Everyone at some point in their lives has committed at least one act that can be considered violent or another. Whether it was a physical fight with a friend, or former friend, or just pent up frustration taken out on a younger sibling, or even just anger expressed literally, through your door. Regardless, it was probably a somewhat minor act of aggression, as a greater majority of people don't subscribe to a overly violent lifestyle, especially when discussed to the level of killing other humans. In fact, most that would consider themselves "peaceful" or "non-violent" or even just "normal" do not consider themselves capable of mass violence or even of killing another human. However, throughout history, there have been several instances of not only killing but mass killing and even genocidal acts committed by these self-appointed "normal" people. No matter how hard it is to admit, everyone, even the most passive and peaceful of us are capable of these atrocities under the right circumstances. These circumstances include the common overwhelming hate of a people, the spread of very influential propaganda promoting mass violence, and others. It is the duty of this blog to prove the involvement of "normal" people in mass violence.
The most obvious historical example of the non-violent becoming mass killers lies in the most deadly war in recent times, the Nazi execution of six million Jews during World War II. The numbers of normal, hard working Germans that were recruited into the anti-semite movement are staggering. Whether it was a pre-war anti-semitism that was set in the minds of these Germans or just the genius propaganda that was issued by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party, still the fact remains that these were regular, working class, non-violent citizens of Germany, that in the face of war, combined to ruthlessly take the lives of millions of Jews. There were lawyers, doctors, carpenters, businessmen and any other profession in Germany that before the war simply went about their business peacefully, but under the rule of Hitler turned into raving Jew killers.
There is much debate as to why these seemingly normal people could have the capacity to be so ruthless. Some say it is due solely to the great propaganda of the Nazi party, rallying the country around the cause of exterminating the Jewish people of Europe. Others claim it to be a deep-seated hatred of these somewhat more successful outsiders that led to people chasing them out. Whatever the reason, there is no doubt that just as many of the perpetrators that participated in the genocide of WWII could be considered evil or somewhat insane, there are just as many normal, ordinary German perpetrators.
This can be seen in other cases of mass killing also. In Rwanda, many recruited to the task of destroying the Tutsi "cockroaches" were simple, Hutu Rwandans. Somehow they also got caught up in the killing. The historical evidence is undoubtedly present. The greater question that rests in this issue is why they did it. Why so many ordinary people, just like you and me, subscribed to the unjust murdering of hundreds, thousands, millions. And even scarier; do we have the same potential. Faced with the same situation would the rest of us commit the same despicable crimes. Maybe it is yet to be seen.

Are we really any different?

During the Holocaust, Nazi soldiers followed Hitler’s orders without question. Whether the order was to send people into gas chambers, or performing torturous experiments, it was followed. In hindsight, we can look back and see that all of these “orders” were actually horrible atrocities, but can we really say that we wouldn’t have followed these same orders? How can we really say that we are so different than the Germans of the time? How can we truly deny the fact that we, too, would have done as we were told, without thinking of the genocide as just a job? We can’t.

In the sociology class that I took last semester, I was assigned a reading that I have yet to put in the back of my mind. When I read the title, I thought it to be a bit ridiculous and far-fetched. The article assigned was titled, “If Hitler Asked You to Electrocute a Stranger, Would You? Probably.” by Philip Meyer. However, upon reading, I discovered that this article was FAR from ridiculous, and instead, made me question if we Americans truly are any different from the Nazis in Germany. The discovery made in the article: We aren’t.

Meyer describes an experiment performed by Stanley Milgram, a social psychologist. Milgram set out to perform an experiment to test the extent of a person’s obedience. Through an ad in the newspaper Milgram drew volunteers to his experiment for monetary compensation. He then placed a volunteer into the position of “teacher.” The “teacher” was told to follow directions by asking question and shocking the person labeled as the “learner” if the “learner” answered a question incorrectly. Unbeknownst to the “teacher,” no shocking was actually done, because the “learner” was part of the team conducting the experiment. The two individuals were separated, so that they were not able to see each other. Milgram expected that in America, people would discontinue the experiment when they heard that the “learner” was in pain. Levels of shock were supposedly increased with each wrong answer. However, during the experiment, Milgram found that sixty-five percent of the “teachers” continued to “shock” the “learner” all the way up to 450 volts, despite the sounds of excruciating pain from the “learner.” He then determined that the level of obedience in America was saddeningly just as high as in Germany.

Milgram had expected that Americans would be different than Germans, only to find out that the level of obedience was almost exactly alike. Personally, I can’t even fathom causing harm to a person just to follow orders. But who’s to say that any one of us would disobey a higher authority if it meant that we weren’t the ones getting hurt? Milgram’s study found that a majority of Americans would have been inclined to continue following orders, as long as they were the individual giving the punishment rather than receiving it.

Works Cited:

Meyer, Philip. “If Hitler Asked You to Electrocute a Stranger, Would You? Probably.” Esquire. 1970

Rape as a Weapon during War

It has been observed that rape is commonly used as a weapon during wartime. Rape, used as a war tactic, is used to bring down morale and to desecrate and abuse another human being. In performing the activity, the rapist is able to have complete control over another individual and to mercilessly inflict pain and harm, without thinking twice about the hardships that the abused individual, and in some cases, her family, will continue to endure long after the abuse. This is similar to the effects that are faced by other individuals who have been subjected to other forms of torture during war. There are many theories as to why women are the subject of rape during war. “In some instances, however, it also can serve a strikingly sex-specific function, when, for example, it is committed with the intent of impregnating its victims”(Thomas, 82). This act of impregnating victims is another example of the humiliation that a rapist can impose upon his victim. Whereas rape is used as a weapon in many wars, I’ve decided to focus this entry primarily on the rapes against women that occurred during the civil war in Somali. After deciding to write my blog on the topic of rape and its use as ammunition against enemies during war, I researched countries that this practice had occurred in. I had heard many stories about rape during wartime in many parts of Africa, and when I found articles about Somalia, I was intrigued. I had never heard about the war that raged in Somalia, and in writing this blog, I wanted to learn something new during the process of writing.
The Somali civil war came to be in 1991 after the fall of its dictator, Siad Barre. Being a predominantly Muslim country; Somalia, pre-civil war, was very strict in its belief that the virginity of a woman was treasured and not to be sullied. Women wore traditional reserved clothing as well as headdresses to cover their heads and shoulders to promote their modesty. Rape was not a common occurrence, out of respect to religious and societal norms. However, during the civil war, many of its Muslim women were subjected to the ruthless forms of torture and abuse.
Many Somalis were killed during this war, and even more were displaced. Many were sent to refugee camps in Africa where women were unable to feel safe. There was minimal security at these camps and therefore many women were left feeling vulnerable. The camps that these refugees stayed at were in very remote areas, which only further increased the chances of being abused or raped. “About two hundred rape cases were reported in 1993. In the next four years, this dropped to between 70 and 105, but increased to 164 in 1998, dropping back to 71 in 1999, 82 in 2000, 72 in 2001, and 18 in 2002 (UNHCR 2003).” Though the occurrences declined in numbers reported over four years, women still had to live in fear. While in the camps, women were unable to defend themselves and as a technique to try protect themselves, would wear trousers under their traditional dress. A 35-year-old recalled the situation that occurred when she was a teen. “If a woman is wearing a dirac, it can just be pulled or torn off in no time; but if she has tight trousers underneath, then help may come in time" (Abdi). This quote, I feel, displays the helplessness of the situation and the desperation of the women to do whatever they could to attempt to protect themselves from the men who preyed on these women during the war.
Rape during wartime is a very real and very serious issue. In regards to the raping of numerous Somali women, Abdi stated that, “Violating their integrity and subjecting them to the extreme violence of rape and torture became a key weapon of the war.” (Abdi).” Some doubt the severity of the situation and have not considered it to be on common ground with other forms of war torture, according to Dorothy Q. Thomas and Regan E. Ralph, who wrote on the role of rape during war. “Rape has been downplayed as an unfortunate but inevitable side effect of sending men to war. It thus is ignored as a human rights abuse. Then when rape is reported and condemned… the abuses are called unprecedented and unique in their scale” (Thomas, 84). As an advocate for human rights, I believe that there should be more focus and more importance placed on the tragedy of rape as a weapon. Rape alone is one of the most demoralizing actions a person can inflict on another, but to downplay the seriousness of rape during war is almost a crime within itself.


