中文摘要：

本文通过两个研究探讨社会比较对亲社会行为的影响及其内在机制。研究一中,被试被随机要求与学习成绩排名第一或者最后的人相比,然后测量其助人倾向。结果发现,与向上比较组和控制组相比,向下社会比较会提高个体的助人倾向。研究二通过虚构的智力测验排名反馈操纵社会比较,然后测量被试的捐款意愿。结果发现,得知测验成绩比大多数人好的时候,人们更愿意捐款。两个实验共同表明,社会比较对亲社会行为的影响由个体对弱势群体的同理心所中介。

英文摘要：

Social comparison is the process of evaluating oneself in comparison with others. People actively or passively, consciously or nonconsciously engage in social comparison. Upward comparison---comparing to better off others, engenders psychological inferiority, while downward comparison---comparing to worse off others, elicits psychological superiority. The purpose of the current research was to explore how such psychological inferiority and superiority information resulted from social comparison would influence others-oriented behavior, namely, prosocial behavior. We postulated that downward comparison could increase people＇s empathy towards others, and thus would promote prosocial behavior. Two studies were conducted to test the hypotheses. In Study 1, undergraduates were randomly assigned to the upward comparison, the downward comparison, and the control conditions. In the upward（downward） comparison condition, participants were asked to compare their academic performance with the classmate whose academic performance was ranked the first place（last place） in their major. In the control condition, information aboutacademic performance or comparison was not mentioned. After making the comparison, participants indicated their willingness to help in four hypotheticalscenarios. Empathy, self evaluation, and emotion were measured. In Study 2, we used donation intention as an indicator of prosocial behavior. Rather than asking participants to consciously make upward or downward comparison as in Study1, we manipulated social comparisonbygivingfalse intelligence test feedback. All participants completed a subset of Raven intelligence test. Participants in the upward comparison condition were told that their performance in the test was ranked the bottom 10% of our population. Participants in the downward comparison condition were told their rank was in the top 10%. Those in the control condition did not receive any feedback about the test score. Then we asked participants to read two scenarios and indicate their