In the present research, based on the game research paradigm, the research tools are the dictator game and the trust game, and the research objects are Chinese university students. We adopt 2(self-social class: high, low) × 2(target social class: high, low) between-subjects design experiment to investigate the influence of social class on university students’ prosocial behavior. Across the experimental study, we find that (1) in the two situations of dictator game and trust game, self-social class has no significant influence on university students’ prosocial behavior; (2) in the situation of dictator game, target social class has a significant influence on university students’ prosocial behavior, and it is regulated by self-social class. Under the condition of low self-social class, the higher the target social class, the more prosocial behavior of university students, which confirms the perspective of status and negates “if you are poor, you will be good for yourself.” Under the condition of high self-social class, the lower the target social class, the more prosocial the behavior of university students, which confirms the perspective of fairness and echoes “if you are good, you will be good at the world”; (3) in the context of the trust game, target social class has a significant influence on university students’ prosocial behavior, and there is no interaction effect with self-social class.
Social class has always been the subject of economics and sociology. In recent years, the role of social class in shaping individual behavior has attracted increasing attention in the field of psychology. Prosocial behavior refers to all behaviors that voluntarily benefit others, including all positive and socially responsible behaviors such as helping others, sharing, humility, cooperation, comfort, donation, self-sacrifice, voluntary service, and trust [
In different research fields, the research on social class uses different measurement scales. The measurement of social class in the fields of sociology and economics mainly uses objective social class indicators [
Prosocial behaviors have rich connotations, diverse types, and multiple measurement scales. Some researchers choose indicators such as donation behavior, voluntary service behavior, and daily helping behavior to measure prosocial behavior [
Generosity is a typical manifestation of altruism and an important type of prosocial behavior. Unlike cooperation and win-win, generous people have to give their resources to others for free, without any monetary return. The generous donors of charitable donations consume their financial resources. The generous volunteers consume their limited time resources. During the epidemic prevention and control period, the generosity of members of the society is urgently needed.
Dictator game is originally used to test the economic assumptions of game theory [
Trust is one of the pillars of society. During the epidemic prevention and control period, people need to trust each other more. Without trust between people, there will be no intimacy, no economic transactions, and no successful epidemic prevention and control. If there is a lack of basic trust between people, the entire society will fall apart. Facts have proved that trust plays a vital role in the development and maintenance of close personal relationships [
The trust game, originally called the investment game, has been developed for more than 20 years. The basic game process is as follows. The two players, called player 1 and player 2, are given equal amounts of money, denoted as S. In the first round of the game, player 1 first takes out a part of his own money and allocates it to player 2, denoted as
Participants came from a university in Anhui, freshmen in the public compulsory course “Psychological Health Education for University Students.” There are a total of 320, including 235 boys and 85 girls. Adopt 2(self-social class: high/low) × 2(target social class: high/low) between-subjects design experiment; the dependent variable is the assigned score of the participant in the dictator game.
In the classroom of the “Mental Health Education for University Students” course, the teacher sends the online research link address to the whole class in charge of the online teaching platform, and the students can start the investigation by clicking the link address on their mobile phones.
Firstly, students complete the assessment of their social class through the two ladders of the MacArthur Scale (adolescent version). The first ladder with 10 levels depicts the possible levels of all members of Chinese society. (1) At the top of the ladder stand the best people. They are the richest, have the highest level of education, and are doing the best work. (2) At the end of the ladder are the people who are in the worst conditions, who have the least money, have a low level of education, or have never received education, are unemployed, or are doing the least respected work. Now, please think about it. On which level of the ladder can your family be placed? Please fill in the ladder level in the air. The second ladder with 10 levels of ladders depicts the situation of all students in the school where the university students are located. (1) At the top of the ladder stands the most respected, best-achieving, and highest-status student in your school; (2) at the end of the ladder stand the most scorned classmates with the worst grades. No one wants to be with them. Now, please think about it. On which level of the ladder would you place yourself? Please fill in the ladder level in the air.
Secondly, manipulate target social class by assigning different instructions. In the group of the high target social class, the instruction that all students read is as follows: You will complete a computer-based decision-making task with a specific student. This partner is at the top of the ladder and is the most respected in the same grade and has the best grades and highest status. In the group of the low target social class, the instruction that all students read is as follows: You will complete a computer-based decision-making task with a specific student. This partner is at the bottom of the ladder, is the most underestimated student in the same grade, has the worst grade, and has the lowest status.
Thirdly, in order to test the effectiveness of manipulation, the subjects were required to use the MacArthur Scale (adolescent version) to assess the social class of their peers, just as the subjects evaluated their own class.