Thomas, Dorothy Q. and Regan E. Ralph. “Rape in War: Challenging the Tradition of Impunity.” SAIS Review (Vol) (1994), 82-99.
Abdi , Cawo Mohamed. “Convergence of Civil War and the Religious Right: Reimagining Somali Women.” Journal of Women in Culture and Society . 183-207

Human Nature vs. Peace

Everybody knows the idea of peace, but when you ask someone to define their idea of peace, no two answers are the same. To that end, what is peace? Who can honestly say that peace has ever existed? Perhaps the reason peace is unattainable is because of these variations of the meaning, these constant opinion changes to just the word alone seems to make the possibility of peace unfathomable. Though many wars have been fought for the name of peace, where has it been all this time? Why does peace seem to elude human experience? So with that in mind, let’s delve into the primordial meaning of peace.


The meaning is as simple as it is complex. Science still diligently searches for the answers to human nature in order to find the fundamental differences from person to person, culture to culture. Our own need to be right stands at the top of reason for conflict. Every individual, every group, every country wants to be on the winning side of a conflict or situation, regardless of the inherent importance or magnitude. This leads to an individual’s desire to grow, to expand their circle of influence. Whether that circle of influence is the homeless person taking the neighboring homeless persons cardboard box, or one country taking another countries wheat supply. It all boils down to one person wanting to “win”.


Peace, in the end, is a very complex subject, especially when the idea moves from being a self-goal to a political goal. A recently budding branch of Peace Psychology looks into the political ideas of peace and what it should demand. In a definition given by United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, they gave their definition of peace:

There can be no genuine peace when the most elementary human rights are violated, or while situations of injustice continue to exist; conversely, human rights for all cannot take root and achieve full growth while latent or open conflicts are rife. . . Peace is incompatible with malnutrition, extreme poverty and the refusal of the rights of peoples to self-determination. Disregard for the rights of individuals and peoples, the persistence of inequitable international economic structures, interference in the internal affairs of other states, foreign occupation and apartheid are always real or potential sources of armed conflict and international crisis. The only lasting peace is a just peace based on respect for human rights (qtd. in Christie et al 10)

If you ask yourself, what kind of peace can there be is human rights are being violated? Can two people be peaceful if one suffers while the other flourishes? No. Eventually the weaker of the two will lash out and attempt to “win”. If you choose any moment in history, especially in any war, you can find at least one type of violation of human rights. During the Civil War, where were African Americans’ right to live, to have liberty and justice? During World War II, the Jews faced genocide due to their religion. Where were their human rights? Sadly, this world is not ready for peace. For all the political preening of countries and governments working together is all a façade to a power struggle between powerful people. In the end it is the individuals that lose. As Dr. Martin Luther King once said in a speech about the Vietnam War, "I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the junta in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them too because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries." (King 4) Until humanity in a whole loses the selfish desire to win, then there will be no true peace.


Unfortunately a change of that magnitude will require an extraordinary situation to occur. It would have to be a fantastic series of revelations. Religious, political, and maybe even financial are some of the more optimistic changes that could lead to true peace. Global war of unimaginable scale, total anarchy or worse would be the yang of the ying. We care too much for ourselves than the person next to us. Humans will one day be able to obtain the peace that we all long for, but we are still very far away from that moment, we, as a species, have a lot to learn about ourselves before we can achieve such a great accomplishment.












Works Cited:

Christie, Daniel J., Barbara S. Tint, Roger V. Wagner, Deborah Winter. “Peace Psychology for a Peaceful World”. American Psychologist. Vol. 63(6), Sep 2008,. pp. 540-552. http://www2.uni-jena.de/svw/igc/seminars/Thematic%20Seminar/Cohrs_WS08-09/TS-Cochrs-WS08-09_Christie-etal-inpress.pdf



King, Martin Luther, Jr. “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” Clergy and Laity Concerned. Riverside Church, New York, New York. 4 April 1967. https://blackboard.unf.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_41020_1%26url%3D

Decision Making

The leader of a country typically is involved in that country’s military. For instance in America the president is also the commander-in-chief. Having this much power is a great responsibility for a person to hold. Unfortunately, there is no way to guarantee that the person in this position will be the best for it, as everyone has their own personalities and some people may be better suited for it than others. And as each personality is different, the decisions made will also be different from each person. The five-factor personality theory claims that there are 5 main factors that shape a person’s personality, all of which are biological. The different categories are extraversion, agreeableness,conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience, with conscientiousness being related to organization, thoroughness and the ability to make plans. This specific factor is probably where a person’s need for cognition would fall as well (Srivastava 2008). Obviously this difference in needs for cognition can have a large impact on the country. Imagine some sort of crisis that strikes; warranting a decision as to what to do. The leader could take extra time to think about the problem, but the extra time may cost lives. Or they could make a quick decision, but less thought could mean that the wrong decision is made perhaps costing more lives.
People who have a high need for cognition will typically have a sort of desire to tackle more difficult problems or to spend more time working out a problem. Those with a low need for cognition typically will gather the required information and then make a decision as quick as possible, rather than spending more time processing it. In one study, a group of students showed that people with high cognition will do more work in trying to find information and make a decision than those with low cognition. This can be translated into a more general application to all people with high or low needs for cognition (Hazenberg, Palenewen, Verplanken 1992).
The level of a person’s and more specifically a leader’s need for cognition, whether high or low, will be playing a very large role in his success as a leader. If the leader has a high need for cognition, then more time will pass before action is taken, but they will have considered many more angles and possibilities to the problem. Whereas if the leader has a low need for cognition, action will come quicker since they don’t have as much interest in thinking critically about it, but will lack the same insight as the decision made by the leader with a high need for cognition.
An example of a decision that came quickly due to a low need for cognition could be George W. Bush’s decision to invade Afghanistan following the attacks on September 11th. For instance, the decision to wage a war on terror came very quickly after the attacks. This proved to be a popular decision with the American people, with Bush’s approval rating reaching a record high 92 percent. It also proved to be a good decision to go after Osama Bin Laden, who was being protected by the Taliban government in Afghanistan. The American people were looking for some sort of retaliation directed towards the people involved with the attacks, so a quick decision in this instance seemed reasonable. The polls taken immediately afterwards showed that this instance of low cognition was popular with Bush’s approval rating being near ninety.
While that decision seemed to be a good one, the one following it, the invasion of Iraq as a continuation of the war on terror, did not seem to be a good decision. The decision to invade perhaps wasn’t considered as much as it should have been nor was the information at hand looked at closely enough. Some groups wanted to allow more time for more information to be gathered on what the Iraqi government was doing and to find the weapons of mass destruction, but the American government acted quickly. With the war in Iraq still a current issue, it could be viewed that this was not a good decision. The most recent polls taken show the approval rating has dropped to 28 percent, and while there are now a handful of other issues which have affected this, the war can arguably be the longest running issue.
Hazenberg, Pieter T., Palenewen, Grace R., Verplanken, Bas. (1992). “Need for
Cognition and External Information Search Effort”. Journal of Research in Personality, 26(2), Retrieved from PsycArticles database.
Page, Susan. (9/19/2008). Bush’s disapproval rating worst of any president in 70 years.
USA Today. Retrieved November 1st, 2008, from http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20080422/a_pollbox22.art.htm
Srivastava, S. ([2008]). Measuring the Big Five Personality Factors. Retrieved [10/31] from http://www.uoregon.edu/~sanjay/bigfive.html.

Drawing the Line

Throughout the course of history, a myriad of controversial events have occurred (i.e. the genocides in Rwanda and Germany, the “ethnic cleansing” of the Serbs, etc.), and consequentially, many nations have had to face possible intervention on their behalves. The motives for supplying aid to a given nation are complex, context-dependent, and become even more involved when the nation seeking aid is plagued by numerous violations of human rights. At some point, countries and individuals alike must decide where and when they “draw the line” on going to war. In doing so, we must actively define what injustices necessitate intervention and which do not, a process which is heavily influenced by the individual’s ideals and his or her respective society’s ideals.

Because social beliefs largely influence those of the individual, society’s standards play a significant role in defining where an individual draws the line on going to war. Firstly, the individual’s ideals and specific beliefs obviously influence where he or she chooses (or would choose) to intervene on behalf of another. If one feels that an action violates what he or she holds to be right and fair, the individual can then decide whether or not intervention should be considered. However, society’s beliefs and the tenets our social groups hold to be true also influence our motives, producing greater effects than are typically imagined. A recent energy conservation study in California, often considered one of the most liberal and environmentally-conscious states in America, revealed that “descriptive normative beliefs”—that those that are held by a majority of those around us—better predicted actions than any other factor (Nolan p. 913). In actuality, social influence elicited the largest changes in behavior overall, even more so than information that emphasized the benefits of active conservation. However, those surveyed were also more likely to say that their cultural and social beliefs had the least impact on their decision. As such, it is relatively easy for society’s concerns to then develop into the individual’s concerns, often without detection. We are bombarded by our societal beliefs on a daily basis. When we view an outside conflict or issue, we often subscribe to the ideals our social groups (Americans, Southerners, Floridians, UNF students, etc.) have deemed as “appropriate.”

