دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی رابطه میان اجتناب از وازنی و نوع دوستی متعادل شده با ارزش های اجتماعی - الزویر 2018

ABSTRACT

Recently, the relationship between reputation and altruism has gained significant attention. The present study examined whether the relationship between rejection avoidance and altruism differs according to social norms. A total of 320 participants completed an online survey with questions concerning rejection avoidance and altruism in situations where either a prosocial or non-prosocial norm was present. As predicted, people with higher levels of rejection avoidance displayed less altruism only in the context of non-prosocial norms. This result corresponds with previous evidence that suggests that altruism can be evaluated negatively by others when it deviates from social norms. These findings shed a new light on the relationship between reputation and altruism.

Discussion

The present study found that the relationship between rejection avoidance and altruism was moderated by social norms; that is, people who fear rejection from others tend to inhibit altruism only when altruism was not perceived as normative. These findings contribute to explaining the results of a previous study (Kawamura & Kusumi, 2018), which found that rejection avoidance is related to altruism toward strangers. Our findings are in line with previous work showing that altruism can be negatively evaluated when it deviates from the social norm (Parks & Stone, 2010). This may explain why people with high rejection avoidance display less altruism when non-prosocial norms are present. Although altruism generally leads to a good reputation (Barclay, 2012), people with high rejection avoidance may focus on the possibility that they will be negatively evaluated by others and subsequently refrain from altruistic behaviors when a prosocial norm does not exist. Overall, the present study provides novel evidence that the relationship between altruism and rejection avoidance is moderated by social norms, and it provides a plausible explanation for the counterintuitive negative relationship between reputation and altruism. This result suggests the importance of considering the influence of social norms when investigating the relationship between reputation and altruism. However, there are several limitations. First, many participants scored at the highest levels of the altruism variable, indicating a possible ceiling effect was present.