There are various ways to explain why forceful coercion is an ineffective, useless, or even harmful approach to achieving certain goals. We will examine one of them now. I was inspired to write this material by an article about an alternative, more effective method of fighting the coronavirus pandemic than the total ban on certain types of human interaction. You can read the full version of it via this link. I will provide a brief overview of it here.
In the fight against the pandemic, it is important to avoid social contacts. However, humans are beings who, in most cases, cannot fully do without them. Research shows that humans are strongly psychologically dependent on social contacts. And attempting to ban them will only lead to the fact that they will still occur, they will simply go underground.
The concept of “harm reduction” comes to our aid. Based on this concept, a much better result is achieved not through prohibition and blame, but through awareness and an attempt to encourage a person to make decisions that, while not completely eradicating risky behavior, will allow the associated harm to be reduced. This concept emerged during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s; it was implemented as a needle exchange program for drug addicts so that they would not risk contracting various infectious diseases by using one syringe for several people. Naturally, drug addicts were far more willing to engage in harm reduction than to submit to bans. Furthermore, the opportunity to choose harm reduction as opposed to harsh measures often encourages people to abandon risky behavior. This is confirmed even by statistical data in the case of drug addiction—the health of participants in needle exchange programs only improved; they were less likely to start taking drugs and more likely to seek treatment for addiction.
Another important concept called the “abstinence violation effect” tells us that harsh measures fundamentally do not work when getting rid of risky behavior, because a person stops perceiving failures adequately. For example, when a person tries to quit smoking by abruptly giving up cigarettes, a relapse will most likely lead them to think, “since I’ve already ruined everything, there’s no point in trying anymore,” and they will cease any further attempts to do so. A more effective strategy is a gradual withdrawal without the use of harsh measures and treating relapses as a normal phenomenon in the process of getting rid of a bad habit.
In the case of the coronavirus pandemic, governments decided to fight it specifically by introducing harsh measures and blaming people who do not comply with them. However, as we can already see, this does not solve the problem in any way. People see no point in submitting to such measures and giving up social contacts; on the contrary, they only hide their behavior and resist the measures being introduced. A more reasonable strategy in this case would have been harm reduction—that is, informing people about the risks of certain types of social contacts and promoting a competent approach to assessing these risks in various situations, rather than attempting to establish total bans. Then they would have been more inclined to follow measures that are useful in the fight against the pandemic.
In conclusion, by familiarizing ourselves with psychological concepts such as “harm reduction” and the “abstinence violation effect,” and by observing them in practice in cases such as drug addiction and the pandemic, we can conclude that forceful coercion—that is, harsh measures to implement certain types of behavior—cannot be an effective approach to achieving any goals; people will simply evade or resist. It would be far more effective not to pressure people, not to blame them for anything, and to give them the opportunity to freely choose less risky behavior as opposed to submitting to harsh measures.