Society’s influence reaches even farther than this, however, in that the issues society characterizes as important are the ones that we allow ourselves to address on a regular basis. Researchers at the University of Amsterdam created an MIP-G (Motivated Information Processing in Groups) model that suggests that social concerns are the driving force behind what type of information individuals “attend to, encode, and retrieve” (De Drue p. 22) whereas the theory of knowledge shapes the extent to which an individual seeks new information to process. It makes logical sense that when society as a whole becomes interested, we as individuals become interested; if society illustrates a legitimate interest, media attention and coverage of the issue increases. The issue often moves to the forefront of the individual’s interests simply because of the increased exposure to the issue at hand. For instance, the recent crazes over the rising price of gas and global warming have illustrated the changes in individuals (i.e. less driving, more carpooling/recycling, drinking tap water instead of bottled water) that can occur as a result of social motivation. Essentially, because society mandates the “important” issues of the time, we are exposed to these issues more and become more concerned with them as a result. The extensive effects of society’s beliefs on an individual’s suggest that the group with which one associates has a huge impact on what situations he or she would actively oppose.

Because society’s ideals and the individual’s ideals are so intertwined, social groups have a huge impact on where one draws the line on going to war; the beliefs our society holds often lapse into our own.

Works Cited

Nolan, Jessica M, et al. "Normative social influence is undertected." Personality and Social Psychilogy Bulletin 34.7 (2008): 913-923. PsycINFO. EBSCO. 20 Oct. 2008.

De Drue, Carsten K.W., Bernard A Nijstad, and Daan Van Knippenberg. "Motivated information processing in group judgment and decision making." Personality and Social Psychology Review 12.1 (2008): 22-49. PsycINFO. EBSCO. 20 Oct. 2008.

Israel-Palestine Conflict: Hope in the Top-Down Approach

After advocating a bottom-up approach to inducing change within the Israel-Palestine conflict in last week’s blog, I did a bit more research on the subject. Perhaps the top-down approach be effective and could be used to create a positive peace in the region. Progressive leadership could eradicate structural and direct violence that is prevalent in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the creation of two separate states.

In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict many Palestinians have been forced to leave their homes and live in refugee camps. These camps now house generations of refugees. This causes resentment among Palestinians as the Israelis occupy land they view as rightly theirs (Promises). Tight security along the borders of Israel, and whereas Israelis can pass through boarder check-points easily, Palestinians must have passes that are not easy to come by (Promises). Also structural violence permeates the economic sphere as well. Israeli and Palestine economies depend upon each other. Palestinians depend on Israelis for jobs; Israelis depend on low-wage Palestinian labor (Wassertein 62). Many Palestinians are unemployed and barely surviving (Wassertein 65), which shows how disadvantaged Palestinians are, as compared with Israelis.

The inequality has spurred violence against the Israelis. The First and Second Intifada were popular uprisings of Palestinians against the Israeli authorities. Hamas use of suicide bombers is an attempt to make the Israeli population feel as the Palestinians do. According to Dr. Abdul Aziz Rantsi, one of the founders of the Hamas movement,

"The bombings were a moral lesson. They were a way of making innocent Israelis feel the pain that innocent Palestinians had felt. “We want to do the same to Israel as they have done to us,” he explained, indicating that just as innocent Muslims had been killed in the Hebron incident and in many other skirmishes during the Israeli-Palestinian tensions, it was necessary for the Israeli people to actually experience the violence before they could understand what the Palestinians had gone through" (Juergensmeyer 75).

The leadership on both the Israeli and the Palestine sides perpetuates the structural violence. Experiments done by Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram illustrated the level of obedience that authority commanded. There are three roles that are filled in the experiment: an authority figure, the learner, and the teacher. The teacher is the only true participant as the authority figure and the learner are in on the experiment. The authority figure tells the teacher to ask the learner questions. Whenever the learner fails to offer a correct answer, the teacher must administer a shock to the learner. The voltage of the shock increases with each incorrect answer. The experiment showed that people would cause what they believed was great physical pain to another if acting under orders.

As shown through Milgram’s experiments, people obey authority. This gives authority legitimacy (Gellner 3). As Milgram states,

"Obedience is the psychological mechanism that links individual action to political purpose. It is the dispositional cement that binds men to systems of authority. Facts of recent history and observation in daily life suggest that for many people obedience may be a deeply ingrained behavior tendency, indeed, a prepotent impulse overriding training in ethics, sympathy, and moral conduct" (1).

Thus people pin the responsibility of their actions on those that give the orders rather than take responsibility upon themselves (Milgram 8). People give power to those in authority, power to make the decisions and give the orders. A leader’s power is at the consent of the people. If the leader does something that is extremely unpopular, he or she can lose his or her power, position, and legitimacy. However, it is much more likely that no matter how unwilling, people will follow their chosen leaders. A top-down approach should be used to induce change and bring about negative peace within the region through the creation of two separate states. A negative peace is where there is not any direct violence, but there is still structural violence and inequality. According to Khalil Shikaki, Director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research,

"To the question of 'If there is a peace agreement and the issues of the conflict are resolved and a two-state solution is adopted and a Palestinian state is created,' a full three-fourths say they would not only support recognition of Israel but also support reconciliation between the two peoples. In fact two-thirds of the public are willing to go further and agree to a formula whereby the Palestinians would not only recognize Israel but would recognize the Jewish nature of the state of Israel as part of a peace agreement.

The public is a lot more moderate than Fatah and Hamas put together when it comes to a two-state solution" (Is a two-state solution acceptable? Bush et. al.).

This demonstrates that if the leaders are willing to engage in the diplomacy to create two states, the public would follow.

Whereas the populations may not be happy with the concessions and agreements that their leaders make, they are likely to abide by these agreements if the authority enforces them, as Milgram’s experiment indicates. Leaders on both sides should engage in diplomacy and create two distinct states. Separate states can end direct violence because there will be clear geographical boundaries and the groups will no longer be contesting which land belongs to whom. The Palestinians will be united under one government, giving that government the authority and sole right to legitimate violence (Gellner 3) which should put an end to the suicide bombers. Following the end to direct violence, the structural violence can also be eliminated. The economies of Palestinians and Israelis can become more separate which can decrease the amount of structural violence that occurs economically. Palestinians can work for other Palestinians and can cease to feel exploited by Israelis. This positive peace can be accomplished through firm leadership as the top-down approach advocates.

Bush, George W., Khalil Shikaki, Naomi Chazan, Condoleezza Rice, Ziad J. Asali, Shimon Peres, Moshe Yaalon, John Spritzler, Marian Kromkowski, Ali Abunimah, and Khalaf Al Habtoor. "Is a two-state solution acceptable?" Pros and Cons of Controversial Issues. 15 May 2008. ProCon.org. 9 Oct. 2008 .

Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the Mind of God : The Global Rise of Religious Violence. New York: University of California P, 2003.

Promises. Dir. Justine Shapiro, B.Z. Goldberg and Carlos Bolado. DVD. 2004.

Wasserstein, Bernard. Israelis and Palestinians : Why Do They Fight? Can They Stop? New York: Yale UP, 2004.

Does Identity Cloud Judgment?

Leading up to World War II, Hitler gained massive support from the German population. Large crowds responded fervently to his impassioned speeches, where he claimed the Treaty of Versailles and the Jews were the center of Germany’s problems. Most are horrified by the claims Hitler and the German populace purported, but it may be that, under similar circumstances, most humans would respond as they did. Recent experiments suggest that humans become angry when a group they associate with is offended and that that anger leads to a tendency to be less discerning when evaluating arguments. (Claypool et al., 1141)

These experiments are based on intergoup emotion theory, a new psychological perspective on how people act in groups. Inergroup emotion theory proposes that when people see themselves in terms of a group, they view the world from the perspective of that group. (Claypool et al., 1142) The person, in a sense, forgoes their individual perspective and focuses on how the events affect on the group instead of how those events may affect themselves. This can lead to anger in individuals when a group with which they associate is offended, even if the offense has no bearing on them as individuals. Professors Heather Claypool, Diane Mackie, Angela Maitner, Melissa Ryan, Robert Rydell, and Eliot Smith take this theory further, and propose that anger stemming from group relationships can affect an individuals’ ability to discern arguments. They theorize and experimentally verify that offenses to a group can cause members of that group to become angry and as a result, become less able to discern the quality of arguments. (Claypool et al., 1141)

In their first experiment, these professors tested how an insult to a group would affect an individual in that group. Students from the University of California were randomly assigned into four groups based on two variables, threat or praise to a group and whether or not the subjects were given a possible outside reason for their reactions to the group praise or threat. (Claypool et al., 1443) Participants were instructed to evaluate future testing materials by reading an essay written ostensibly by a foreign exchange student. This essay either presented a positive or negative view of America. Before they read the essay, some of the participants were told that the testers were interested in how the testing environment affected their mood. Students given the negative essay were told that others had complained of the small cubical making them irritable, while students given the positive essay were told that others found the cubicles to be serene and soothing. After reading the essay, all students were instructed to answer a questionnaireabout their experience.

