The Influence Of Social Exclusion On Risk-taking Behavior Of College Students And Its Psychological Mechanism

In the course of the development of social relations,social exclusion often occurs.Social exclusion affects individual cognition,emotion and behavior,and even threatens the development of individual’s basic psychological needs to some extent.The demandthreat model of social exclusion points out that social exclusion affects the individual’s basic psychological needs such as relationship and effectiveness,and thus affects the individual’s subsequent behavioral tendency.Compared with adults,college students who are still in their teenage years but are independent and immature are slightly immature in their decision-making and behavioral tendencies.They are easy to be affected by external factors,which may enhance their impulsive and risky behavior tendencies.Therefore,based on the theoretical perspective of the demand-threat model of social exclusion,the current research aims to explore the influence of different types of social exclusion on different types of risk-taking behaviors of college students and explore its internal psychological mechanism..Firstly,a preliminary experiment was conducted to explore the influence of different social exclusion on different types of risk-taking behavior.In the preliminary experiment,175 college students were used to manipulate social exclusion by using the recall paradigm,and the negative risk-taking behavior scale and positive risk-taking behavior scale were used to measure risk-taking behavior.The results show that different types of social exclusion affect different types of risk-taking behaviors of college students.Specifically,being ignored(vs.being rejected and the control group)made college students more prone to negative risk-taking behaviors;Being rejected(vs.being ignored and controlled)caused college students to choose more positive risktaking behaviors.In experiment 1,a mediating variable(i.e.,demand threat)was added on the basis of the preliminary experiment to explore the influence of social exclusion on risk-taking behavior of college students and the mediating role of demand threat.In experiment 1,205 college students were used to manipulate social exclusion using the recall paradigm,and the individual’s demand threat,negative risk-taking behavior and positive risktaking behavior were measured by questionnaire.The results show that demand threat plays an intermediary role in different social exclusion and different types of risk-taking behavior.Specifically,efficacy demand stress plays a partial mediating role in neglected social exclusion and negative risk-taking behavior,and relationship demand stress plays a partial mediating role in rejected social exclusion and positive risk-taking behavior.Experiment 2 added self-acceptance as a moderating variable on the basis of experiment 1 to explore the influence of social exclusion on risk-taking behaviors of college students and explore the moderating effect of self-acceptance.In experiment 2,259 college students were used to manipulate self-acceptance training,manipulate social exclusion through recall paradigm,and measure individual demand threat and different risk-taking behaviors by questionnaire.The results show that self-acceptance plays a moderating role in the mediating model of social exclusion,demand threat and risk-taking behavior of college students.Specifically,self-acceptance plays a moderating role in cushioning the relationship between social exclusion and demand threat.On the one hand,self-acceptance alleviates the relationship between neglected social exclusion and the threat of effectiveness demand;on the other hand,selfacceptance alleviates the relationship between rejected social exclusion and the threat of relationship demand.In conclusion,the research results confirm the influence of social exclusion on risk-taking behaviors of college students,in which social exclusion threatens the psychological needs of individuals and thus affects risk-taking behaviors of college students.Self-acceptance plays a moderating role in this process,which can help alleviate the psychological threats of college students after suffering social exclusion.