Research On The Mass Incidents In China From A Socio-psychological Perspective

The past 30 years has witnessed a rapid progress in China's social transformation. The spectacular development and profound change in its politics, economics, technology and culture boosted by the open-door policy has sped its pace in its social model transformation from a traditional society to a modern one. A domino effect has been caused by this complex transformation and transition: Positively, it has brought a radical conversion in people's cognitive structure, ideology, personality, interest, emotion and affection; by contrast, it has also catalyzed various social conflicts. Many mass incidents with echoes in the cyber world have appeared and are evolving in a more complicated, organized, scaled and violent way.Based on current research both abroad and at home, this thesis probes into the underlying reasons of a mass incident from a socio-psychological perspective after specifying its definition, categories, characteristics and effects. It presents a logic framework for the whole incident via analyzing the theoretical causation of a mass incident from three aspects, i.e., the aspects of individual psychology, group psychology and the mutual interaction between the two. It draws a conclusion, with the aid of a case study on the Weng'an Incident, that individual psychology is the premise, group psychology is the catalyzer and that it's the mutual interaction between the two that leads the incident to its climax.Studies suggest that the leading motivator of a mass incident is a psychological imbalance and resentment, which then spreads and prevails in a group with the inducement of similar interests and conformity to foster group mistrust in the government with the agitation by some chief instigators and finally fuses the incident. The socialization of this psychology and the fixation of the social roles of the gang contribute to the mass symbolic interaction which intensifies the destructive force of the incident. In response to the above findings, this thesis proposes some socio-psychological measures to help manage the mass incidents. It suggests that the governmental psychology should be adjusted in the first place, which means the government must establish a right attitude towards mass incidents—to be more friendly to its people, to be more competent in its administration and to reduce the psychological imbalance in the public. Besides, an improved interests-satisfying channel and an equal platform for communication should be set up to settle problems brought by dissatisfaction of interests. As to the groupthink mentality and the law-fails-when-violators-are-legion psychology, a strategy of disintegration is advised to break down the mass issue into different parts and then treat them one by one. What matters more is that the government should always keep information open and adopt a positive and reasonable way of psychological counseling in coping with a mass incident.