Social Class Priming Effect on Prosociality: Evidence from Explicit and Implicit Measures
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Experiment 1
2.1. Material and Method
2.1.1. Participants
2.1.2. Procedures and Materials
- Objective social class questionnaire. We used participants’ parents’ education level, occupational prestige, and family income to measure objective social class [20]. Participants rated their parents’ educational level based on five categories: (1) Primary school or less education; (2) Junior middle school; (3) High school graduation; (4) College education; or (5) Graduate-level education. The occupation was classified into five categories: (1) Agricultural laborer, unskilled worker, or unemployed people; (2) Manual worker, self-employed person, or skilled worker; (3) Ordinary manager, or junior professional technician; (4) Middle manager, or intermediate professional technician; or (5) Senior manager, or senior professional technician. Participants rated their monthly family income (CNY) based on 12 categories: (1) Less than 2000; (2) 2000–3000; (3) 3000–4000; (4) 4000–5000; (5) 5000–6000; (6) 6000–7000; (7) 7000–8000; (8) 8000–9000; (9) 9000–10,000; (10) 10,000–11,000; (11) 11,000–12,000; or (12) More than 12,000. According to previous research [39], we calculated a composite measure of the total social class scores by summing the standard Z-scores of education level, occupational prestige, and monthly family income.
- Subjective social class manipulation. We used the MacArthur Scale [36] to manipulate participants’ social class priming. The participants saw a picture of a ladder with ten rungs and were asked to imagine that the ladder represented different social classes in China: Lower (higher) position of the ladder referred to lower (higher) social class. People at the bottom (top) were worse (best) off in terms of income, education, work, and living conditions. In the high social class priming group, participants were requested to compare themselves with the lowest class and then thought of talking to someone at the bottom. In the low social class priming group, participants were requested to compare themselves with the highest class and then thought of talking to someone at the top.
- Donation task. We measured participants’ prosocial level with the donation task (see Figure 1). At first, a fixation was shown in the middle of the screen for 800 ms. Next, a donation offer was presented, and participants were asked to decide whether to donate. There were 20 donation offer ways (you—welfare house): CNY 0–100, 5–95, 10–90, 15–85, 20–80, 25–75, 30–70, 35–65, 40–60, 45–55, 50–50, 55–45, 60–40, 65–35, 70–30, 75–25, 80–20, 85–15, 90–10, or 95–5. Participants pressed “F” key if they agreed to this donate offer way. Participants pressed “J” key if they did not agree, and then all the money would be kept by them. Afterwards, a blank screen was displayed for 800 ms, and then feedback was presented for 1500 ms. This task consisted of two blocks, and each block had 80 trials. Approximately 5–10 min of eye-closed resting after a block. The type of the two keys was counterbalanced among participants.
2.2. Results and Discussion
3. Experiment 2
3.1. Material and Method
3.1.1. Participants
3.1.2. Procedures and Materials
3.2. Results and Discussion
4. General Discussion
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Zhang, S.; Zang, X.; Zhang, S.; Zhang, F. Social Class Priming Effect on Prosociality: Evidence from Explicit and Implicit Measures. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 3984. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19073984
Zhang S, Zang X, Zhang S, Zhang F. Social Class Priming Effect on Prosociality: Evidence from Explicit and Implicit Measures. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2022; 19(7):3984. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19073984
Chicago/Turabian StyleZhang, Shan, Xinlei Zang, Sainan Zhang, and Feng Zhang. 2022. "Social Class Priming Effect on Prosociality: Evidence from Explicit and Implicit Measures" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19, no. 7: 3984. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19073984