Perspectives on Evil and Violence

A Special Issue of personality and Social Psychology Review

Arthur G. Miller

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317759102
• Topic: Psicología
• Subtopic: Historia y teoría en psicología

Within the past decade, there has been an intensified concern about pervasive and serious harmdoing that has drawn the attention of researchers. The primary objective of this special issue is to consider the contributions of social and personality psychology toward understanding the perception of sustained harmdoing and to assess the implications (theoretical, methodological, and philosophical) for the field of undertaking research in this area. The authors represented in this issue have each made significant contributions to the study of harmdoing and evil, and their articles deal with a variety of conceptual and empirical perspectives on harmdoing.

The Roots of Evil: Social Conditions, Culture, Personality, and Basic Human Needs

Ervin Staub

Department of Psychology
University of Massachusetts

Requests for reprints should be sent to Ervin Staub, Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003-7710. E-mail: [email protected].

Evil actions are defined as repeated orpersistent, not commensurate with provocation and causing extreme harm, at times due to repetition. Evil develops or evolves. As individuals and groups harm others, they tend to develop characteristics that makefurther and more intense harmdoing probable. In this article, I explore instigating conditions (difficult life conditions in a society, group conflict); cultural characteristics; the nature of evolution, with its psychological and social processes in individuals and groups; and the passivity and complicity of bystanders that lead to genocide and other collective violence. I consider the question of whether bystanders can be regarded as evil, focusing on the genocide in Rwanda as an example. I examine the socialization and experience ofchildren and youth that lead to aggression and the subsequent evolution ofaggression toward greater violence and evil. I explore the way personal characteristics and a system of relationships can lead to sexual abuse by fathers. One organizing concept in understanding the generation of violence that causes extreme harm is the frustration of basic human needs and their subsequent destructive fulfillment.

The focus of this article is on the origins of evil, in several domains. An important domain is genocide, the attempt to exterminate a whole group of people. This is a form of violence that seems “obviously” evil. Another domain is individual violence. What are the origins of aggression in children, and how does the kind of violence that may be regarded as evil develop out of it? A number of elements in the generation of evil are evident as these two domains are explored: the system in which individuals operate—whether constituted by a culture and social conditions, the nature of a family or a classroom, and relationships among people; personal characteristics and the behavior of bystanders; the evolution of increasingly harmful acts over time; and the frustration of basic human needs and their “destructive” fulfillment. To exemplify further how these elements operate, father-daughter incest and, very briefly, bullying in schools also are discussed. Space limitations do not allow a detailed examination of “cures” or prevention, but the discussion of origins at times implies, and at other times I briefly explore ways to stop or prevent evil.

Is Evil a Useful Concept for Psychologists?

One focus of my work for many years has been the exploration of the roots of violence, especially of genocide and mass killing, which I referred to as evil (Staub, 1989). How does a group, a culture, as well as a person evolve so that they come to engage in “evil” actions or even develop a tendency for them? In recent years, I have also been greatly concerned with the prevention of genocide (Staub, 1996b, 1998b, in press-b). Genocide and mass killing may seem obviously evil to most of us. However, because the concept of evil is becoming increasingly used in the social-psychological literature (Baumeister, 1997; Darley, 1992; Staub, 1989), it is important to ask whether it has useful meaning for psychologists. How would the meaning of evil be differentiated from the meaning of “violence”? Is evil the end point in the evolution of violence? In genocide, a plan is formulated to destroy a group. Usually, a decision is made to do this. Reactions to events and psychological and social processes turn into a plan. However, a conscious intention of extreme destructiveness does not seem a necessary aspect of evil. The real motivation is often unconscious, and a group’s or person’s habitual, spontaneous reactions to certain kinds of events can become highly destructive.

Evil has been a religious concept. The word also has been used as a secular term to describe, explain, or express aversion to certain actions and the human beings or natural forces from which they originate. The notion of a nonhuman force and origin often has been associated with evil, such as the devil, Satan, or Mephistopheles. Some have seen the forces of nature, when manifested in the destruction they sometimes bring, as evil. From a psychological standpoint, the forces of nature are surely neutral: They do, at times, cause harm but without conscious or unconscious intention.

