Making a Virtue of Evil: A Five-Step Social Identity Model of the Development of Collective Hate
Stephen Reicher,
S. Alexander Haslam,
Rakshi Rath,
Stephen Reicher
School of Psychology, University of St. Andrews
Search for more papers by this author
Stephen Reicher,
S. Alexander Haslam,
Rakshi Rath,
Stephen Reicher
School of Psychology, University of St. Andrews
Search for more papers by this authorAbstract
In the first part of this paper, we re-examine the historical and psychological case for ‘the banality of evil’– the idea that people commit extreme acts of inhumanity, and more particularly genocides, in a state where they lack awareness or else control over what they are doing. Instead, we provide evidence that those who commit great wrongs knowingly choose to act as they do because they believe that what they are doing is right. In the second part of the paper, we then outline an integrative five-step social identity model that details the processes through which inhumane acts against other groups can come to be celebrated as right. The five steps are: (i) Identification, the construction of an ingroup; (ii) Exclusion, the definition of targets as external to the ingroup; (iii) Threat, the representation of these targets as endangering ingroup identity; (iv) Virtue, the championing of the ingroup as (uniquely) good; and (v) Celebration, embracing the eradication of the outgroup as necessary to the defence of virtue.
References
- Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D. J., & Sanford, R. M. (1950). The Authoritarian Personality. New York, NY: Harper.
- Allport, G. (1954). The Nature of Prejudice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
- Arendt, H. (1951). The Origins of Totalitarianism. San Diego, CA: Harvest.
- Arendt, H. (1963/1994). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York, NY: Penguin.
- Arendt, H. (1994). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.
- Arendt, H. (2007). The Jewish Writings. New York, NY: Schocken Books.
- Asch, S. E. (1952). Social Psychology. Englewood-Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
10.1037/10025-000 Google Scholar
- Banuazizi, A., & Movahedi, S. (1975). Interpersonal dynamics in a simulated prison: A methodological analysis. American Psychologist, 30, 152–160.
- Banyard, P. (2007). Tyranny and the tyrant. The Psychologist, 20, 2–8.
- Barker, R. (2001). Legitimating Identities. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
10.1017/CBO9780511490163 Google Scholar
- Baron, R. S. (1984). Group dynamics. In A. S. Kahn (Ed.), Social Psychology (pp. 260–289). Dubuque, IA: W.C. Brown.
- Bar-Zohar, M. (1998). Beyond Hitler's Grasp: The heroic rescue of Bulgaria's Jews. Avon, MA: Adams Media.
- Bauman, Z. (1991). Modernity and the Holocaust. Oxford, UK: Polity.
- Ben-Yakov, A. (1990). Bulgaria. In I. Gutman (Ed.), Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (2 vols.). New York, NY: MacMillan.
- Billig, M. (1976). Social Psychology and Intergroup Relations. London, UK: Academic Press.
- Billig, M. (1987). Arguing and Thinking. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Blalock, H. M. (1967). Status inconsistency, social mobility, status integration and structural effects. American Sociological Review, 32, 790–801.
- Blass, T. (2004). The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram. New York, NY: Basic Books.
- Branscombe, N., Ellemers, N., Spears, R., & Doojse, B. (1999). The context and content of social identity threat. In N. Ellemers, R. Spears, & B. Doosje (Eds.), Social Identity: Context, Commitment, Content. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
- Brewer, M. B. (2001). Ingroup identification and intergroup conflict: When does ingroup love become outgroup hate? In R. D. Ashmore, L. Jussim, & D. Wilder (Eds.), Social Identity, Intergroup Conflict and Conflict Reduction. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
- Brown, R. (2000). Social identity theory: Past achievements, current problems and future challenges. European Journal of Social Psychology, 30, 745–778.
- Browning, C. (1992). Ordinary men: Reserve Police Batallion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. London, UK: Penguin Books.
- Carter, D. T. (1995). The Politics of Rage. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press.
- Cassidy, C., Hopkins, N., Levine, M., Pandey, J., Reicher, S., & Singh, P. (2007). Social identity and Collective behaviour: Some lessons from Indian research at the Magh Mela at Prayag. Psychological Studies, 52, 286–292.
- Catherwood, C. (2002). Why the Nations Rage: Killing in the Name of God. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
- Cesarani, D. (2004). Eichmann: His Life and Crimes. London, UK: Heinemann.
- Condor, S. (1996). Social identity and time. In P. Robinson (Ed.), Social Groups and Identities. Oxford, UK: Butterworth: Heinemann.
