集体主义与亲社会行为:群体认同的作用

Collectivism and Prosocial Behaviors: The Role of Ingroup Identity

从进化的视角来看,集体主义强调人际互依与社会责任,因而会促进亲社会行为。然而,近来的跨文化研究发现,生活在集体主义社会的个体表现出较低的亲社会倾向,这挑战了经典的理论,也暗示集体主义与亲社会行为的关系背后可能有一些深层的社会心理因素有待检验。本研究基于决策游戏任务,探讨了两个不同文化群体的集体主义和亲社会行为以及群体认同的作用。结果发现:一般亲社会行为、集体主义与群体认同上均无显著的群体差异,但是特殊亲社会行为存在显著的群体差异,且群体认同在集体主义与特殊亲社会行为之间存在有调节的中介作用。本研究揭示了集体主义与亲社会行为关系的群体一致性和差异性——尽管总体而言中国人表现出一致的集体主义和亲社会倾向,但不同群体的集体主义对亲社会行为有不同的作用路径,集体主义更可能对群体身份相关的特殊亲社会行为起到促进作用,而对指向陌生人的一般亲社会行为作用很有限。

It has been well documented that collectivism,as cultural values of duty and interdependence,plays a critical role in boosting prosocial behaviors(PB).However,recent cross-cultural researches reveal that as compared to those in individualistic societies,people in collectivist ones show a lower tendency for PB,which challenges the traditional rationale and suggests a nuanced model underlying the relationship of collectivism to PB.Based on dictator games,the present research was to examine the relationship of collectivism to PB and the effect of ethnic identity among two cultural groups in China.As expected,the results showed that there was no significant group difference in generalized PB(donation to strangers),collectivism,and ingroup identity,but a significant group difference in particularized PB(donation to culture-related temples).Furthermore,the major group’s collectivism was positively related to generalized PB while the minor group’s collectivism was positively related to particularized PB,and ingroup identity served as a mediator between their collectivism and particularized PB.The current findings demonstrate the cross-ethnic universality and variation of collectivism and PB,that is,there are different ways in translating collectivism into PB among different cultural groups,although different Chinese groups share similar cultural values(collectivism)and general prosociality;And for the minor group,collectivism promotes PB as the function of their ingroup identity,rather than as the favor for strangers in a general way.