The word evil is emotionally expressive for people: It communicates horror over some deed. People often romanticize evil. They want to see the abhorrent acts or events to which the word refers as having mythic proportions. Designating something as evil is sometimes used to suggest that the actions are not comprehensible in an ordinary human framework: They are outside the bounds of morality or even of human agency. However, evil is the outcome of basic, ordinary psychological processes and their evolution. Arendt’s (1963) concept of the “banality of evil” seems to recognize this. However, the notion of the banality of evil also makes it seem as if its ordinariness diminishes the significance of evil.

I originally used the term evil to denote extreme human destructiveness, as in cases of genocide and mass killing (Staub, 1989), but evil may be defined by a number of elements. One of these is extreme harm. The harm can be pain, suffering, loss of life, or the loss of personal or human potential. Violent actions tend to arise from difficult, threatening circumstances and the psychological reactions of people to them. They are elicited by varied instigators, such as attack, threat, or frustration. Not all people react to such conditions with violence, but some do. Some individuals or groups engage in extremely harmful acts that are not commensurate with any instigation or provocation (Darley 1992), another defining element of evil. Finally, some individuals, groups, or societies evolve in a way that makes destructive acts by them likely. The repetition or persistence of greatly harmful acts may be anothe defining element of evil. It is most appropriate to talk of evil when all these defining elements are present: intensely harmful actions, which are not commensurate with instigating conditions, and the persistence or repetition of such actions. A series of actions also can be evil when any one act causes limited harm, but with repetition, these acts cause great harm.

An important question, which this article in part addresses, is what might be the nature of the actor, whether a society or a person, that makes such acts probable. By “nature of the actor,” whether a person or society, I do not refer to psychopathology. The evil I focus on and explore in this article arises out of ordinary psychological processes and characteristics, although usually extreme forms or degrees of them: seeing people as hostile, devaluing certain groups of people, having an overly strong respect for authority, and others.

When a person or group is attacked, they have a right to defend themselves. If someone begins to shoot at me and I pull out a gun and kill the person, my action is not evil. Whether self-defense is justified can get complicated very fast, however. What if someone has threatened me, and I then lie in wait for him and shoot him when he leaves his house? If this person in a moment of anger has threatened to kill me, most of us would not see this as sufficient provocation to justify killing him, unless perhaps we know that this person has threatened other people in similar ways and then actually killed them.

A particular person, at a particular time, for idiosyncratic reasons, may take a threat extremely seriously and respond by killing another. This extremely violent act may not be evil: It may be peculiar to the circumstances and emotional state of the person at that time. Not arising from this person’s personality, or from a combination of personality and the ongoing structure of circumstances, it is unlikely to be repeated. Evil usually has a more enduring quality. Thus, it might be best not to regard as evil a single act of intense harm that is out of balance with provocation. However, violence evolves, and individuals and groups change as a result of their actions (see subsequent discussion). As a person or group commits an intensely harmful act, there is an increased likelihood that they will do so again.

As well as action, omission may be evil, especially when it causes extreme harm, there is no strong justification for it in circumstances (such as lack of clarity of events or very high cost of action), and when it persists. Consider an extreme example: A person standing at the edge of a lake, taking no action while witnessing a child drowning in shallow water. Passivity in such an extreme situation is likely to arise from this person’s nature, predicting other evil acts (or from this person’s relationship to that particular child).

Evil acts are mainly directed at other human beings, although the destruction of animals or nature may also be considered evil. These actions often cause material harm: death, injury, pain, or severe deprivation and injustice. Persistent neglect or belittling of a child that causes physical harm, psychological pain, or psychological injury that diminishes the capacity for growth and satisfaction are also appropriately regarded as evil.