Finally, students complete the distribution decision of the dictator game. The instruction is as follows: now there are 100 points of course points that need to be allocated between you and your peers. You are in the role of proposer and your peer is in the role of receiver. The score assigned to your peer is between 0 and 100. Companions can only accept the results of the distribution, but cannot refuse. The result of the allocation depends entirely on your allocation. The assignment is completely anonymous, and you neither know nor meet with another companion. After the quiz is completed, make a prudent explanation.
Regression analysis is performed with family social class as the independent variable and self-social class as the dependent variable. The results show that the relationship between the subjective ratings of family social class and self-social class is significant (
The MacArthur Scale was scored using the Likert 10-point scale. In order to distinguish between high and low social classes, the ordinal scale needs to be converted into a category scale. Sort the subjective social classes of all students in the class, and take 27% of the front and back as representatives of the high and low classes [
In order to test the effectiveness of the target social class manipulation, the target social class is used as the grouping variable, and the peer’s rating is used as the dependent variable, and the independent sample
Rating of peers from different group of target social class.
Investigate the main effects of the two factors of self-social class and target social class, as well as the interactive effects between the two. Self-social class (high/low) and target social class (high/low) are independent variables, and the distribution score in the dictator game is the dependent variable, and two-way between-subjects ANOVA is performed. The results show that the main effect of self-social class is not significant,
Means and standard deviations of the number of points in a dictator game per condition in the study.
Number of points sent | Low target social class | High target social class | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SD | SD | |||||
Low self-social class | 43 | 37.60 | 3.99 | 43 | 49.98 | 7.32 |
High self-social class | 43 | 46.86 | 5.89 | 43 | 43.19 | 5.14 |
The ANOVA results of two-factor between-subjects experiment design.
Source | Type III sum of squares | Df | Mean square | Sig. | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Self-social class | 65.326 | 1 | 65.326 | 2.001 | 0.159 |
Target social class | 813.233 | 1 | 813.233 | 24.909 | 0.000 |
Self-social class | 2,768.023 | 1 | 2,768.023 | 84.783 | 0.000 |
Error | 5,484.930 | 168 | 32.648 | — | — |
Total | 348,312.000 | 172 | — | — | — |
Corrected total | 9,131.512 | 171 | — | — | — |
a.
The effect of social class on the number of points in the dictator game from China college students.
In order to test the specific impact of the interaction effect of the two factors, the simple effect test is continued. According to the research needs, the effect of the target social class is examined under the condition of fixing self-social class. Among the subjects in the low self-social class, the main effect of the target social class is significant,
The ANOVA results of the test of simple effect.
Source of variation | Sum of squares | Df | Mean square | F | Sig. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Within + residual | 5,484.930 | 168 | 32.648 | ||
Target social class within low self-social class | 3,290.977 | 1 | 3,290.977 | 100.801 | 0.000 |
Target social class within high self-social class | 290.279 | 1 | 290.279 | 8.891 | 0.003 |
a. Dependent variable: the number of points in a dictator game.
Based on the dictator game, study 1 explores the influence of social class on the prosocial behavior of university students under the dictator game. The study found that the self-social class lacks an influential effect on prosocial behavior, which is consistent with the findings of Van Doesum et al. [
How to explain the above research results? Firstly, the influence of self-social class on prosocial behavior has not been confirmed in this study. In other words, self-social class alone cannot influence prosocial behavior. Prosocial behaviors widely exist in the two classes of campus “Xue Ba” and “Xue Zha.” Can the conclusions drawn from Chinese university campuses be extended to the entire Chinese society? Taking China’s entire society united to fight the epidemic as an example, Tencent’s antiepidemic fund was 88 million yuan to help epidemic research and medical care; Didi Chuxing established a medical care security fleet and community security fleet to provide free emergency travel services. Numerous volunteers stepped forward, and medical staff, community volunteers, and hospital volunteers rushed to the front line of the fight against the epidemic, “working hard” for China’s epidemic prevention and control. Prosocial behaviors in the prevention and control of the epidemic are widely present in different social class. Secondly, the influence of target social class on prosocial behavior is confirmed in this research. However, the influence of target social class on prosocial behavior is regulated by self-social class. The higher the individual’s social class, the more prosocial the individual when faced with low target social class, which confirms the perspective of fairness and echoes the idea of “being good at the world” [
Participants came from a university in Anhui, freshmen in the public compulsory course “Psychological Health Education for University Students.” There are a total of 176, including 92 boys and 84 girls. Adopt 2(self-social class: high/low) × 2(target social class: high/low) between-subjects design experiment, and the dependent variable is the assigned score of the participant in the trust game.