- Dovidio, J. F., Glick, P., & Rudman, L. A. (2005). On the Nature of Prejudice. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
- Dower, J. W. (1986). War Without Mercy. New York, NY: Pantheon.
- Drury, J., & Reicher, S. D. (2000). Collective action and social change: The emergence of new social identities. British Journal of Social Psychology, 39, 579–604.
- Drury, J., & Reicher, S. D. (2005). Explaining enduring empowerment: A comparative study of collective action and psychological outcomes. European Journal of Social Psychology, 35, 35–58.
- Duckitt, J. (2000). Culture, personality and prejudice. In S. A. Renshon & J. Duckitt (Eds.), Political Psychology: Cultural and Crosscultural Foundations. New York, NY: New York University Press.
- Duckitt, J. (2003). Prejudice and intergroup hostility. In D. O. Sears, L. Huddy, & R. Jervis (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
- Evans, R. J. (2004). The Coming of the Third Reich. London, UK: Penguin Books.
- Falasca-Zamponi, S. (2000). The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini's Italy. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
- Fryer, D. (1984). Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain. London, UK: Pluto.
- Fuller, W. C. (2006). The Foe Within. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
- Goldhagen, D. J. (1996). Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. London, UK: Little, Brown and Company.
- Haney, C., Banks, C., & Zimbardo, P. (1973). A study of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison. In E. Aronson (Ed.), Readings About the Social Animal (3rd edn, pp. 52–67). San Francisco, CA: Freeman.
- Haslam, S. A. (2001). Psychology in Organizations. London, UK: Sage.
- Haslam, S. A., & Reicher, S. D. (in prep). The Social Psychology of Resistance: Using Prison Studies to Extend Theoretical Imagination. Unpublished manuscript: Universities of Exeter and St Andrews.
- Haslam, S. A., & Reicher, S. D. (2007). Beyond the banality of evil: Three dynamics of an interactionist social psychology of tyranny. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 615–622.
- Haslam, S. A., & Reicher, S. D. (2008). Questioning the banality of evil. The Psychologist, 21, 16–19.
- Haslam, S. A., O’Brien, A., Jetten, J., Vormedal, K., & Penna, S. (2005). Taking the strain: Social identity, social support and the experience of stress. British Journal of Social Psychology, 44, 355–370.
- Haslam, S. A., & Reicher, S. D. (2006a). Debating the psychology of tyranny: Fundamental issues of theory, perspective and science. British Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 55–63.
- Haslam, S. A., & Reicher, S. D. (2006b). Stressing the group: Social identity and the unfolding dynamics of stress. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 1037–1052.
- Haslam, S. A., Turner, J. C., Oakes, P. J., McGarty, C., & Reynolds, K. J. (1998). The group as a basis for emergent stereotype consensus. European Review of Social Psychology, 8, 203–239.
10.1080/14792779643000128 Google Scholar
- Hitler, A. (1980). Mein Kampf. London, UK: Hutchinson.
- Hofstadter, R. (1996). The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Jetten, J., Spears, R., & Manstead, A. R. (1997). Strength of identification and intergroup differentiation: The influence of group norms. European Journal of Social Psychology, 27, 603–609.
- Juergensmeyer, M. (2001). Terror in the Mind of God. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
- Kaur, R. (2003). Performative Politics and the Cultures of Hinduism. Delhi, India: Permanent Black.
- Kershaw, I. (1987). The ‘Hitler Myth’. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.
- Kiernan, V. G. (1995). The Lords of Human Kind. London, UK: Serif.
- King, R. D., & Wheelock, D. (2007). Group threat and social control: Race, perceptions of minorities and the desire to punish. Social Forces, 85, 1255–1280.
- Konečni, V. J. (2007). Bad apples and bad barrels: Bad metaphors and blind spots regarding evil? APS Observer, 20 (5), 9–10.
- Koonz, C. (2003). The Nazi Conscience. Cambridge, MA: Bellknap.
- Langbein, H. (1994). Against All Hope: Resistance in Nazi Concentration Camps 1938–45. London, UK: Constable.
- Levine, M., Cassidy, C., Brazier, G., & Reicher, S. D. (2002). Self-categorisation and bystander non-intervention: Two experimental studies. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 7, 1452–1463.
- Levine, M., Prosser, A., Evans, D., & Reicher, S. D. (2005). Identity and emergency intervention: How social group membership and inclusiveness of group boundaries shapes helping behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 443–453.