As the graph shows participants reported noticeably more anger and dissatisfaction with the essay after having read the negative essay. The data also reveals that those given a source to misattribute their emotions felt less negative towards the essay and its writer. This data demonstrates that people who associate with a group are likely to become angry when a threat is made to their group, even if the threat has little to no affect to them individually. (Claypool et al., 1144)

In their second experiment, the researchers randomly assigned 118 students to 4 groups hinging on two variables, whether their group was threatened and whether they were given a strong or weak argument. Students were given essays almost identical to those used in the first experiment. The only change made was that no positive essay was given; it was replaced by a neutral essay which gave no positive or negative judgments of America. Participants were then given one of two essays. One contained weak, unfounded arguments while the other contained more grounded arguments. Students then evaluated the essay on the validity of the arguments and how convincing the essay was. ” (Claypool et al., 1145-1146)

Students given the neutral essay supported the strong argument much more than the weak one. However, students given the negative essay supported both arguments almost equally. (Claypool et al., 1146) This data suggests that people who are angered by offenses to their group are less able to evaluate the strength of arguments and therefore are more likely to be persuaded by weak arguments.

These experiments support intergroup emotion theory and provide a new perspective on the German nationalism before and during World War II. Though still responsible for their actions, it may be that under the circumstances, the German populace was more conditioned to accept weak arguments for solutions to their problems. Since, theoretically, this conditioning is possible in all groups, this data should cause individuals to examine how they define themselves and how intergroup perspectives can distort their view of the world.

Sources

Claypool, Heather; Mackie, Diane; Maitner, Angela; Ryan, Melissa; Rydell, Robert; and Smith, Eliot. “Arousal, Processing, and Risk Taking: Consequences of Intergroup Anger.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Vol. 34, 2008. (p. 1141- 1152)

The greaph was created by Brock more with information from the aritcle “Arousal, Processing, and Risk Taking: Consequences of Intergroup Anger.”

Psychology of Peace

It is generally agreed upon that war and peace can not coexist in the same place, but the absence of war does not necessarily guarantee peace. Governmental genocide, for example, is not typically thought of as war, but peace is definitely not present in the midst of mass killings. Consider the genocides of Rwanda and Sudan, and try to find peace in those conflicts. "It has been estimated that over 210 million people were killed during the 20th century by governmental genocidal policies and that 170 million of these casualties were civilian deaths" (Cohen, 2008). It seems that cooperatively working together for peace is the best way to ensure that it will come to pass, but where do we start in our efforts to bring peace?

Peace psychology starts with the idea that "violence...can be the result of social conditions and culture at a particular place at a particular time, or due to instigation and actions by outside groups" (Staub, 334). Ideally, violence and conflict should be eliminated. Four potential ways to reduce conflict and achieve this ideal are "consideration of future consequences, independent leadership, outgroup empathy, and coordination" (Cohen & Insko, 87).

Consideration of future consequences involves the expectations that are held about future interactions and knowing that they may or may not become reality. Once that is accepted, the concept of turn taking allows "for groups to think beyond the immediate situation and instead focus on the long-term consequences of their behavior" (Cohen & Insko, 88), by letting each group see what the other party is doing and what the consequences are. Taking turns in decision making allows participants to recognize the potential costs of mutual non-cooperation and be more likely to participate. Considering future consequences also causes potential aggressors to think about the possible widespread cost of reciprocal competition, economically, militarily, and in several other ways.

Leadership in today's world is always political, and with politics comes self interest. Many politicians work to benefit themselves and small interests groups that they represent. Unfortunately, this leaves the rest of the population at odds with the decisions made. Groups are at least contenders against opposing groups, where individuals that oppose a group would be outnumbered and defeated. Either way, a group fighting against others usually has some chance of victory, which could make groups more willing to act aggressively than individuals when trying to get what they want. In Darfur, for example, the Sudanese government is destroying tribe after tribe, one at a time. If leaders would carefully consider the advice given to them and only act on the policies that they firmly believe would be best for the entire population they represent, peace would be a more attainable goal. Leaders would have stopped trying to please their ingroups so much, and hopefully they would be more cooperative and less aggressive toward the rest of the population they represent and even the world as a whole.

Outgroup empathy refers to "feelings of concern directed at an outgroup" (Cohen & Insko, 91). Empathizing with an outgroup would create an understanding between the two groups, where they could relate to each other. Hopefully this would lead one to cast less blame on the other. The new understanding could decrease violence between the two groups and increase rational approaches to solving problems, through cooperative intergroup relations.

Another way to implement peace is through common goals. When common goals can be established between separate, and even opposing, groups, situations are created "in which outcomes can be maximized through coordination" (Cohen & Insko, 92). If two groups share a superordinate goal, they can combine their resources and efforts and therefore are more likely to reach their goals than if they were working separately. This way, they minimize their cost and maximize their benefits. This is an efficient business strategy that leaders can use while still maintaining peace.

With these four methods of reducing conflicts, cooperation is the common thread. Peace psychology focuses on divided groups coming together to increase the benefits of everyone. It emphasizes collaboration for the common good, and most importantly, it demonstrates where we can start in our efforts to bring peace.

References:

Cohen, T. R.; Insko, C.A. (2008). War and peace: Possible approaches to reducing intergroup conflict. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 3(2), 87-93.

Staub, E. (2007). Preventing violence and terrorism and promoting positive relations between Dutch and Muslim communities in Amsterdam. Peace and Conflict. 13(3), 333-360.

Your Brain on Politics

Have you been watching the presidential debates? How did your candidate fare?

I predict you will say that your candidate won the debate, and if I asked someone who favors the other candidate, I predict they would say that his/her candidate won the debate. In fact, immediately after Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama finished their final debate before the November 2008 election, pundits from both sides claimed victory. Some people even said that "Joe the Plumber" won the debate.

How can this be? How is it that two rational people can listen to the same information coming from the two candidates and come to completely different impressions about the results? Well, if you think I am going to tell you who won, based on scientific research, you are wrong. I am much more interested in knowing how people come to these completely different conclusions about these candidates when they have viewed the same objective information.

The answer is simple...we do not think rationally. Well, let me clarify. People do not always think rationally. In fact, much of our thinking is motivated thinking (Showers & Cantor, 1985). That is to say, when people view information about others, when we think about a problem that is relevant to us, when we compare two relevant options, our prior experiences, biases, hopes, and investments influence our thoughts, often away from rationality.

The same bias influences the impressions that people make about presidential candidates. When people hear a political speech from a candidate they support, they remember all of the positive aspects of the speech and fail to remember (or actively minimize) the negative aspects of the speech. The reverse is true for a candidate that people do not like.

Recent research by psychologists have uncovered the mental gymnastics that are required to highlight the positive aspects of a political speech and discount the negative. Drew Westen and his colleagues used fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) to monitor the active, thinking brains of 30 people who were committed to their political parties. Under these scans,
the parts of the brain typically involved in conscious emotion regulation (that is, the suppression of thoughts and emotions; the prefrontal cortex) was more active for partisans viewing information that was threatening to their preferred candidate than these same brain areas were when threatening information was presented for the opposing candidate. When these same people were presented with another slide providing some justification for the contradictory behavior of their preferred candidate, the areas of the brain associated with rewards (the ventral striatum) was more active (Westen, Blagov, Harenski, Kilts, & Hamann, 2006).

The researchers draw the conclusion that contradictory information about one's preferred candidate produces a measurable mental (or neural) defense against this information. In addition, people who support a political candidate will seek out information that resolves the contradiction. People do this because the information that provides an escape from the contradiction is rewarding.

So, the next time you feel excited that your candidate has shown exceptional skill at addressing the attacks from the other candidate, you might wonder if the positive feeling you have is just your ventral striatum acting up. Or, when you can clearly see an explanation for why your candidate said one thing but did another, you might credit the ease with which you can find this alternative explanation to your active prefrontal cortex. In either case, your thinking may or may not be considered rational, but it must be considered motivated.


References:

Showers, C. & Cantor, N. (1985). Social cognition: A look at motivated strategies. Annual Review of Psychology, 36, 275-305.

Westen, D., Blagov, P. S., Harenski, K., Kilts, C., & Hamann, S. (2006). Neural bases of motivated reasoning: An fMRI study of emotional constraints on partisan political judgment in the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, 1947-1958.

