The Effect Of Intragroup Forgiveness On Transgressor's Prosocial Behavior And Its Mechanism: The Role Of Group Identification And Behavioral Intention

Intragroup conflicts and offenses are unavoidable.The issue about how to deal with intragroup conflicts and avoid recurrence of offense draws the attention of researchers in various fields.Previous studies have shown that punishment is an effective way to maintain cooperation in group,but at the same time it also has a negative impact on the relationship between group members.Forgiveness,as a more constructive way of dealing with conflicts,can help people maintain good interpersonal relationships and has received increasing attention in recent years.However,the existing research has not reached a consistent conclusion on the issue of what effect does intragroup forgiveness have on the group and the transgressors' subsequent behavior.Therefore,this study plans to explore the effect of intragroup forgiveness on transgressors and its mechanism,hoping to provide some ideas for conflict management.The mechanism of intragroup forgiveness'effect on transgressors',behavior may be that forgiveness is a prosocial change after offence that fosters a good group atmosphere and promotes relationships between group members.Thus,transgressors have a relatively positive evaluation of the group that forgives them and enhances their identification for the group which can increase the importance of group identity to transgressor's self-concept,thereby promoting their contribution to the group.In the present study,three experiments were designed to examine the effects of intragroup forgiveness on transgressors,prosocial behavior and its mechanisms.A total of 270 students participated in the study.Experiment 1 examines the effect of intragroup forgiveness on the transgressors' prosocial behavior towards group members.The result shows that forgiveness promotes the transgressors' prosocial behavior,and initially verifies the mediating role of group identification between intragroup forgiveness and transgressors' prosocial behavior in group.Experiment 2 discusses the conditionality of the effect of forgiveness in the context group of from the perspective of transgressors'behavioral intentions,and proves that transgressors with different behavioral intentions have different responses to intragroup forgiveness.Experiment 3 examines the transgressor's motives after being forgiven in the context of group and further explores the effect and mechanism of intragroup forgiveness on transgressors' prosocial behavior.Our study draws the following conclusions:(1)Intragroup forgiveness has a positive impact on transgressors' prosocial behavior,and the positive impact is consistent across different prosocial behaviors(helping behavior and cooperative behavior).(2)Group identification mediates the effect of intragroup forgiveness on transgressors'prosocial behavior.(3)The effect of intragroup forgiveness is moderated by transgressors' behavioral intention.For those unintentional transgressors,intragroup forgiveness lead to higher group identification which in turn bringing more prosocial behavior in group.Whereas for whom made intentional offence,the positive effect of intragroup forgiveness is much weaker.(4)In the context of the group,transgressor's prosocial behavior after being forgiven is not only for the motivation of repaying the kindness of forgivers,but also for the motivation of contributing to the group voluntarily and generalized prosocial orientation which results from the increasing group identification.From the perspecti've of transgressors,this study implies that,intragroup forgiveness has a positive impact on group,and group identification plays an important role in this impact.Above all,this study provides a reference for understanding the effects of forgiveness in the context of group.