高社会阶层者的财富分享行为及其促进

Wealth Sharing Behavior among High Social Class People and its Interventions

高阶层者有着较高的权利感和较低的同情心,从而在社会互动中表现出较少的促进他人福祉的财富分享行为。在实践中,可以通过符合自我能动性目标、匹配动机需求、降低权利感与激发同情心等个体层面策略以及缩小经济不平等与培育关注他人的社会氛围等社会层面策略促进高阶层者的财富分享行为。未来研究应努力探寻促进高阶层者财富分享行为的长效激励机制,并有针对性地将现有研究结论应用到我国重大社会实践中去。

With rising economic inequality around the world in recent decades, the public has shown great focus on the wealth sharing behavior among the rich, which may help reduce economic inequality. However, most recent evidence suggests that compared to those from low social class, people from high social class tend to share and give less others. How to explain this phenomenon? Are there any interventions which would be effective to encourage and promote wealth sharing behavior of high social class people?Based on the perspective of social psychology, in this review, we suggested that high social class have a high sense of entitlement and low compassion in interpersonal communication, which makes people to engage in less wealth sharing behavior, prioritizing self-interest over the interests of others. Supporting this argument, studies have shown that relative to low social class counterparts, high social class individuals reported higher sense of entitlement and lower score of compassion, which led them to donate proportionally less of their income to charity and give less in dictator games.But how to improve wealth sharing behavior among high social class? We suggest two levels of factors: individual and social levels factors, could be used. At the individual level,(1) Meeting agentic goals, such as viewing a charitable message that focused on the pursuit of personal goals rather than the pursuit of shared goals,(2) Matching motivational needs, such as reputation or good psychological experience, and(3) Inducing a lower sense of entitlement by correcting attributions of the poor or inspiring compassion by watching videos of poor children, will help to increase wealth sharing of high social class. At the social level, evidence shows that economic inequality weakens generosity among the high social class, suggesting that the policy to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor may encourage high social class people to promote the well-being of the lower classL. Besides, cultivating other-oriented culture in community may also help to encourage wealth sharing behavior of high social class.Before closing, we should briefly outline some potential avenues for future research. First, it is necessary to pay more attention to the classifications and measurements of social class(e.g., to focus on the middle class group and to clarify the distinct facets, such as income, education, and occupation, of social class), so as to systematically and deeply explore the relationship between social class and wealth sharing behavior. Second, we should explore the deep psychological mechanisms that may influence wealth sharing behavior of high social class, such as the individual’s selforiented psychological tendencies. Third, we should explore the long-term incentive mechanisms(i.e., emotional benefits of sharing behavior) that could improve and promote wealth sharing behavior of high social class. Finally, we should focus on social issues(i.e., poverty, wealth and income inequality) in China, and apply the existing research evidence and conclusions that could help to solve our real social problems.