- Livingstone, A., & Haslam, S. A. (2008). The importance of social identity content in a situation of chronic social conflict: Understanding intergroup relations in Northern Ireland. British Journal of Social Psychology, 47, 1–21.
- Lovibond, S. H., Mithiran, & Adams, W. G. (1979). The effects of three experimental prison environments on the behaviour of non-convict volunteer subjects. Australian Psychologist, 14, 273–285.
- Lozowick, Y. (2002). Hitler's Bureaucrats: The Nazi Security Police and the Banality of Evil (trans. H. Watzman). London, UK: Continuum.
- Ludden, D. (1996). Contesting the Nation. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
- Mantell, D. M., & Panzarella, R. (1976). Obedience and responsibility. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 15, 239–245.
- Miles, R., & Phizacklea, A. (1984). White Man's Country. London, UK: Pluto.
- Miles, R. (1989). Racism. London, UK: Routledge.
- Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371–378.
- Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
- Miller, A. (2004). What can the Milgram obedience experiments tell us about the Holocaust? Generalizing from the social psychology laboratory. In A. Miller (Ed.), The Social Psychology of Good and Evil (pp. 193–239). New York, NY: Guilford.
- Mummendey, A., & Otten, S. (1998). Positive–negative asymmetry in social discrimination. European Review of Social Psychology, 9, 107–143.
10.1080/14792779843000063 Google Scholar
- Némirovsky, I. (2006). Suite Française. London, UK: Chatto & Windus.
- Newman, L. S. (2001). The Banality of Secondary Sources: Why Social Psychologists Have Misinterpreted Arendt's Thesis. Unpublished manuscript: Syracuse University.
- Novick, P. (2000). The Holocaust and Collective Memory. London, UK: Bloomsbury.
- Overy, R. (2004). The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia. London, UK: Allen Lane.
- Piliavin, J. A. (2006). Volunteering Across the Life-Span: Doing Well by Doing Good. Paper presented to EAESP Small Group Meeting on ‘Group-level perspectives on giving and receiving help’. Germany: Muhbrook.
- Piterburg, G. (2007). Zion's rebel daughter. New Left Review, 48 (November/December).
- Poole, R. (1999). Nation and Identity. London, UK: Routledge.
10.4324/9780203209158 Google Scholar
- Rees, L. (1997). The Nazis: A Warning from History. London, UK: BBC Books.
- Rees, L. (2005). Auschwitz: The Nazis and the ‘Final Solution’. London, UK: BBC Books.
- Reicher, S. D. (1984). The St. Pauls riot: An explanation of the limits of crowd action in terms of a social identity model. European Journal of Social Psychology, 14, 1–21.
- Reicher, S. D. (1996). The Battle of Westminster: Developing the social identity model of crowd behaviour in order to deal with the initiation and development of collective conflict. European Journal of Social Psychology, 26, 115–134.
- Reicher, S. D. (2001). Crowds and social movements. In M. Hogg & S. Tindale (Eds.), Blackwell Handbook of Social Psychology: Group Processes. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
10.1002/9780470998458.ch8 Google Scholar
- Reicher, S. D. (2004). The context of social psychology: Domination, resistance and change. Political Psychology, 25, 40–62.
- Reicher, S. D. (2007). Rethinking the paradigm of prejudice. South African Journal of Psychology, 37, 820–834.
- Reicher, S. D., & Haslam, S. A. (2006a). Rethinking the psychology of tyranny: The BBC Prison Study. British Journal of Social Psychology, 45, 1–40.
- Reicher, S. D., & Haslam, S. A. (2006b). Tyranny revisited: Groups, psychological well-being and the health of societies. The Psychologist, 19, 146–150.
- Reicher, S. D., & Haslam, S. A. (2006c). On the agency of individuals and groups: Lessons from the BBC Prison Study. In T. Postmes & J. Jetten (Eds.), Individuality and the Group: Advances in Social Identity (pp. 237–257). London, UK: Sage.
10.4135/9781446211946.n13 Google Scholar
- Reicher, S. D., & Hopkins, N. (2001). Self and Nation. London, UK: Sage.
- Reicher, S. D., Cassidy, C., Wolpert, I., Hopkins, N., & Levine, M. (2006). Saving Bulgaria's Jews: An analysis of social identity and the mobilisation of social solidarity. European Journal of Social Psychology, 36, 49–72.