In the classroom of the “Mental Health Education for University Students” course, the teacher sends the online research link address to the whole class in charge of the online teaching platform, and the students can start the investigation by clicking the link address on their mobile phones.
Firstly, referring to the procedure of Study 1, students complete the MacArthur Subjective Socioeconomic Status Scale (adolescent version), which is used to assess self-social class. Secondly, referring to the procedure of Study 1, by assigning different instructions, manipulate target social class. Thirdly, students complete the distribution decision of the trust game. The instruction is as follows: you have 30 points for the course, and your partner also has 30 points for the course, which is recorded as S. You can allocate a part of the 30 points to your peers and record it as
In fact, the participant did not make a decision with a partner, but only completed the distribution part of the trust game. In this trust game, the betrayal of the peer is a possible risk that the subjects need to bear. The trust of the subjects means that they are willing to assign scores to their peers, so that their peers benefit, and their potential costs rise. Therefore, the number of points assigned by the subjects to their peers is an observational indicator of prosocial behavior.
Taking self-social class as the independent variable and taking the scores in the trust game as the dependent variable, regression analysis is carried out. The results show that the relationship between the self-social class and the score of the trust game is not significant (
The effect of self-social class on the number of points in a trust game from China university students.
Taking target social class as the grouping variable and taking the scores in the trust game as the dependent variable, the independent sample
The results show that there is a significant difference in the distribution scores of the two groups of subjects in the trust game,
The effect of target social class on the number of points in a trust game from China university students.
Refer to study 1, sort subjective social class of all students in the class, and take 27% of the front and back as representatives of the high and low class. The sample size is 176, 47 high self-social class subjects (30 boys, 17 girls) and 47 low self-social class subjects (25 boys, 22 girls).
In order to examine the main effects of self-social class and target social class, as well as the interactive effects between the two, self-social class (high/low) and target social class (high/low) are used as independent variables. The score assigned in the trust game is the dependent variable, and a two-way between-subjects ANOVA is performed. The results show that the main effect of self-social class is not significant,
Means and standard deviations of the number of points in a trust game per condition in the study.
Number of points sent | Low target social class | High target social class | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
N | M | SD | N | M | SD | |
Low self-social class | 23 | 11.26 | 1.74 | 24 | 15.17 | 1.13 |
High self-social class | 24 | 11.13 | 1.15 | 23 | 15.65 | 1.19 |
The ANOVA results of two-factor between-subjects experiment design.
Source | Type III sum of squares | Df | Mean square | F | Sig. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Self-social class | 0.718 | 1 | 0.718 | 0.410 | 0.524 |
Target social class | 417.611 | 1 | 417.611 | 238.468 | 0.000 |
Self-social class | 2.267 | 1 | 2.267 | 1.295 | 0.258 |
Error | 157.611 | 90 | 1.751 | — | — |
—Total | 17200.000 | 94 | — | — | — |
Corrected total | 577.660 | 93 | — | — | — |
The effect of social class on the number of points in a trust game from China university students.
Study 2 is based on the trust game paradigm and explores the influence of social class on prosocial behavior of university students. The study found that self-social class lacks an influential effect on prosocial behavior, which is consistent with the findings of Study 1. Target social class has an influential effect on prosocial behavior, which is consistent with the findings of Study 1. Self-social class and target social class do not have interaction effect, which is inconsistent with the findings of Study 1. Regardless of the level of the subjects’ social class, they all showed greater prosociality when facing high target social class.
How to explain the above research results? Firstly, the influence of self-social class on prosocial behavior is also unproven in Study 2. As mentioned earlier, trust is one of the important pillars of society. Without trust, the entire society will fall apart. This is true of the bottom society, and the same is true of the upper society. Regardless of class level, there is no essential difference in the level of trust shown by individuals. On university campuses, both university students from impoverished mountainous areas or from prosperous metropolises have the closest and intimate friends, and the place of origin does not hinder the formation of intimate relationships. In online shopping transaction payment, cashless online payment is a common phenomenon. University students show the same level of trust in unfamiliar transactions. The difference lies in the shopping platform and the choice of payment platform. In complying with the epidemic prevention and control policies, university students did not show obvious class differences, and university students generally showed a high degree of trust in the government’s epidemic prevention policies. During the national epidemic clearance stage, university students confidently walked out of campus, flowed normally, and lived a normal life. During the sporadic epidemic, university students do not go to high-risk and medium-risk areas and live freely in low-risk areas. In general, university students have shown a high degree of trust in the government’s antiepidemic policy.
