Mastroianni (2015). Obedience in perspective: Psychology and the holocaust - Article summary

Milgram’s explanation of obedience for perpetrator behaviour in the holocaust is currently being challenged. The situationists state that the situation leads to a particular behaviour (e.g. Milgram’s experiment; Stanford prison experiment).

It is likely that atrocities (e.g. holocaust) do not merely occur because of the situational factors, although situational factors do play a role. Good leadership is likely to play an important role in these events.

It is possible that the situationist explanation of atrocities is readily accepted due to a lack of detailed knowledge about these events. This lack of understanding can be explained by the public understanding being shaped by an incomplete and sometimes inaccurate account (1), historical scholarship has continued to refine out understanding of the events (2) and Milgram stated that historical context should be ignored (3).

According to Waller, genocide is possible because of our ancestral shadow (1), the identities of the perpetrators (2), a culture of cruelty (3) and social death of the victims (4). This theory relies on biological and social mechanisms that tend to universalize the potential for genocidal behaviour and downplay contextual historical factors.

According to Baumeister, genocide is explained by idealism (1), threatened egotism (2), instrumentalism (3) and sadism (4). Idealism and threatened egotism are the primary factors relevant to the explanation of the Holocaust.

According to Staub, genocide starts with difficult life conditions. These conditions frustrate basic human needs and attempts by groups or individuals to explain or address these difficult conditions can operate to promote intergroup hostility and violence. Cultural devaluation (1), authority orientation (2), an aggressive past (3) and the lingering effects of past victimization (4) as risk factors of genocide.

Invalidation of individual volition (e.g. in situationist explanations) in genocidal behaviour (i.e. voluntary actions) renders moral judgement of behaviour problematic (1) and it deflects attention from the beliefs and ideas that play an important role in genocide (2).

It is likely that a lot of genocidal behaviour can be explained and understood as a consequence of normal mechanisms of perception, learning, socialization and development.