Child Development in War Zones

Imagine the tension of hearing bombs go off at night, not knowing whether they are going to hit you or your loved ones. Imagine not being able to walk down the road you live on because of military blockades. Imagine seeing people die in front of your eyes. Now imagine that you are a child. Children growing up in environments such as these, war torn areas, are far more likely to develop psychological problems.

In a cross sectional study of emotional problems of children living in a war zone, researchers found that children exposed to war zones had a much higher increase in post-traumatic stress and fear than children living in peaceful areas. Fifty-nine percent of those children suffering from post-traumatic stress required clinical help. Children living directly in a war zone will suffer from post-traumatic stress, while children hearing about the war zones or exposed to media about the war suffer from more anxiety and expressions of distress (Abet 1802). Clearly war affects children who are exposed to it, whether they are exposed directly or indirectly.

Although children exposed to the violence of war zones suffer from psychological problems, the types and severity of problems they suffer differ based on the level of active war around them. In a study done in Croatia, researchers found that compared to children before the war, the Croatian children had much higher levels of depression. Also, between the children who were displaced and the children who remained in their home, the displaced children showed higher levels of fear and sadness (Zivcic 710). Although all of the children suffered emotional impacts from the war, the displaced children suffered more.

Can children living in war zones ever actually adapt and function normally? In a recent study of victims of war, researchers found that massive exposure to trauma during wartime can prevent a child from developing normally. They have a harder time adapting and maturing than children living in war-free areas. However, when these children are removed from the intense war zone, after acclimating to the new environment they begin to function normally but they still tend to remain very self-protective (Jensen 700). When these children are living in a war zone they cannot develop normally, but when they are removed and feel safe, they can.

As one can easily see, children growing up in war areas are far more likely to develop psychological problems. Even children indirectly exposed to war have a higher risk of developing problems. Depending on the levels of how affected children are by war, they develop different problems. However, when children are removed from these high risk areas they are much more capable to adapt and one day lead a normal life.

Works Cited

Abed, Y., A. Thabet, P. Vostanis. "Emotional problems in Palestinian children living in a war zone: a cross-sectional study." The Lancet Volume 359 , Issue 932025 May 2002 1801-1804. 15 Oct 2008 .

Jensen, Peter, Jon Shaw. "Children as Victims of War: Current Knowledge and Future Research Needs." Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 1993 697-708. 15 Oct 2008 .

Zivcic, Ivanka. "Emotional Reactions of Children to War Stress in Croatia." The Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 1993 709-713. 15 Oct 2008 .

Don't Let Your Emotions Get the Best of You

Every day we fall victim to the ploys of advertising agencies and companies who try to sell their overpriced products. We also fall victim to the opinions and the judgments of the people around us. Today’s society leaves us with little room to create opinions of our own. With the influence of media and others our opinions are rarely formed on hard fact. Rather than viewing all sides of an argument, or determining whether we truly need a certain product, we allow our environment to determine how we should think and what we should by.

Humans are emotional beings. If something makes us feel warm and fuzzy on the inside then assume that it must be a good thing. If something sounds evil it must be evil. It goes back to the old argument: if it looks like a duck, and sounds like a duck, then it must be a duck. However if you look closer at the “duck” it isn’t really a duck at all. Our emotions can cause us to make decisions and judgments that are erred. However we are taught from a young age to listen to our instincts.

Having emotional reactions is not the problem. However, making decisions strictly based on an emotional response to a specific topic is. Emotions should not just be felt, but also understood. To avoid these irrational decisions based on emotion, one must understand that an emotional reaction is occuring and seperate it from rational decision making. In his book On Dialogue, David Bohm explains his theory of dialogue and flow of ideas. In order to have a dialogue, Bohm states that one must suspend their assumptions (Bohm, p. 23). Also emotional reactions must be suspended and reflected upon. Instead of just reacting to them and allowing emotions to take over our cognitive processes, one must recognize and suspend their emtions.

Molden and Higgins concluded in their study that there are two main strategies that people use when making judgements: eager and vigilant (Molden; Higgins). Eager strategies are those that are mostly derived from achieving aspirations and furthering of oneself. Vigilant are those that wish to prevent bad outcomes (Molden; Higgins). Subjects during the study were more likely to make decisions that allowed them to be perceived in a greater light. So it seems that most decisions are based on one's perceived wellness.

However, one's own perceived wellness is very much different from one's actual wellness. It is a bias view. Like emotional responses they cannot be trusted and likewise must be viewed under much scrutiny. In order to make more informed and rational decisions, one must suspend their preconceived notions and emotional responses in order to make rational decisions.

References

Bohm, David. On Dialogue. New York, New York: Routledge, 1996.

Molden, Daniel C., and E. Tory Higgins. "How Preferences for Eager Versus Vigilant Judgment Strategies Affect Self-Serving Conclusions." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44.5 (2008): 1219-28

Free Will?

On November 22, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President John F. Kennedy. This assassination shook all of America, as people were in disbelief that their president could have been killed so easily. Many wondered what kind of person could do such a thing. It seemed like such an egregious act was beyond most, but new science might suggest that all people, under the right circumstances, would do the same as Oswald. Most generally take free will for granted. If free will was merely an illusion, then did Oswald really have a choice? New work in psychology and neuroscience suggests that humanity’s natural intuition of free will may be dramatically skewed.

The work of experimental psychologist Daniel Wegner¹ has caused many to rethink their ideas of consciousness and choice. Wegner postulates that the feeling of will is an illusion. He suggests that people may make conclusions of causality between their will and their actions that are incorrect (Wegner, 66). Wegner attempts to demonstrate cases in which peoples apparent assumptions of causality and will are wrong in order to suggest that humans may be mistaken about their perceived actions relation to their will. Wegner cites alien hand syndrome as an example of this. A person with alien hand syndrome will be able to feel their limbs, but they will often feel that they can not control them. They describe it as if the limb was being controlled by an alien. This is usually occurs to a person who has experienced brain trauma, a stroke, brain surgery or a brain infection. To an outside observer, the limb movements usually appear natural, but the owner of the limb feels as though he has no control over it. This often causes odd situations. One man reported that he would open a book with his right hand, only to have it closed by his left. (Wegner, 4-5) In another case the man was playing a game of checkers and his left hand moved a piece that he did not want to move; he moved it back with his right hand, only to have his left hand repeat the move. (Wegner, 5) He also cites examples of table turning séances. In these rituals, people would gather around and put their hands on a table. As the séance progresses the table would begin to spin, sometimes very fast. The participators of these events claimed that they were not at all causing the table to move themselves, but studies done by scientists including physicist Michael Faraday showed that their hands were indeed the cause of the motion. Even after Faraday released his findings, the subjects of the study vehemently believed that they were not the cause of the movement. (Wegner, 7-8)

Wegner also argues that there are situations where people feel they have will over a situation but in reality do not. Wegner references an example from his own life.

"I eased up to a video game display and started fiddling with the joystick. A little monkey on the screen was eagerly hopping over barrels as they rolled toward him, and I got quite involved in moving him along and making him hop, until the phrase “Start Game” popped into view. I was under the distinct impression that I had started some time ago, but in fact I had been “playing” during a pre-game demo…. I thought I was doing something that I really didn’t do at all." (Wegner, 9-10)

This example provides an interesting analogy for humanity's perspective on will. Wegner’s argument does not definitively disprove free will, but it does show how the feeling of choice is not sufficient reason to believe it exists.

Wegner’s theories gain more credit in light of new evidence. Until recently, scientists were unable to accurately study brain activity, but with the advent of new technology, scientists are now able to observe and measure brain activity as the activity is happening. This technology has led to many experiments that reveal how minds function when making choices. One of the most famous experiments of this type was conducted by Benjamin Libet² and his colleagues. Libet asked volunteers to make a random decision while their brain was monitored by an EEG. Scientists instructed volunteers to move their hand spontaneously, without premeditation, and note the time on a clock when they felt the conscious will to make this action. Libet compared the time when the monitors recorded the cerebral activity necessary for the hand motion, what he calls “readiness potential,” and the moment the volunteer claimed they experienced conscious will to act. Libet recorded a delay of 150 to 800 milliseconds. (Libet, Pub Med, 1) Libet concluded that “cerebral initiation of a spontaneous, freely voluntary act can begin unconsciously, that is, before there is any (at least recallable) subjective awareness that a 'decision' to act has already been initiated cerebrally.” (Libet, Pub Med, 1) Libet uses the data to propose that the choice of an action may be made before a person experiences a sense of making that choice.