It may be most appropriate to regard it evil when destructive actions are intentional. However, intention is highly complicated psychologically because a person’s real motive is often unconscious; individuals and groups tend to justify their actions, even to themselves; and various belief systems develop that propagate harmful actions in the service of some presumed good. Persons or groups who act destructively tend to claim self-defense or to claim that their victims are morally bad and dangerous or stand in the way of human betterment and, therefore, deserve suffering or death. They may simply use this as justification or may genuinely believe it even when it is completely untrue.

An example of a belief system leading people to act cruelly in the service of what they see as a good cause is the way children were treated in many societies (Greven, 1991; Miller, 1983). In many places, including Germany, England, and the United States, children were seen as inherently willful. Obedience by them was seen as a high virtue and important goal, and it was believed that children’s will had to be broken early if they were to become good people. Such thinking often had religious roots (Greven, 1991). Any and all means, such as threatening children with the devil and in other ways scaring them, as well as physically punishing them or depriving them, were seen appropriate to break their will and teach them obedience and respect (Miller, 1983).

In the case of genocide, it is usually clear to outside observers that it is not justified by provocations even if it is a response to real violence by the other group. However, frequently the victim group has done nothing to justify violence against them, except in the perpetrators’ minds. The Jews engaged in no destructive actions against Germans. Many of the intellectuals and educated people in Cambodia who were killed or worked to death by the Khmer Rouge did no harm that would justify such actions in the minds of most people. According to the Khmer Rouge ideology, however, these intellectuals had participated in an unjust system that favored them at the expense of others and were incapable of participating in a system of total social equality. To fulfill a “higher” ideal, to create total social equality, was the motivation to kill them or to reduce them to slaves working in the “killing fields” (Staub, 1989).

There is the same absence of provocation in many cases of recurrent violence against a spouse, or severe neglect, harsh verbal and physical treatment, and persistent physical violence against children. Some parents blame their children all the time: for having been noisy, thereby causing the car accident in which the parents were involved; for needing things that cost money, thereby depriving the family of other things; for anything and everything (L. Huber, school psychologist, personal communication, June 1997). Peck (1983) gave this as a primary example of evil. Such parents may completely lack awareness of what in themselves leads to their blaming and scapegoating, seeing their actions as justifiable reactions to the child.

Frequently, there are two levels of motivation in harmful behavior, including evil acts. One is to “harm” a person or a group, and another is to fulfill some goal that the harmful act supposedly serves. Perpetrators may present and often actually see their actions as in the service of higher ideals and of beneficial outcomes, even to the victims themselves (raising a good child), to society (creating social equality), or to all of humanity (creating a better world).

My discussion of the concept of evil suggests that it could be a useful concept for psychologists. It could lead, for example, to more focused exploration of the characteristics of persons, cultures, and situations that lead to harmdoing that represents an overreaction to circumstances (provocation), is extreme and/or recurrent. It also could lead to more focused work on how cultures that promote such responses and persons who respond in these ways develop. Time will tell whether evil will be a comfortable concept for psychologists and whether it will become used.

Although the starting point for evil is usually the frustration of basic human needs (see subsequent discussion), evil actions are made possible by some or all of the following: lack or loss of concern with the welfare of other people; a lack of empathy with people, both lack of empathic feelings and lack of understanding how others feel; lack of self-awareness, the ability to understand one’s own motives; having a negative view of others; a sense of entitlement, a focus on one’s own rights; and devaluation, fear of, and hostility toward some or all human beings. How do the psychological tendencies that contribute to evil actions come about? How do motivations to intensely harm others arise? How do inhibitions decline?

The Origins of Evil

Both in groups and individuals, the evolution of evil starts with the frustration of basic human needs and the development of destructive modes of need fulfillment. Evil usually begins when profoundly important needs of human beings are not fulfilled, either in the course of growing up or later in life, and especially when early frustration of basic needs is combined with later frustration. We human beings have certain shared psychological needs that must be fulfilled if we are to lead reasonably satisfying lives: We need to feel secure; we need to develop a posi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• Copyright
• INTRODUCTION
• ARTICLES
• EPILOGUE