Ostracism and prosocial behavior of migrants: Life history theory perspective

With the prevalence of migration in China, migrants' behaviors have an important impact on social harmony and development. To explore the effect of ostracism on migrants' prosocial behaviors, this study examined the mediating role of Life History (LH) strategy and the moderating role of migration time based on LH theory. Participants were 549 migrants in Shanghai, China. They completed online questionnaires on demographics, ostracism, prosocial behavior, LH strategy, and migration time. Results showed that ostracism was negatively related to prosocial behavior, and LH strategy mediated the relationship. Moreover, migration time played a moderating role between ostracism and LH strategy. Both recent migrants and long-term migrants would form fast LH strategies after ostracism and exhibit fewer prosocial behaviors, while the association between ostracism and LH strategies was stronger among long-term migrants. Given the serious threat of ostracism to migrants and society, future research should further explore how to reduce ostracism toward migrants, so that they can better integrate and promote local social development.
Author(s): Lei Shao [sup.1] , Guoliang Yu [sup.2] , Sen Li [sup.3] , Xiaoxue Pan [sup.4] , Denghao Zhang [sup.4] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.24539.39, 0000 0004 0368 8103, School of [...]