Secondly, the influence of target social class on prosocial behavior was confirmed again in Study 2. Both generosity and trust behavior are significantly affected by the target social class. The difference is that the influence of target social class on generosity is regulated by self-social class, while the influence of target social class on trust behavior is not regulated by self-social class. The higher the class is, the easier it is to win trust. Trust is both important and grounded. The better the grades, the higher the status, and the better the character of university students, the easier it is to win the trust of their classmates. This is the basis for the trust of peers of university students. Learning from high school as a teacher and being a model is the basis for teachers to win the trust of students. Fair law enforcement is the basis for the police to win the trust of the people. The more effective the epidemic prevention and control are, the more it can win the trust of the people. This is the basis for the Chinese government to fight the epidemic and win the trust of the people.
In recent years, the influence of social class on prosocial behavior has been full of disputes and contradictions. In particular, the measurement methods of social class are different, the indicators of prosocial behavior measurement are very rich, and the sources of research samples are extremely different, which makes this kind of controversy more complicated. Adopting a research paradigm, locking in a research direction, and maintaining the repeatability and verifiability of research are important directions for resolving disputes. Based on the game research paradigm, this research uses the dictator game and the trust game as research tools to explore the influence of social class on prosocial behavior of Chinese university students. The research results show that, in the two game situations, self-social class has no effect on prosocial behavior of university students, and target social class has a significant impact on prosocial behavior of university students. Under the dictator game, there is an interactive effect between self-social class and target social class, while under the trust game, there is no interaction effect between self-social class and target social class.
So, what are the characteristics of the distribution behavior in the dictator game? A study on a sample of 514 Japanese nonstudents found that cognitive ability and age can affect the distribution behavior of the dictator game. Among them, there is a negative correlation between cognitive ability and the distribution in the dictator game. The higher the cognitive ability, the lower the distribution amount; the age and the distribution in the dictator game have a positive correlation. The older the age, the greater the distribution amount [
What are the characteristics of the distribution behavior in the trust game? Trust and trustworthiness are important components of social cohesion and productivity. In experimental economics, the trust game is used as a measure of trust and trustworthiness behavior. At present, there are many research literatures that use trust game to explore the relationship between trust and demographic variables such as age and gender. A trust game experiment on university students in Austria shows that trust and trustworthiness have an age effect. The older the age, the higher the trust and the higher the trustworthiness [
The contribution of this research to the field of social class and prosocial behavior is as follows: first, we pay attention to the interactive influence of self-social class and target social class, which makes up for the limitation of only focusing on self-social class; second, we provide a sample of Chinese university students; the data has enriched the empirical evidence for cross-cultural research. Third, a comparative study of the distribution behavior under the dictator game and the trust game is carried out.
The deficiencies and future directions of this research: first, the measurement samples are not from the same group. There is no way to select measurement samples to fully replicate previous studies. Sample differences exist objectively. Although statistical techniques are adopted to control, this difference is of course ignored, but its potential impact on the research results still needs to be specifically pointed out. Second, the independent variable of social class does not use a combination of objective and subjective measurement methods. This is a big difference between this study and previous studies. The promotion and application of the research results should be extremely cautious. It is rational to limit the application to university campuses. Third, the measurement of the dependent variable is relatively single. Although the dictator game is the classic paradigm of the game research paradigm, it has been proven to be an effective means of measuring human cooperative behavior, but the scope of prosocial behavior is wide, and the available measurement methods are very rich. Future research should choose more measurements for more verification.
“If you are poor, you will be good for yourself, and if you are good, you will be good at the world.” Is it the way of life for contemporary Chinese university students? This study confirms that looking at “poor” and “good” in isolation cannot effectively explain prosocial behavior of university students. Through the comparison of social class, the “poor” and “good” class status of university students will lead to diametrically opposite prosocial behavior. Specifically, our research found that In both the dictator game and the trust game, self-social class cannot effectively predict prosocial behavior of university students. In the dictator game, the influence of target social class on the prosocial behavior of university students is regulated by self-social class. In the trust game, the influence of target social class on the prosocial behavior of university students is not regulated by the self-social class.
The data used to support the findings of this study are included within the article.
The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.
This study was funded by the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Project of Bengbu University (2020SK03zd), the Quality Engineering Project of Universities in Anhui Province (2020szsfkc0589), the Teaching and Research Fund Project of the Education Department of Anhui Province (2020jyxm0017 and 2018jyxm1305), “First-class Course” of Anhui University of Finance and Economics (acylkc202008), and the Teaching and Research Fund Project of the Anhui University of Finance and Economics (acjyyb2020011 and acjyyb2020014).