ISSN 0439-755X
CN 11-1911/B
主办：中国心理学会
　　　中国科学院心理研究所
出版：科学出版社

心理学报 ›› 2016, Vol. 48 ›› Issue (3): 271-289.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.00271

• 论文 • 上一篇    下一篇

社会公平感对不同阶层目标达成的影响及其过程

胡小勇;郭永玉;李静;杨沈龙   

  1. (华中师范大学心理学院暨青少年网络心理与行为教育部重点实验室, 武汉 430079)
  • 收稿日期:2014-08-31 发布日期:2016-03-25 出版日期:2016-03-25
  • 通讯作者: 郭永玉, E-mail: yyguo@mail.ccnu.edu.cn
  • 基金资助:

    国家自然科学基金面上项目(71171094), 国家社会科学基金重点项目(13AZD087), 教育部人文社会科学研究青年基金项目(13YJC190007), 2014年华中师范大学中央高校基本科研业务费(人文社科类)重大培育项目之重大学术成果培育计划(CCNU14Z02018)资助。

Perceived societal fairness and goal attainment: The differnet effects of social class and their mechanism

HU Xiaoyong; GUO Yongyu; LI Jing; YANG Shenlong   

  1. (School of Psychology, Central China Normal University and Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behavior,
    Ministry of Education, Wuhan 430079, China)
  • Received:2014-08-31 Online:2016-03-25 Published:2016-03-25
  • Contact: GUO Yongyu, E-mail: yyguo@mail.ccnu.edu.cn

PDF (PC)

13370

被引次数

24

摘要：

基于目标追求理论和社会阶层心理学的相关理论, 本文通过3个研究, 逐步深入地考察了社会公平感对不同阶层个体目标达成的影响作用及其过程。研究1为相关研究, 考察了高低阶层成人被试的教育领域社会公平感与为孩子进行教育投入的目标承诺及目标达成之间的关系; 研究2为准实验研究, 通过操纵公平或不公平教育情境启动公平感, 考察其对高低阶层中学生的学习目标承诺与目标达成的影响; 研究3为实验研究, 通过实验操纵社会公平感和社会阶层, 考察社会公平感对高低阶层大学生的实验任务目标承诺和目标达成的影响。研究发现, 社会公平感通过正向影响低阶层者的目标承诺, 进而正向影响其目标达成; 而对于高阶层者来说, 变量之间这些关系则不显著。这表明：相对于高阶层来说, 低阶层者的目标追求易受社会公平感的影响; 低阶层者的社会公平感水平越高, 其追求目标的动机水平就越高, 进而越有利于目标达成。

关键词: 社会公平感, 社会阶层, 目标承诺, 目标达成

Abstract:

Goals contribute significantly to the meaning of event and outcome. The attainments of important life goals, such as higher education and employment, are the source of individual well-beings, as well as an effective way to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor. Motivation is one of the most widely studied factors that affect goal attainment. However, according to a series of latest studies, relative to upper-class individuals, lower-class individuals’ goal commitment is more easily affected by societal fairness. Based on the aforementioned studies, the present research intended to explore the effect and mechanism of societal fairness on goal attainment of people from different social classes and hypothesized that goal attainment is affected by (a) the perceived societal fairness, (b) social class, and (c) the interaction between perceived societal fairness and social class. Moreover, we also expected that the interaction effect between perceived societal fairness and social class on goal attainment is mediated by goal commitment.
We conducted 3 studies to test our hypothesis. The first two studies are the naturalistic design. In Study 1, we measured participants' perceived of social justice, subjective social class, objective social class, and goal commitment and attainment toward educational investment. In Study 2, we randomly assigned participants to two different priming conditions (fairness vs. unfairness), and then measured their subjective social class, objective social class, academic goal commitment, and academic goal attainment. In Study 3, we brought our research question into the lab. This study involves a 2 (fairness: fairness vs. unfairness) × 2(social class: higher-class vs. lower-class) between-subject design. Participants in study 3 completed both fairness and social class manipulation.
In Study 1, respondents reported higher motivation to invest more educational resource to their child to the extent that they believed that educational rewards were distributed fairly; this effect was stronger for members of lower-class than for members of higher-class. In Study 2, the lower-class participants had higher academic goal commitment and higher academic goal attainment when they were under fair priming condition. However, it did not apply for higher-class participants. In Study 3, the interaction between fairness and social class significantly affected goal commitment, and goal commitment positively affected goal achievement. Moreover, fairness positively related to goal commitment for lower-class members, but not for higher-class members. Taken together, these studies support the hypothesis that social fairness can affect goal attainment through goal commitment and that this connection is significant among participants low in social class but non-significant among participants high in social class.

The findings of present research suggests that the low class members’ goal commitment and attainment were more susceptible to societal fairness, which is consistent with the ideas of social class psychology who claims that low social class members are situation-oriented and more sensitive to context factors, but those with high social position could freely set their goals and not be limited by the environment. To some degree, our research has provided support for the idea of social class psychology.

Key words: societal fairness, social class, goal commitment, goal attainment