for building a harmonious society.