Political Psychology – Lecture 8 [UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM]

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 in media).
• Respect for authority
  This includes a tendency to obey authority.
• Monolithic culture
  This includes a small range of predominant values or limitations on the free flow of ideas.

The cultural self-concept of the perpetrators often includes a glorified past and a sense of threat by an enemy. This can lead to aggression and is linked to unstable group self-esteem and proneness to humiliation. Furthermore, cultural self-concept often includes a history of aggressiveness, which leads to more acceptance of aggression as a way of dealing with conflict. Lastly, it also includes unhealed wounds due to past victimization. This can make a group vulnerable and prone to threats by other groups which leads to a strong need to defend oneself.

Bystanding individuals often show passivity due to indifference (1), racism (2), just-world thinking (3) or fear of punishment (4). Bystanding groups often show passivity due to indifference (1), racism (2), just-world thinking (3), opportunism (4), economic reasons (5), unwillingness to breach the sovereignty of another country (6) and nothing at stake for the group (7).

Bystanders often remain silent and passive and learn and change as a result of their behaviour (i.e. dissonance reduction). Just-world thinking helps the dissonance reduction process. Perpetrators interpret this silence as support. The change in behaviour and the presumed support makes future interventions more difficult. There are passive bystanders (1), supportive bystanders (2) and semi-active bystanders (3).

During Rwanda’s genocide, there was a radio station broadcasting negative messages about the victims (e.g. ‘the graves are not yet full). There are strong claims about the causal effects of these broadcasts. However, there is no consensus on this. The idea that the radio broadcasts have a causal effect of eliciting genocide is based on the hypodermic needle theory.

The radio broadcasting range does not align with the location of the violence. The timing of the violence does not align with the radio broadcasts and the perpetrators indicate that mobilization and fear led them to join the genocide and not the radio. Therefore, the radio was not the primary cause of the genocide in Rwanda.

However, the radio most likely had marginal and conditional effects. It instigated some attacks and had effects on the levels of violence among perpetrators. It is possible that the radio catalysed the more hard core among the broader pool of perpetrators. The media effects were probably catalysing hard-liners (1), reinforcing messages (2) and framing public choice (3).