Chapter 9: Historical Violence

Question 1

Groupthink

Answer 1

Pressure to conform despite individual misgivings.

Power of groups to ensure conformity is often valuable asset, especially with sports teams and the military.

Results can be dangerous or even disastrous.

Question 2

Bystander Apathy

Answer 2

Greater the number of bystanders, the less responsibility any one individual feels, and less likelihood of helping

Question 3

Albert Bandura’s

“Moral Disengagement”

Answer 3

• Argues that even though we are taught not to act against one own sense of moral’s/values, we have learned how to selectively disengage from certain acts

Question 4

Deindividuation

Answer 4

• Theory postulates that individuals lose sense of self/individuality in a group
• Another factor is conformity to peer pressure (military)
• Process of deindiviudation aided by circumstance such as anonymity, loss of individual responsibility, arousal, sensory overload, and/or drugs and alcohol.

Question 5

Mob

Answer 5

‘the moveable common people’

- negative connotations: often associated with lower class, disorder, and lack of respect for law

Question 6

Crowd

Answer 6

aggregation or collection of individuals who may or may not share common purpose
usually temporary, don’t act in unified and singular manner

Question 7

Continuum of Mob Violence

Answer 7

riots (least organization) - lynch mobs - vigilante groups (most organized)

Question 8

Heal’s 8 Psychological Factors

Answer 8

1. Novelty
2. Release
3. Power
4. Justification
5. Suggestibility
6. Stimulation
7. Conformity
8. Deindividuation

Question 9

Heal’s 8 Psychological Factors

Novelty

Answer 9

boredom; collective violence offers break from routine, excitment

Question 10

Heal’s 8 Psychological Factors

Release

Answer 10

Violence/aggression is release for hostility, anger, frustration

Question 11

Heal’s 8 Psychological Factors

Power

Answer 11

individuals feel empowered, intoxication by control of sense of superiority

Question 12

Heal’s 8 Psychological Factors

Justification

Answer 12

power gives sense of legitmacy

Question 13

Heal’s 8 Psychological Factors

Suggestibility

Answer 13

influenced by others in group

Question 14

Heal’s 8 Psychological Factors

Stimulation

Answer 14

emotions in group can arouse/stimulate others

Question 15

Heal’s 8 Psychological Factors

Conformity

Answer 15

pressures to conform or violence directed to non-conformists

Question 16

Heal’s 8 Psychological Factors

Deindiviudation

Answer 16

collective nature of group diminishes one’s self of identity

Question 17

Riots

Answer 17

tend to be least organized

Question 18

Lynchings

Answer 18

Form of collective violence where group circumvent law & punish individuals for real/imaginary crimes
- term associated with Judge Charles Lynch

Question 19

NAACP lynching requie

Answer 19

1) evidence person was killed
2) person must have met death illegally
3) group of 3+ persons must have participated in killings
4) group must have acted under pretext of service

Question 20

Vigilante Justice

Answer 20

Defined as organized, extralegal movement where participants take law into own hands
- Tend to be conservative groups intent on maintaining status quo

Question 21

Vigilante Justice -

Rosenbaum and Sederbergs 3 Types

Answer 21

1) Crime control Vigilantism
- elimination of crime
2) social group control vigilantism
- maintain racial/class order
3) regime control vigilantism
- control government if strays from desired policy or prevent perceived infringements

Question 22

Riots

Paul Gilje

Answer 22

any group of twelve or more people attempting to assert their will immediately through the use of force outside the normal bounds of law

Question 23

Influence of Groups

Answer 23

• Conformity is integral part of group life and ensures group cohesion
• Primary groups generate more pressure to conform than secondary groups
• Emotional intimacy created by strong social ties that ensure primary group members share similar attitudes, beliefs, and information
• Group members tend to dress and act alike, speak same lingo, share same likes and dislikes, and demand loyalty – especially in face of external threat

Question 24

Asch Experiment

Answer 24

Men shown card with line drawn on it and asked to judge which of 3 lines on second card matched line on first card

• Confederates instructed to purposely make incorrect judgment
• Findings: In 75% of cases, experimental subject - influenced by confederates - typically overruled own perception and agreed with majority

Question 25

Power of Groups

Answer 25

Groups possess legitimacy & authority

Have been socialized to function within groups, organizations, and institutions

Groups have ability to dictate our behaviour even when we don’t agree with it (conformity)

• Asch experiment (75% of sample influenced by others)
• Milgram experiment (subjects asked to administer electric shocks)

Question 26

2003 Columbia Space Shuttle Disaster

Answer 26

Space shuttle disaster in which seven astronauts died. Largely resulted from engineers silencing misgivings about foam insulation debris.

• Transcripts of high-level meetings that preceded the space shuttle showed that the official who ran shuttle management meetings – a non-engineer – believed from the outset that foam insulation debris could not damage the spacecraft
• She dismissed the issue and cut off discussion when an engineer expressed his concerns
• The others quickly fell into line with the non-engineer running the meeting
• A few days later, damage caused by foam insulation caused Columbia to break apart on re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere killing 7 astronauts

Question 27

Mob Mentality

Answer 27

LeBon: ‘grandfather of collective behaviour theory’

• Crowd develops mind of its own & individuals highly susceptible to will of group
• Crowd behaviour is contagious

Blumer: transformation of crowd to mob

• Trigger
• Crowd focuses on common element

Question 28

Behaviour Contagious

Answer 28

One person gets angry, excited, or violence others pick up on emotional fervor
- Individuals swayed by mood/behaviour of group because at unconscious level we are programmed to do so.

Question 29

Trigger

Answer 29

Something that draws people together like police shooting or court decision, media coverage of certain events

Question 30

Convergence

Answer 30

Actions of one person (e.g. throw rocks at windows, looting) quickly mirrored by others in crowd

Question 31

History of Lynching

Answer 31

Lynchings were not spontaneous events but rather calculated actions influenced by political, economic or social goals
- Families and entire communities attended

Perpetrators often held high status making it seem ‘acceptable’ or ‘legitimate’ – serves as justification
- Law enforcement and government officials often complicit

Question 32

James Byrd

Answer 32

• James Byrd, Jr. (May 2, 1949 – June 7, 1998) was an African-American who was murdered by three white men in Jasper, Texas, on June 7, 1998. Shawn Allen Berry, Lawrence Russell Brewer, and John William King dragged Byrd behind a pick-up truck along a macadam pavement after they wrapped a heavy logging chain around his ankles. Byrd was pulled along for about two miles as the truck swerved from side to side.[1]
• Byrd, who remained conscious throughout most the ordeal, was killed when his body hit the edge of a culvert severing his right arm and head. The murderers drove on for another mile before dumping his torso in front of Jasper’s black cemetery.[1] Byrd’s lynching-by-dragging gave impetus to passage of a Texas hate crimes law. It later led to the Federal October 22, 2009 Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, commonly known as the “Matthew Shepard Act”. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law on October 28, 2009.
• Some believe the nooses are a response to debate ignited by the case of the Jena Six in Louisiana, in which six black male high school students were charged in the beating of a white student after a noose was found hanging from a tree near the school. Allegedly, prior to the noose’s appearance, black students had sat under what was known locally as a whites-only tree.
• National law enforcement officials have not taken the incidents lightly. In fact, the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI currently are investigating approximately 20 incidents of hanging nooses that have taken place since the Jena Six case gained attention in August.