社会距离对成败行为性别归因偏差的影响

The Effect of Social Distance on Sexual Attribution Bias of Success or Failure

在陌生人和熟人两种社会距离下,让被试对同、异性成败行为进行归因,考查性别归因偏差现象(对异性美化、对同性贬损的归因)在社会距离上的变化。结果发现:(1)对于成功行为:被试对陌生异性做出的美化归因(能力-运气)显著高于陌生同性,出现性别归因偏差;被试对同、异性好友做出的美化归因差异不显著。(2)对于失败行为:被试对陌生同、异性做出的美化归因(运气-能力)差异不显著;被试对异性好友做出的美化归因显著高于同性,出现性别归因偏差。结论:性别归因偏差,在远社会距离他人表现成功时出现,表现失败时消失;在近社会距离他人表现成功时消失,表现失败时出现。结合相关研究和进化理论对结果进行了讨论。

According to the recently discovered Sexual Attribution Bias （SAB）, young adults attributed the success of same-sex attractive persons in a more derogative way （more luck, less ability） than the success of less attractive same-sex stimulus persons, whereas this pattern is reversed for members of the opposite sex. Researchers believed that the SAB caused by mating motivation, which appeared when individuals want to attract the good-looking straight and to defend self-worth in the mating competition with good-looking same-sex. However, the SAB subsided in failure scenarios, because failure weakened the attractiveness of good-looking. These conclusions were derived from the set of the stimulus persons who were strangers. In fact, people often make mate choice among acquaintances. Given that the stimulus person is close to us, will SAB still emerge？ In this study, experiment was conducted to examine the SAB of successful or failure behaviors of different social distance people.With the self- made attribution of success or failure questionnaire as a tool, a random sample of 295 undergraduates participated in the experiment. All participators were divided into four groups. They were randomly assigned to attribution （to ability, luck） of the successful or failure behaviors of their same-sex friends, opposite sex friends, same-sex strangers, or opposite sex strangers. Then, the attributions were adjusted as follows： the attribution of success to ability minus luck as indicator of glorifying attribution of success; and the attribution of failure to luck minus ability as indicator of glorifying attribution of failure. The change of SAB was examined by considering attribution of success or failure to people with different social distance. The results showed that： （1） Social distance and sex difference had an interaction effect on the glorifying attributions of the successful behaviors. Participants attributed the successful behaviors of an opposed sex stranger in a more glorifying way （more ability, less luck） than a same-sex stranger. The glorifying way in which participants attributed the successful behaviors of their same-sex and opposed sex friends were not different significantly. （2） Social distance and sex difference had an interaction effect on the glorifying attributions of the failure behaviors. The glorifying way in which participants attributed the failure behaviors of their same-sex and opposed sex strangers was not different significantly. Participants attributed the failure behaviors of the opposed sex friend in a more glorifying way （less ability, more luck） than the same-sex friend. These results indicated that the SAB appeared in the successful scenarios of the far social distance others, but disappeared in failure scenarios of far social distance others; the SAB appeared in failure scenarios of near social distance others, but disappeared in successful scenarios of near social distance others. These suggest that when dealing with strangers, excellent performance can attract the opposite sex, but might be rejected by the same sex; poor performance can reduce the attractiveness of the opposite sex, but also reduce the rejection of the same sex. On the contrary, when dealing with close persons, compared with outstanding performance, defective performance （such as appropriate ratio of show weakness） is more attractive to the opposite sex; however, outstanding performance can get more appreciation and admiration from the same sex.