Genocide refers to killing members of the group (1), causing serious bodily or mental harm to members (2), deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life to bring about physical destruction (3), imposing measures intended to prevent births (4) and forcibly transferring children to another group (5) with the intent to destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.
In other words, it is an intent to annihilate people based on their group membership. It employs a systematic approach. However, it is a highly debated concept. There is no consensus on the definition. It is also highly politicized concept because acknowledging genocide legally means an obligation to take responsibility and intervene.
It is a highly emotionally laden term and the term is often used for propagandistic reasons. A lot of disciplines study genocide and all disciplines have a different perspective on it. People study genocide to understand why genocide is possible and to predict and prevent future genocide.
The situationist approach states that depending on the context (i.e. situation), people can easily become perpetrators in a genocide (e.g. Milgram’s research). Milgram’s research may account for the average citizen’s dutiful destructiveness but it does not account hate-driven cruelties. There are more factors at play during a genocide than authority (e.g. greed, personality, ideology, historical grievances).
This leads to the question of whether social psychology is fit to study genocide. However, it is most likely fit to study genocide but only in accordance with other disciplines. A lot of behaviour of perpetrators, bystanders, victims and instigators can be understood as the consequence of normal mechanisms of perception, learning, socialization and development.
There are different potential causes of genocide. At the micro-level (i.e. individual), perpetrator’s behaviour may be understood through personality. At the meso level (i.e. group), perpetrator’s behaviour may be understood through a pressure to conform to the group norm. At the macro-level (i.e. societal), perpetrator’s behaviour may be understood through global developments.
Waller’s theory states that genocide is possible because of ancestral shadow (1), identities of the perpetrators (2), a culture of cruelty (3) and social death of the victims (4). Baumeister’s theory states that genocide is possible because of idealism (1), threatened egotism (2), instrumentalism (3) and sadism (4).
According to Staub’s theory, the perpetrators often have an ideology of antagonism. This states that the group’s identity or self-definition includes enmity toward another group. Genocide may occur because of a combination of difficult life conditions (e.g. loss of national status) (1) and group conflict (e.g. history of conflict) (2). This states that the group’s identity or self-definition includes enmity toward another group. The difficult life conditions ensure that certain basic human needs are threatened (e.g. material needs, need for safety, need for self-esteem, need for freedom).
The cultural societal characteristics of the perpetrators include several aspects:
- Cultural devaluation
This includes a history of devaluation of a group (e.g. negative stereotypes
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Psychology Magala Dan contributed on 15-06-2022 01:42
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