Issue: Genocide is the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular nation or ethnic group. E.g the holocaust is the world’s most known instance – it was an attempt by the Nazi government to exterminate Europe’s Jewish population. Concentration and mass extermination camps either worked Jews to death or gassed them. 6 million Jews being killed, 5 million slaves, disabled, Jehovah witnesses
Agency Theory: States when we are given orders, we switch from an autonomous state of mind to a agentic state becoming an agent of the authority figure. We may gain moral strain but diffuse the responsibility onto the authority figure.
It helps explain when soldiers are given orders that they lose their free will and their mind switches to this agentic state becoming an agent of that person to carry out those orders. We can prevent genocide with the agency theory by making people aware of how giving orders can make the person’s mind set change.
We can also encourage more democratic institutions where leaders/dictators are challenged and question so people become more aware of their actions.
Authoritarianism: ppl with authoritarian personalities are more likely to be obedient. He explored childhood and found that those with strict parents who demand total obedience. The child would lash out and direct hatred towards the minorities and others because they couldn’t with their parents.
This can cause genocide as authoritarian personalities are more likely to be obedient and follow the orders of those who are much higher up. We can use this to prevent genocide by making people aware of the consequences of strict parenting and encourage parents to be more lenient.
Realistic Conflict Theory: intergroup hostility can arise due to two groups forming, competing about a conflicting goal or a scarce resource. It can explain the prejudice and discriminating towards outgroups competing for the same resource, groups may be in competition for real or perceived scarce resources.
This explains genocide because two groups are in rival for a scarce resource, prejudice occurs to the point where one group wants to exterminate the rival so they are no longer competition. To prevent genocide, a superordinate goal has to be introduced so they work together to get along which reduces conflict.
Social Identity Theory: The existence of groups is the mere force of prejudice. Showing we have a natural tendency to form groups. We socially categorised them, identify ourselves with our ingroup where self-esteem & emotions & social norms and merged. Social comparison is when we compare our in-group & out-group and inflate ourselves to keep up self-maintenance.
Links to genocide because two different groups who may hate each other or be rivals will direct to each other, climbing the scale of prejudice where it may escalate and extermination of their rival group may occur. To prevent this we can make the two rival groups see they have something in common so they can identify widely and be part of the same in-group.
Evaluation:
Milgram’s study supports the agency theory as it found that 65% of obeyed orders when told to turn the voltage up – showing that our minds in fact do switch when given an order by an authority figure.
However the study have low ecological validity as it was carried out in Yale University meaning behaviour is less natural while Sheriff’s study has high ecological validity as it was carried out in a natural setting out a summer camp meaning behaviour and tasks were natural to that setting so behaviour will have higher mundane realism.
Milgram’s study has higher scientific status because of the higher internal validity and control over extraneous variables and how the study had a standardized procedure such as verbal prods and instructions. Easier to test for consistency of findings. Sheriff has lower scientific status as it took place in a natural setting where control of the Iv occurred but couldn’t control every variable meaning harder to test for consistencies of findings.
Sheriff supports both RCT & SIT because it shows that groups were formed and leaders arose which caused prejudice by the existence of groups. Also the use of competition increased prejudice between groups showing that there are multiple ways prejudice can be created which can created genocide.
Theories are reductionist: e.g Authoritarian personality only looks at the personality aspect of social influences and not situational factors or pre-dispositions. Reduced human complexity to something we can interpret.