Some have criticized Libet’s experiment by claiming the recorded delay was caused by the time it takes a person to shift their attention from their feeling of will to the time displayed on a clock. Follow up experiments seemed to support this criticism; they found that small changes in the delay correlated to the attention of the volunteer, (Eimer and Haggard, 1) but the changes were not significant and still allowed for enough delay that Libet’s conclusion remained valid. (Haggard, 1)

Two scientists from the psychology department of the University of London performed a similar experiment, but asked volunteers to choose which hand to move in addition to when to move it. By monitoring both sides of the brain for activity, the scientists were able to detect brain activity governing the volunteers’ choice of hand before their feeling of will, since different hemisphere’s of the brain correspond to different parts of the body. (Eimer and Haggard, 1) In another experiment, neurophysiologists Ammon and Gandevia⁵ discovered that they could influence the decision of volunteers through magnetic stimulation. The subjects, unaware of the stimulation, were asked to move one hand randomly. The scientists found that “In the study single magnetic stimuli, subthreshold for movement, produced significant preference for selection of one hand in a forced-choice task.” (Ammon and Gandevia, 1) The magnetic impulse influenced the subjects’ choices, but all reported a feeling of free will. (Ammon and Gandevia, 1)

These experiments strongly suggest a lack of free will; some, including Libet, attempt to dispute the results by claiming that individuals still have the ability to surpass their natural brain activity through will and make another choice, (Libet, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 24-28) but this view is not supported by science. Moreover, a change in mind would likely entail preliminary brain activity that could be observed before a feeling of concious descision. (Velmans, 42-61) The experiments at least demonstrate that the human perception of will is misguiding, but they suggest that acts that seem chosen are indeed causally determined.

Though much more research and study in this area is needed, these experiments demonstrate how humanity’s perception of free will is skewed. If free will does not exist, then how can society justify a merit and blame system of justice? If Lee Harvey Oswald had no choice but to pull the trigger, is he really guilty? This evidence should cause humanity to reflect on its assumptions of free will and how a disruption of those assumptions could change its view of society and history.



Sources

Ammon, K and Gandevia, S. Pub Med. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2213050

Haggard, P. Pub Med. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15925808.

Haggard P, and Eimer M. Pub Med. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10333013

Libet,. "Can Conscious Experience affect brain Activity?", Journal of Consciousness Studies 2003. pp 24–28.

Libet, B, Gleason, C, Wright, E, and Pearl, D. Pub Med. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6640273.

Velmans, M. "Preconscious free will", Journal of Consciousness Studies , 2003, pp 42–61.

Wegner, Daniel. The Illusions of Conscious Will. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002).

Conformity's Influence on Nationalism

Nationalism is a major social and political force that has heavily influenced many conflicts throughout the course of history. Pride in Germany in the 1940’s led to a (temporarily successful) coup of most of continental Europe, devotion to Serbia and its hatred of Austria caused the precipitating event of the “Great War,” and American patriotism led our country to invade Iraq. Nationalistic ideas have proven to be very efficient in uniting a given group of people for a specific cause, a feat that is, however, only accomplished through initial conformity of the group. The need to belong, the need for affirmation, and the existence of an outside group influence both nationalism and conformity and illustrate how nationalism promotes individuals to conform.

Firstly, nationalism is a social movement that emphasizes pride for one’s country and requires a recognition of and respect for the needs of the nation. It results in unifying a group behind a specific cause (especially a conflict or other matter of controversy), and is even considered to be the "decisive basis of political community" (Goodman 2). Conformity, however, deals with an individual’s decision to abandon his or her ideas in favor of the ideas of the group. It is the relationship between the two that allows nationalism to flourish, as it depends on conformity to be the mechanism of unification.

Two basic human needs, as defined by Susan Fisk—the need to be right and the need for approval—illustrate nationalism’s promotion of conformity as a tool to unite the group behind a given cause (Psychology of War lecture). The need to belong influences both nationalism and conformity in that the decisions we make (when an outside spectator exists) are based on the desire to “fit in.” As humans, we are validated by the fact that we have approval from others and a specific group with which we can identify. With conformity, the need to belong is a “powerful, fundamental and extremely pervasive motivation,” as is the need for approval (Baumeister and Leary 497). Both innate needs impact us significantly, often causing us to outwardly reject our beliefs and accept ones we would normally oppose. For instance, in an experiment conducted by Solomon Asch in the 1950’s, the mechanism of conformity was explored in the classroom setting. Three lines were drawn on a piece of paper, and the students were asked to identify which line was the shortest. Surprisingly, Asch found that 32% of students would knowingly provide the wrong answer so long as the other “students,” (who were actually working with Asch) did the same. Such findings suggest much about the powerful nature of conformity and its potential to accomplish real goals; even in the classroom setting when the participants knew the answer, the desire to belong actually surpassed the need to be right, convincing about 1/3 of the participants to betray their instincts (Hayes).

These same desires influence nationalism in a similar way, though more intensively, since more pressure is put on the individual to accept a certain point of view. In the Asch experiment, the pressure to conform came from the other students in the room. (We are all familiar with the classroom setting and the pressure created simply by the presence of our peers.) However, with nationalism, pressure emanates from a given political candidate, political authority, general, etc. Someone who has much more authority than the typical American pressures the general public into accepting a new point of view. For example, Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment that pitted the participants against other human beings (collaborating with Milgram). Sixty-five percent of participants agreed to administer a potentially dangerous “shock” to a victim sequestered in a different room. These victims (actually actors who received no shocks) pleaded with the participants, screamed loudly and seemingly in pain, but many of the participants continued to administer the “electrical shocks,” citing that a person of authority had instructed them to do so (Blass 70).

If a classroom setting can cause people to conform by deliberately saying an answer they knew was wrong, authority pressure can incite much more drastic results. With propaganda and political savvy, people in authority positions can induce conformity to nationalistic ideals, either through means of intimidation (as in the use of the secret police in the USSR and Nazi Germany), manipulation (i.e. nationalistic war posters that “sell” the cause as if it were a product), or even through the human needs described above. By applying some type of pressure, nationalism mimics conformity, promoting its tendency to unite a divided people.

Conformity and nationalism are closely related in that both unite individuals for a given topic, stem from the basic human needs of needing to belong and needing to be right, and are achieved when some type of pressure is exerted on the individual. Nationalism relies on conformity because without it (and the resulting unified front), nationalism is largely ineffective. Conformity exists on a large scale when nationalism takes root in a cause or idea that eventually becomes representative of the majority opinion.

For instance, consider one of the most blatant displays of nationalism and conformity in all of human history--the rise of power of the Nazi party in post-World War I Germany. Because of the harsh demands and restrictions (including occupation of the Ruhr valley, strict limitations on the size and supplies of the German army, territorial disputes, etc.) imposed upon the Germans by the Treaty of Versailles, widespread discontent swept the nation, and the Jews and the Allied Powers became the scapegoats. This dissatisfaction, combined with the nationalistic attitude that it was time for Germany's "place in the sun," allowed Hitler to convince an entire nation that the creation of the Third Reich was an attainable, admirable goal. Nationalism provided the initial interest in restoring Germany to its former glory and pressure from Hitler (applied through propaganda, repetition, and intimidation at the hands of the SS) provided the stimulus to conform. The result was a very united front that, had Hitler not invaded Russia, may have been much more successful at conquering Europe than it already was; the unity that existed had already allowed Germany to progress from a crippled nation to the premiere European country in a matter of twenty years. In any case, the rise of the Nazis in Germany illustrates the linked nature of nationalism and conformity and demonstrates their potential as unifying forces.

Works Cited:

Baumeister, Roy F, and Mark R Leary. "The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation." Psychological Bulletin 117.3 (1995): 497. PsycINFO Database. ProQuest. UNF Library Jacksonville, FL. 17 Oct. 2008 http://proquest.umi.com/login.

Blass, Thomas. "The Man Who Shocked the World." Psychology Today (Mar.-Apr. 2002): 68-73. 17 Oct. 2008 http://www.stanleymilgram.com/pdf/pschology_today.pdf.

Goodman, James. "Nationalism and Globalism: Social Movement Responses." The International Scope Review 4.8 (2002): 1-17. University of Technology of Sydney. 17 Oct. 2008 http://www.grain.org/g/nationalism%20and%20globalism.pdf.

Hayes, Brian J. "Solomon Asch Experiment: A Study of Conformity." Age-of-the-Sage. May 2002. 17 Oct. 2008 .

Awareness of Death

So far this semester the images of the past keep coming up. My literature class assigned me two historic books to read regarding the horrific period that the Jewish people faced during World War II. These two books, Night by Elie Wiesel (Wiesel) and the Diary of Anne Frank (Frank), are records of a truly appalling and historical moment in time. They are testimonies of one of the most gruesome times in history. As Elie Wiesel states in the prelude to his book, “In retrospect I must congress that I do not know, or no longer know, what I wanted to achieve with my words. I only that without this testimony, my life as a writer—or my life, period—would not have become what it is: that of a witness who believes he has a moral obligation to try and prevent the enemy from enjoying one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human memory.” (Wiesel p. viii)When I read this statement I realized that these accounts, or any account on history, are truly important to the world so that no one else has to suffer the horrors of such tragedies.. It also made me aware of the significance of such events. I did not face the horrors that people in Europe faced during World War II, but even as young as I am I have witnessed historic and horrible events, like September 11 and even natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina.

