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The Psychology Of Evil

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Warm Up

• Set up chapter 18 table of contents

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Questions to be Addressed

• Can good, ordinary people be transformed into
  monsters or perpetrators of evil?
• Are there certain psychological factors that can
  help facilitate this transformation?

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Sabrina Harman-student that graduated from
Fairfax County Public Schools who took AP
Psychology.
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Dispositional vs. Situational

• Fundamental Attribution Error social
  psychological theory that maintains people
  explain others behavior by overestimating the
  impact of internal disposition and
  underestimating the impact of situational
  influences.
• Dispositional Example those who took part in the
  Abu Ghraib abuse were sadists or prone to abusive
  tendencies.
• Situational Example external influences and the
  social environment mostly explains the abuse that
  took place at Abu Ghraib.

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Social Thinking

• How we explain someones behavior affects how we
  react to it

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Diffusion of Responsibility

• Diffusion of Responsibility is a social
  phenomenon which tends to occur in groups of
  people above a certain critical size when
  responsibility is not explicitly assigned.
• Examples
• Bystander Apathy less likely to help emergency
  victim when many people around.
• Just following ordershappens in hierarchy
• Firing Squads only one has bullet.

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Group Pressure and Conformity

• Conformity means to adjust your behavior to fit
  in with a group.
• Solomons Aschs study illustrated the power of
  group influence and conformity.

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Obedience to Authority

• Stanley Milgrams study is most famous for
  illustrating the powerful situational influence
  of authority.
• Study completed in 1963. Milgram created the
  study in part because of his Jewish heritage.
• If Hitler asked you, would you execute a
  stranger?

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Milgrams Obediance Study

• Participants are told they are participating in a
  study based on the effects of punishment on
  learning behavior.
• 3 Basic People in Study
• Participant teacher who will read word pairs to
  the student.
• Student actor that will be shocked if answers
  incorrectly.
• Experimenter authority figure in lab coat that
  instructs the participant what to do.

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Milgrams Experimental Design

• The range of electrical shocks had 30 variables
  ranging from mild shock (15 volts) to Danger
  Severe Shock and XXX (450 Volts).

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Milgrams Obedience Study

• Major Question how many people would inflict
  the maximum voltage on the learner?
• Prior to the experiment, psychologists believed
  fewer than 1 would inflict maximum damage.
• Actual Results
• 65 of participants gave learner maximum shock
  despite feelings of discomfort, no participant
  stopped prior to 300 volt level.
• In studies compliance was as high as 90 and as
  low as 10 depending on the variables used.

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The Power of Obedience How?

1. Start with an Ideology---purpose is to help
   science find better ways of learning.
2. Use authority to legitimate ideology---Yale
   experimenter.
3. Give people desirable roles with meaningful
   status---teacher
4. Have rules that channel behavioral options and
   agree to them before game begins---explanation
   of experiment and purpose.
5. Have initial harmful act be minimal and
   subsequent acts escalate gradually---moves from
   slight shock gradually to severefoot in the door
   phenomenon.

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The Power of Obedience How?

1. Displace responsibility for consequences on
   authority---Experimenter explains he is liable to
   the teacher.
2. Put Actors in a novel setting they are not used
   to---laboratory
3. Dont allow usual forms of dissent to lead to
   disobedience---encouraged to follow agreement.
   It is absolutely essential that you continue.

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Factors which Influenced Compliance in Milgrams
Study

• Obedience highest when
• -person giving orders is close at hand.
• -authority figure is supported by prestigious
  institution.
• -victim is depersonalized and in another room.
• -there are no role models for defiance.

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Deindividuation

• Deindividuation the loss of self-awareness and
  self-restraint occurring in group situations that
  foster arousal and anonymity.
• Women dressed in depersonalizing outfits or masks
  delivered higher levels of shocks than those who
  were identifiable.
• Some argue the process involved in creating
  soldiers in the military involves deindividuation.

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Dehumanization

• Dehumanization the ability to view the victims
  of violence as somehow less than human.
• Humans find it easier to inflict and rationalize
  violence against victims who seem less than human.

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Banduras Dehumanization Experiments

• Group of college students were to help train
  other visiting college students using shocks when
  they erred.
• Participants overhear 1 of 3 statements
• Neutral the subjects from the other school are
  here.
• Humanized the subjects from the other school
  are here and they seem nice.
• Dehumanized the subjects from the other school
  are here and they seem like animals.
• Results escalated aggression toward dehumanized
  labeled individuals.

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Zimbardos Stanford Prison Experiment

• Ordinary college students were randomly divided
  into groups of prisoners and guards.
• Prisoners were arrested in their homes by
  real policemen, strip searched, deloused and put
  into a jail created in the basement of the
  Stanford Psychology Department.

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Deindividuation and Dehumanization In Stanford
Prison Experiment

• Prisoners
• Referred to only as a number
• Wore ill-fitting smocks without underwear
• Wore nylon panty-hose over head to simulate
  shaved head.
• Wore small chain around ankle to remind them of
  their imprisonoment.

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Deindividuation and Dehumanization in Stanford
Prison Experiments

• Guards
• Wore military style uniform, carried wooden baton
• Given reflective sunglasses to avoid eye contact.
• Only referred to prisoners by their numbers.

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Results of Experiment

• Role Playing affected both groups attitudes.
• After a revolt on the 2nd day, Prison Guards
  became more and more sadistic in enforcing the
  law.
• Prisoners broke down and became more obedient.
• Guards most sadistic when thought experimenters
  were not watching them.
• Experiment eventually had to be ended early.

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Modern Comparison? US soldiers involvement in
Abu Ghraib
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How might social factors have influenced
ordinary perpetrators in Nazi Germany?