POL_S 428 Lecture Notes - Lecture 21: Social Dominance Orientation, Moral Disengagement, Authoritarian Personality
Document Summary
A process in which a particular social group is regularly described as less than human and therefore deserving of treatment one would not administer to a human being: nazi"s viewed jews as rats. Dehumanization stigmatizes others, attributing to them a spoiled identity . Under such conditions, it becomes possible for normal, morally upright, and even usually idealistic people to perform acts of destructive cruelty (cid:1) Diffusion of responsibility: ignore, distort, minimize or disbelieve any negative consequences of conduct, reconstruct perceptions of the enemy by blaming them for the consequences and dehumanizing them (cid:1) Joining a group satisfied a number of these trait based needs or desires (affiliation, ethnocentrism, distrust, and need for power/accomplish task) If they have social and economic they might look for a political reason to (cid:1) My interviews suggest that people join religious terrorist groups partly to transform themselves and to simplify life .