These kinds of events can open people’s eyes and make them take a step back to look at their life. This seems to be a natural occurrence when historical events come up in a person’s life. They make them realize how fragile their lives are and how in an instant it could be over. There is a theory that seems to coincide with this feeling that, and I’m sure countless others got after reading these two books. In a quote on the Terror Management theory explains human’s unique ability to be aware of our own death “the explicit awareness of death and the potential for debilitating terror engendered by this awareness is the most significant event in the evolutionary history of our species.” (Solomon) In this statement, you can assume that it is referring to human’s ability to perceive, or picture, our own death, unlike many other species. This ability that we cope with the idea of our eventual death just adds to the idea of humans as being the superior species on Earth. This theory was most intensely used in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Most people go day to day, in their own world, not even thinking that they could die at any given moment due to any number of things. I think that tragic events, such as 9/11 and the Holocaust help remind people of their own fragility and make them realize that their lives are constantly on the path to their own eventual death. When events or natural disasters occur the shield that generally protects people from such thoughts and horrific ideas lifts up and reality sets in. In that regard, I feel that people have to be aware of such events and understand that death is inevitable. Not only that but people must do everything in their power to not forget, or push aside, the events that help remind them about their lives and how fragile humans truly are to themselves as well as nature.

Cited:
Wiesel, Elie. Night. Hill and Wang, 1958
Frank, Anne. The Diary of Anne Frank.
Solomon, Sheldon, Jeff Greenburg, Tom Pyszczynski. Fear of Death and Human Destructiveness. Psychoanalytic Review Vol. 90(4), August 2003, pg 457-474. *Library Link wouldn’t allow me to access database to get the link for this article*

Rape versus War

The emotions and motives for both rape and war are surprisingly similar. This may seem like a strange comparison, to compare forced intercourse to a war. While they are on massively different scales, the motives and emotions involved are almost identical.

            There are many reasons for a man to rape a woman or for a country to wage war on another. To keep my comparison simple, I will only focus on the major and most obvious motives of each.

            First lets look at the key motives for why a man would rape a woman. According to Lisa Vetten, from the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, “Men rape because they believe they have the right to control and to punish women who do not obey their rules of behaviour. Rape is an expression of unequal power relations between men and women. Such unequal power relations are not the result of nature or evolution but societies which, through legislation and social custom, have made women second-class citizens” (Vetten).

Many wars have been fought over desired power similar to rape. For example, when the United States was expanding they went to war because of Manifest Destiny. They believed they had the right to control all the land between the Atlantic and the Pacific. When countries did not submit to them and sell them land, the United States attacked. When the Native Americans did not obey the rules of America and behave the way American’s wanted them to, The U.S. began fighting with them and controlling them to move. The Native Americans were no less people than everyone else, but society made them second-class and figuratively raped them.

Other examples of waging war to control people into behaving the way one country wants are evident throughout history. To list a few: The many wars waged for Imperialism, Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan’s empires were both gained through these wars of power, and even the crusades.

            Now lets look into the emotions involved in rape and war. “Rape is not just physically damaging, it can be emotionally traumatic as well. Someone who has been raped might feel a lot of things: angry, degraded, frightened, numb, or confused. Some feel depressed, anxious or nervous” (Kingsley).  During a war people would generally feel such emotions as well. Uncertainty, anxiety and fear of what will happen next, is very common during a time of war. In Elie Wiesel’s book, Night, he explains that during the war he felt all of those emotions. He says he was angry at times, degraded, scared, numb and anxious. (Wiesel). Clearly the emotions felt after being raped and experiencing a war are very similar.

            In my opinion, rape and war are two of the most prominent evils in the world. They are on different scales, two people compared to multiple countries of people, but they are very similar. It is not always the case but most cases of rape and many cases of war are due to the want of power. They both make people feel and react the same way and they should both never happen in our world.

                       

                                                 Works Cited

Kingsley, Richard S.. "Rape." Teens Health. Sept 2007. Nemours Foundation. 17 Oct 2008 .

Vetten, Lisa. "Why Men Rape." Gender. Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. 17 Oct 2008 .

Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Hill and Wang, 1960.

The Bottom-Up Approach: Solution in the Israel-Palestine War?

Various countries and people have an interest in the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians as the events that occur and the outcome have a ripple effect that is global. There are many opinions over how to solve the dispute and the violence; but, we need to stop relying on the politicians to change the situation and start influencing individual everyday people. Using this bottom-up approach would be the most effective method of achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

The top-down approach has and continues to fail in achieving peace in the region. Essentially the top-down method conceives of or treats an individual an individual as a product of his or her society. Therefore, the greatest way to induce change is to start at the top, which is the leaders. This method has been tried in peace talks with Israel and Palestine, and it has failed. During the Clinton administration there were multiple attempts at peace talks with various leaders from Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine. However, these talks never fully succeeded because when one leader was willing to make a concession, the other one was not. The leaders’ failure to compromise stemmed from a fear of losing power because followers would disagree with the concessions that would be made (Indyk). The top’s fear of the bottom results in a status quo with both sides living in fear because the leaders are afraid of a loss of their power if the population does not agree with their decisions.

Despite the failure of the top-down method, there is hope in the bottom-up approach. This is more of a grassroots effort in order to change the individuals within the societies. The bottom-up philosophy supposes that society is shaped by the individuals within the society. By changing the attitude of the individual, the government will change. Israeli Jews fear the Palestinian and Hamas suicide bombers that destroy the lives of civilians. Palestinians resent the Jewish occupation of what they deem as their land. They also fear the Israeli military who even shot at children throwing stones at Israeli tanks (Promises). Actions taken by both sides cause each to feel victimized and desire vengeance against who they view as perpetrators. Israeli and Palestinian societies are saturated with assumptions about each other. For there to be peace both groups must be willing to challenge their prejudices and overcome fears of each other. The Emmy Award winning documentary “Promises” illustrates the ability of individuals to overcome their fear and prejudices and meet with the “other” in an attempt to discuss the conflict.


The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is very much a global issue and a great many countries have interests in the outcome. While such a grassroots effort would take time and a willingness to try, it can lead to a peace in the region.


References

Indyk, Martin. Lecture. Israel-Palestine Conflict. University of North Florida, Jacksonville. 23 Sept. 2008.

Promises. Dir. Justine Shapiro, B.Z. Goldberg and Carlos Bolado. 2001.

Does Playing Warcraft Make Me a Bad Person?

One of my favorite things to do after class is play World Of Warcraft, a.k.a. WoW. For all those who've never heard of it, it's a popular online game. Ask anyone who's actually played it, or quit playing WoW: it's incredibly involving and addicting, with over nine million subscribers. It's an MMORPG, a massively multi-player online role playing game-- basically, a computer game where you team up with people all over the internet to save the world by pretending to be elves and orcs fighting monsters. Like most MMORPGS, the best way to advance in game is to kill. Many, many times. After I killed my 3,000th rabid yeti, I had to wonder: maybe it's not the violence in video games that gets to you. It's how much there is, and how unavoidable it is.

Unsurprisingly, some researchers are worried that committing violent acts in a virtual world makes people predisposed to violence in the real world. Some are even worried that the effects of internet addiction would make any resultant aggression worse. So, the good professors of Yonsei University's Department of Psychiatry in Korea studied 1471 online gamers, 82.7% of them male, 17.3% female. The gamers self-reported their demographic information and responses to tests measuring self control, narcissism, aggression and online-game addiction (this was measured with a modified scale for internet addiction). The participants were recruited through ads posted on the official sits for three of the most popular MMORPGS in Korea: World of Warcraft, Lineage, and Mabinogi. Once the results came in and the researches plugged their data into Statistical Analysis Software, several trends were noticed.

In general, people who lack self-control and are prone to aggression and narcissism are more likely to experience video games addiction. MMORPGS are uniquely alluring for gamers with these issues, due to how one must advance in the game. Gamers need to acquire wealth, status, and powerful gear to advance. The more they have all three, the more recognition they receive not only in-game, but also throughout the wider gamer community.

Careful re-reading of the Yonsei Study has led me to rethink my thesis. The casual, constant violence of MMORPGS doesn't turn ordinary people into anti-social narcissits; anti-social narcissists are drawn to the casual, constant violence due to how the structure of the MMORPGS reward them for their nueroses. So, it's perfectly fine for a well-adjusted teen (for example, me) to kill a few ravening, demon-posessed boars to blow off some steam after class.

