The Influence Of Forgiving Social Control On Deviant Behavior-research Based On Quasi-natural Experiments

Since the reform and opening-up,China’s society has undergone rapid changes,and the whole society is in a period of rapid transformation.The old social system and norms are not suitable for the operation of the new society,while the new system and norms have not been established,and part of people’s behavior has lost its standard,thus making the society out of control.Therefore,individual deviant behaviors occur frequently.Increasing deviant behavior hinders the construction of social order and is not conducive to the implementation of the policy of reform and opening-up and the construction of a harmonious socialist society.Deviant behavior is the deviation from the social system and norms,and the deviant behavior in the transition period,not only deviates from the old system and norms that have not yet been reformed,but also deviates from the new system and norms that have not yet been established,so the deviant behavior presents diversification and complexity.The government has introduced a series of measures to curb the occurrence of deviant behavior.However,even though the national policies are repeated and punitive measures are implemented one after another,the deviant behaviors are not reduced.The effectiveness of punitive social control in restraining deviant behaviors is questioned.Punishment may reduce deviant behaviors in the short term,but the long-term effect is not ideal.It does not really make individuals internalize new social norms.The effectiveness of punitive social control in restraining violations is questioned.Punishment may reduce violations in the short term,but the long-term effect is not ideal.It does not really make individuals internalize social norms.It follows that severe punishment alone cannot reduce the occurrence of violations,and the social order established by punishment is unstable.Therefore,some regions began to adopt forgiving forms of social control methods to deal with violations.Forgiving forms of social control refers to the granting of different degrees of exemption from responsibility to those who violate social rules or norms to mitigate or avoid punishment based on certain provisions or clauses.For example,some regional traffic police do not punish drivers who have good driving habits for the first violation.Forgiving social control is to treat deviant behaviors by means of exemption from responsibility,so that deviant can produce psychological reactions such as gratitude and guilt,so that deviant can consciously regulate their behaviors.In addition,forgiving social control is also a conditional forgiveness,which can set a goal for the individual and enable the individual to regulate his behavior to achieve the goal.From the perspective of policy implementers,it is hoped that the forgiving forms of social control can not only guarantee public interests and personal interests,but also enhance people’s respect,recognition and commitment to the law,so that the legal constraints can be internalized in the heart and externalized in the practice.But whether such leniency will actually reduce the number of people driving is unclear.Although there have been studies on the relationship between forgiveness and deviant behavior,most of them focus on interpersonal relationships and mostly use experimental methods,and the research results are inconsistent.In addition,previous studies have concentrated on the effects of forgiveness in a broad sense.Because of the inconsistency of the purpose and severity,it is impossible to forgive all the deviant behavior unconditionally.The forgiveness social control that this research focuses on is a kind of conditional forgiveness.General speaking,this study shifted from the perspective of interpersonal relationship to the perspective of public relations,from forgiveness in a broad sense to conditional forgiveness,using the method of quasi-natural experiment and based on the gratitude theory and goal setting theory,to examine the influence of forgiving social control on deviant behavior.This study draws the following conclusions:First,forgiving social control can reduce the occurrence of deviant behavior.Specifically,the number of subsequent deviant behaviors decreased after the individual’s deviant behavior was forgiven.Second,according to the correlation between forgiving social control and individual interests,individuals are divided into high and low interests.The results show that forgiving social control can restrain the deviant behaviors of high and low interest-related individuals,but the inhibition is stronger in high interest-related individuals.Third,according to the social responsibility,individuals are divided into high social responsibility and low social responsibility.The results showed that the forgiving social control inhibited the deviant behaviors of the individuals with high social responsibility and low social responsibility,but the inhibitory effect was stronger in the individuals with high social responsibility.Fourth,according to age,individuals are divided into older adults and younger adults.The results showed that the forgiving social control inhibited the deviant behaviors of older adults and younger adults,but the inhibitory effect was stronger in younger adults.The results show that forgiving social control can effectively inhibit deviant behavior,but the inhibitory effect is different in different groups.The results are of practical significance.Both in the process of government governance and organizational management,we can learn from forgiving social control,so that social norms and organizational rules can be subtly internalized in individuals,so as to build a stable and harmonious society and a healthy organization.The main contributions of this study are as follows :(1)shift the research on forgiveness from the perspective of interpersonal relationship to the perspective of public relations,and verify the effectiveness of the role of forgiving social control in reducing deviant behavior in the perspective of public relations.(2)previous studies mainly explained the role of forgiveness from the perspective of social exchange theory.This study combined the gratitude theory and goal setting theory to explain the mechanism of forgiveness.(3)this study proposes the boundary conditions for the role of forgiving social control,which is a supplement and development of previous studies.