- Reicher, S. D., Haslam, S. A., & Hopkins, N. (2005). Leaders and followers as collaborative agents in the transformation of social reality. Leadership Quarterly, 16, 547–568.
- Reicher, S. D., Hopkins, N., Levine, M., & Rath, R. (2006). Entrepreneurs of hate and entrepreneurs of solidarity: Social identity as a basis for mass communication. International Review of the Red Cross, 87, 621–637.
10.1017/S1816383100184462 Google Scholar
- Reynolds, K. J., Turner, J. C., & Haslam, S. A. (2000). When are we better than them and they worse than us? A closer look at social discrimination in positive and negative domains. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 64–80.
- Robespierre, M. (2007). Virtue and Terror. London, UK: Verso.
- Rousset, D. (1947/2005). L’Univers Concentrationnaire. Paris, France: Editions de Minuit.
- Schwarz, B. (1982). The people in history: The Communist Part Historians Group, 1946–56. In Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, Making History: Studies in History Writing and Politics. London, UK: Hutchison.
- Scurr, R. (2006). Fatal purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution. London, UK: Chatto and Windus.
- Sherif, M. (1966). In Common Predicament: Social Psychology of Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
- Sindic, D., & Reicher, S. D. (forthcoming). Attitudes towards superordinate groups: The moderating role of identity undermining. European Journal of Social Psychology.
- Stanley, A. (2006, June 1). ‘The human behavior experiments’: What can be done in the name of obedience. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/01/arts/television/01huma.html (Retrieved June 7, 2006).
- Staub, E. (1989). The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
- Stephan, W. G., & Stephan, C. W. (2000). An integrated threat theory of prejudice. In S. Oskamp (Ed.), Reducing Prejudice and Discrimination. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
- Stern, J. P. (1975). Hitler: The Fuhrer and the People. London, UK: Flamingo.
- Stott, C., & Reicher, S. D. (1998). How conflict escalates: The inter-group dynamics of collective football crowd ‘violence’. Sociology, 32, 353–377.
- Stott, C., Hutchison, P., & Drury, J. (2001). ‘Hooligans’ abroad? Inter-group dynamics, social identity and participation in collective ‘disorder’ at the 1998 World Cup Finals. British Journal of Social Psychology, 40, 359–384.
- Tajfel, H. (1981). Social stereotypes and social groups. In J. C. Turner & H. Giles (Eds.), Intergroup Behaviour (pp. 144–167). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
- Thompson, E. P. (1971). The moral economy of the English crowd in the eighteenth century. Past and Present, 50, 76–136.
10.1093/past/50.1.76 Google Scholar
- Todorov, T. (2001). The Fragility of Goodness. London, UK: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
- Todorov, T. (2004). Hope and Memory. London, UK: Atlantic Books.
- Torpey, J. (1999). The Invention of the Passport. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Turner, J. C. (1982). Towards a cognitive redefinition of the social group. In H. Tajfel (Ed.), Social Identity and Intergroup Relations (pp. 15–40). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Turner, J. C. (1991). Social Influence. Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press.
- Turner, J. C., Hogg, M. A., Oakes, P. J., Reicher, S. D., & Wetherell, M. S. (1987). Rediscovering the Social Group: A Self-categorization Theory. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
- Tyler, T. R., & Blader, S. (2000). Co-operation in Groups: Procedural Justice, Social Identity and Behavioral Engagement. Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press.
- Vetlesen, A. J. (2005). Evil and Human Agency. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
10.1017/CBO9780511610776 Google Scholar
- Waller, J. (2002). Becoming Evil. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
- Zertal, I. (2005). Israel's Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Zimbardo, P. (1969). The human choice: Individuation, reason and order versus deindividuation, impulse and chaos. In W. J. Arnold & D. Levine (Eds.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (vol. 17). Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press.
- Zimbardo, P. (1989). Quiet Rage: The Stanford Prison Study [video]. Stanford, CA: Stanford University.
- Zimbardo, P. (2004). A situationist perspective on the psychology of evil: Understanding how good people are transformed into perpetrators. In A. Miller (Ed.), The Social Psychology of Good and Evil: Understanding Our Capacity for Kindness and Cruelty (pp. 21–50). New York, NY: Guilford.
- Zimbardo, P. (2007). The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil. London, UK: Random House.
- Zizek, S. (2007). Robespierre, or the ‘divine violence’ of terror. Introduction to M. Robespierre. Virtue and Terror. London, UK: Verso.
