Evil, humiliation, powerlessness and insignificance
Evil, humiliation, powerlessness and insignificance
My research interests are focussed on the study of evil and humiliation, mostly from the victim’s perspective: not only the extreme and unusual forms of evil (genocide, terrorism, etc.), but also their common and much more frequent daily expressions. Please, for more details on my research topics, visit the web page I helped to develop for our Research Group: https://sites.google.com/view/english-ipsadeyo.
This video is a lecture given by Prof. Zimbardo at MIT on his bestseller book "The Lucifer Effect: Understanding how good people turn evil". It describes the psychosocial approach I also follow in my work.
Specifically, I am now exploring the dehumanization process that facilitates perpetrators to carry out all kind of different acts of evil by depriving the victims of their humanity. Just to contextualize my research, and citing just two amongst other theoretical frameworks, both the Dual Model of Dehumanization (Haslam, 2006) and the dimensions of Mind Perception (Gray et al., 2007), consider there are basically 2 dimensions that allow us to differentiate between humans and non-humans: on one side, we have those attributes and mental capacities unique and specific of humans beings (like our advanced cognitive capacities -thought, judgement, self-control, language,…-, civilization, refinement) which separate us from animals; Haslam terms this dimension “Human Uniqueness”, and Gray et al., “Agency”. On the other side, we find those attributes and mental capacities that separate us from things -like robots- and this list include emotions, warm, sociability, the ability to experience sensations and feelings; this second dimension is called “Human Nature” by Haslam and “Experience” by Gray et al. This bidimensional approach suggests there are at least two possible patterns of dehumanization: one mainly based on denying/devaluating the agentic attributes unique to humans, somehow treating others like animals; and a second one derived from de-meaning others by removing their experiential attributes (those prototypical of human nature), and so treating them like not even living beings but pure things, reifying them. In fact, a third possibility, mixed of these two, is also possible.
There are clear connections to other theories of social perception and cognition: for instance, to the Competence & Warmth dimensions in the Stereotype Content Model (Fiske at al., 2007), or the Agency & Communion dimensions in the Dual Perspective Model by Adele & Wojciszke (2007). These well empirically supported models guide our formulation of hypothesis regarding the expected outcomes of devaluating one dimension or the other one.
My experimental paradigm uses devaluations to evoke what we could consider mild forms of dehumanization, which although far from entirely denying human attributes and capacities to the participants (e.g., a real dehumanization), they succeed in making them experience low bearable levels of humiliation and perceived evil towards them, along with powerlessness and insignificance, as a consequence of their own self-perceptions being devalued. From the victims’ perspective, what we have consistently found so far is their perceived intention in the perpetrator to harm them, to make them suffer, the perception of an unmoral, cruel, unjustified, hostile and disproportionated action against them, which certainly fits into our definition of evil. In other words, unjust and disproportionate verbal identity devaluations can be perceived as an evil aggression and humiliate the receiver, and produce feelings of powerlessness and insignificance, or desires of revenge in a spiral of aggression and evil, or both types of reactions in a sequential manner. The psychological consequences for the victims can be devastating and last for a long time.