Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-04-26
Abstract： Humans are extremely social beings, and we attempt to repair our ruptured relationships when transgressions occur that damage interpersonal cooperation. The expression of guilt andremorse by the transgressor and the forgiveness by the victim are both vital to the repair process. To some extent, transgressors’ remorse is the most prominent elicitor of victims’ forgiveness. Previous studies have demonstrated that forgiveness emerges as early as 5 years old and that young children are capable of forgiving a remorseful transgressor even in the absence of anexplicit apology. Given the emphasis on relationship harmony among Chinese people in a collectivistic culture, parenting and socialization might help children understand peers’ remorse intentions and forgive them at a much earlier age. Furthermore, the high need for personal reputation and social image in peer interactions, which is called “face” (mianzi) by the Chinese, might lead to individuals’ forgiveness decisions being influenced by bystanders who witness or participate in group interactions. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate whether 4- or 5-year- olds could have the capacity to infer an apology from displays of transgressors’ remorse in order to reveal the influence of remorse on forgiveness and further explore the activation effect of different types of bystanders among the association between remorse and forgiveness. Study 1 was a one-factor (expression of remorse: remorse vs. no remorse) within-subject design. Forty-nine children aged 4 to 5 years (27 girls) were investigated by a classic paradigmof remorse and forgiveness. The “tear picture” game was used to create conditions of expressingremorse and not expressing remorse. Then, children were asked ten questions designed to assess whether they understood the true intention of remorse. Finally, the resource distribution task was used to assess forgiveness behavior. In Study 2, a total of 139 4- to 5-year-old children (80 girls) were recruited to participate in a 2 (expressions of remorse: remorse vs. no remorse) × 4 (types of bystander: no bystander vs. teacher vs. good friend vs. stranger) mixed experimental design. The procedure used in Study 2 was identical to that used in Study 1. The results showed that: In Study 1, both 4-year-old children and 5-year-old children trulyunderstood the intention of the expression of remorse, and they were much more forgiving of a remorseful transgressor than of a transgressor who had not shown remorse. In Study 2, althoughchildren were still more forgiving of a remorseful transgressor than an unremorseful transgressor in the presence of bystanders, bystanders significantly increased the level of forgiveness showntoward unremorseful transgressor and reduced the level of forgiveness for remorseful transgressor. Specifically, for remorseful transgressor, child victims were more forgiving of a transgressor while in the presence of strangers than while in the presence of teachers or good friends; however, for unremorseful transgressor, child victims who were being observed by teachers or good friends showed more forgiveness behavior than did victims who were being observed by stranger bystanders. Furthermore, the results showed that young children were more likely to equallydistribute flowers to remorseful and unremorseful transgressor in the presence of bystanders, especially teachers or good friends. This study successfully revealed that young Chinese children could accurately understand the intention of transgressors’ remorse and thus be willing to perform forgiveness behavior at age 4, which is exactly 1 year earlier than their counterparts in the Western sample. More importantly, we also present a new theoretical hypothesis, namely, the “bystander-activation effect of social expectations”, to propose that the presence of bystanders activates individuals’ socially desirable behaviors, such as “requite injury with kindness” and “egalitarianism”, in the Chinese collectivist culture. Thus, it is easier to understand why bystander onlooking could increase the level of forgiveness for unremorseful transgressor and cause young victims to distribute flowers toremorseful and unremorseful transgressor equally. Furthermore, the greater the authoritative or intimate level of bystanders is, such as teachers or good friends, the stronger the activated social expectations are and the more socially desirable the engaged-in behaviors are. This study provides important enlightenment for understanding the association between remorse and forgiveness andfor rethinking the cross-cultural differences in children’s socialization.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： The pneumonia outbreak caused by the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) has been defined as a public health emergency by the World Public Health Organization and poses a serious threat to economic development worldwide. Since that COVID-19 is highly contagious, and the number of infected people and is unprecedented, many governments have taken strong measures to control the spread of COVID-19. In the face of sudden major disasters, people are prone to panic. As a result, individuals pay more attention to personal protection-related issues, and the consumption of protective and health products increases significantly (Yang et al., 2020). Because COVID-19 is spread mainly by droplets and contact, consumers are avoiding products that others may have touched or used for fear of catching the virus. Data from iiMedia Research also showed that the number of users of shared charging banks in China maintained rapid growth to 307 million in 2019. However, due to COVID-19, the number of users dropped to 229 million in 2020. It can be seen that consumers are increasingly concerned about health-related issues, thus amplifying the potential contamination effect on consumer behaviors. It has been more than 20 years since contamination effect was first introduced into psychology. Up to now, contamination effect has been widely adopted to explain behaviors in many fields, including product evaluation, celebrity effect, organ transplantation, preference for shrine, valuation of original artwork, cross-cultural differences in collecting behavior, gambling decisions, individual abilities and performance, and even romantic relationships. Although consumers are often faced with a variety of content cues to induce their perception of contamination in daily consumption, there is little known about what consumer behaviors will occur under the influence of contamination effect and what the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions are for these behaviors. There is still no an integrated research framework that can generalize and explain the application of contamination effects to consumer behavior to answer these questions. More importantly, the continuous updating of emerging research backgrounds such as Internet +, new retail and big data provide new insights for the study of contamination effects, however, there is little systematic review of these effects and paradigms. In this study, we mainly review the definition and characteristics of contamination effect in the studies of consumer behavior, and then explore the antecedents of contamination effect from the aspects of exposure factors, location factors, product factors and social factors, and further summarize its negative and positive effects on consumer behavior. Finally, the theoretical basis and boundary conditions of contamination effect are well discussed. Based on these discussions, the future research direction of contamination effect in the field of consumer behavior is prospected.
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