But wait...

The study mentions a little thing called a "bi-directional causal effect". In other words, if you're just a little bit too narcissitic, just a little bit too aggressive, and have slightly too-little self-control...MMORPGS can make those problems worse. You get stuck in a vicious circle, where the game rewards you for violent resolutions to your conflicts, and your behavior grows that much more aggressive in response. Since society doesn't like people who solve their problems through killing, you turn to the game to receive the approval you can't find anywhere else. And on and on and ever on...unless you have the presence of mind to break the circle, stop playing, and seek other forms of admiration.

So, it's not a matter of how violent the game is. It's a matter of how the violence is rewarded.

Kim, Eun Joo, Kee Namkoong, Taeyun Ku, and See Joo Kim. "The relationship between online game addiction and aggression, self-control and narcissistic personality traits." European Physchiatry
31 Oct. 2007: 23

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

If you spend months on end in a traumatizing situation, your belief system will probably be altered due to that experience. It is that easy to fall victim to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which is an anxiety disorder triggered by a traumatic outside event. What is trauma, and why does it sometimes lead to stress? Well, "the very nature of trauma is such that it attacks our basic beliefs and challenges our processes of accommodation and assimilation" (Decker, 2008). Accommodation is the process where separate groups or persons come together to adapt, often by way of compromise. Assimilation refers to the merging of previously distinct cultural traits, sometimes to the point where there is no longer a clear distinction between the cultures. Both terms are used to describe a mutual agreement and meshing of ideas, so it follows that trauma challenges our need to come together. People suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, then, isolate themselves in their refusal of accommodation and assimilation, but they also create a need to figure out meaning. I believe that people who find positive meaning from their trauma have a higher recovery rate from PTSD than people who remain searching for meaning.

As far as war goes, many soldiers that come back from battle suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This trend is becoming increasingly apparent, and it seems that I am constantly hearing about veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan that are diagnosed with this disorder. It is easy to understand how soldiers attain the mindsets that fit into PTSD. When they enlist in the military, it is drilled into their heads that in war, other people are trying to kill them and it is their job to kill those other people. Experience in battle only backs up this claim, and the soldiers learn that the only people they can trust are their comrades fighting with them. This experience in itself gives meaning to soldiers overseas, and so it is difficult to simply forget the meaning that you have been taught and trained to accept. If the soldiers retain this mindset when they return home, they become antisocial, depressed, and altogether socially awkward. They strive to avoid anything that might remind them of a time when they felt at their best, because now they are being told that it was their worst. It is then that we label them as having a disorder, but how can they be cured of this 'disorder?'

It is beneficial for survivors of traumatic experiences to search for meaning because it causes them to stop and digest what happened to them. "Searching for meaning often involves seeking answers to questions such as, 'Why did this event happen to me?' Bereavement studies, for example, have shown that anywhere from one quarter to more than two thirds of individuals report actively searching for meaning in their losses" (Updegraff, 2008). Although the experience of war itself can be given meaning, it is a destructive meaning that keeps people caught in PTSD. In coming back from war, we ask soldiers to give up the meaningfulness they felt on the battlefield. We want them to trade in the power and glory of battle for the boring world of materialism they return to. Instead of identifying negatively with war, we should help soldiers discover a positive reason for what has happened. Finding positive meaning, a reason for their struggle and trauma, can help to bring soldiers out of this disorder.

In the material world, "exposure to violence challenges beliefs of living in a benevolent, predictable world. Accordingly, one of the major tasks that traumatized individuals face is reconciling the harsh reality of adversity with previously held, more benign assumptions about oneself and the world" (Updegraff, 2008). If the material world is no longer satisfying, the next step is to look at the transcendent world: that which is beyond our physical limits. Spirituality, the acts of prayer and meditation involves an acceptance of our fallible human nature and that there is a higher power who is not fallible. This perspective, for veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, implies that this omniscient being makes everything happen for a reason, and therefore, even if you can't see why something is happening, it will work out in the end. This realization would obviously be helpful for veterans trying to work out the trauma they suffered and move past PTSD, because it offers a reason for not only why they suffered trauma in the war, but also for why they are having difficulty dealing with it afterward. Having a spiritual outlet also allows veterans to feel like they have regained control over something, in that they can determine the style and frequency of how they pray and meditate.

For those with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder who don't find meaning, they remain feeling uneasy, depressed, angry, emotionally numb, and anxious. They keep their low self-esteem, intrusive thoughts, fear of loss of control, and nightmares (Decker, 2008). They continue to struggle with a longing to go back to war, because their lives were meaningful there, but they feel guilty for feeling that meaning. Instead, they search for a new meaning to explain civilian life but also to incorporate their experiences of trauma. Finding meaning allows people to make sense of the traumatic events, which "can rob them of their emotional impact" (Updegraff, 2008). In an experiment where participants were exposed to an unexpected positive event (receiving a $1 gift) and the experimenter manipulated whether participants were offered an explanation for it. "Participants who were given an explanation felt less excited about the gift than those who were given none. Thus, in the case of positive events, the process of making sense may come at some emotional cost. However, in the context of negative events, having an explanation should lessen the emotional impact and facilitate long-term adaptation" (Updegraff, 2008).

References:

Decker, L. R. (2007). Combat trauma: Treatment from a mystical/spiritual perspective. The Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 47(1), 30-53.

Updegraff, J. A. (2008). Searching for and finding meaning in collective trauma: Results from a national longitudinal study of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 95(3), 709-722.

Frustration in Germany
by Josh

The natural state of things is a state of peace where people are getting along. This gets upset when aggression is added to the equation. War is a state created directly by showing aggression through being threatening towards or attacking another party. These aggressive acts are reflections of the group's want for self-preservation. When a group is faced by a situation which seems dangerous, the group reacts in a violent way to make sure the situation gets resolved. A country’s livelihood is based on its population of people and when its people’s livelihoods are threatened it is something which needs addressed. So when there is a shortage of food and its population is facing starvation the country’s government is hard pressed to find a solution. When a country has lost its food sources and its people are facing starvation, which would then lead to riots and civil violence, it looks to at the different ways to solve the problem. In this example, the quickest way to solve the food shortage would be to step over its boundaries and take from the food sources of other countries. The group in question will then do everything it can at that moment to ensure their continued survival (Ryan).

Hitler had declared in his book, Meinkapf that he would attempt to expand the country's borders to all the surrounding areas to incorporate all of the German people and to "save" the Aryan race (Ensor). He wanted to set up a state in Europe where Germany was the major power. These decisions were also facilitated by an idea that his country's population was growing too quickly and would very soon push the limits of the country’s ability to feed itself. So the idea to begin expanding was pushed forward because of this seemingly immanent danger to the survival of the country. Of course, this was followed by the invasion of the nearby countries. Germany’s economy was in a horrible state, having been devastated by the involvement in World War I. The economy was in a downward spiral due a combination of a large part of the economy being focused on the war effort and having yet to turn back to civilian production as well as Germany being forced to pay billions in war reparations to the other countries. This, along with a general depressed state of the population from the large number of killings and the sense of being cheated following the Treaty of Versailles, drove the leadership to act in a way which it normally may not have. Hitler and his top advisers decided that to keep their country from essentially imploding from the many different factors violent action needed to occur, which came in the form of military expansion.

The frustration-aggression theory states that motivation for aggression increases when current behavior is interrupted or prevents us from reaching a goal. Basically, the combination of Barker, Dembo and Lewin were stating that when a person is kept from having something they want they have a greater propensity for violence and aggression. In one study researchers placed a toy beyond the reach of children and kept them from having the toy for a period of time. After the children were eventually allowed to have the toy they tended to exhibit aggressive behavior and play with the toy violently (Barker). In the case of Nazi Germany, they were faced with a situation from which it seemed nearly impossible to recover. In order to get enough resources to sustain their projected population and not only keep their country from collapsing but once again become a world superpower, they would have to go to increased measures and responded aggressively. Bringing the economy back to life to begin supporting a population that was growing and accustomed to a good quality of life was too large a task to accomplish internally and they used their military to step into the neighboring countries to get the resources that would be required to save the country.

Barker, R., Dembo, T. and Lewin, K. (1941) Frustration and aggression: An experiment with young children, University of Iowa Studies in Child Welfare, 18, 1-314. Syque 2002-2008.
Ensor, R. C. K. "Mein Kampf" and Europe. International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1931-1939), Vol. 18, No. 4 (Jul. - Aug., 1939), pp. 478-496.
Ryan, Richard M.; Deci, Edward L. Avoiding Death or Engaging Life as Accounts of Meaning and Culture: Comment on Pyszczynski et al. (2004). PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA.