Chapter 9: Historical Violence Flashcards
Groupthink
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.
Bystander Apathy
Greater the number of bystanders, the less responsibility any one individual feels, and less likelihood of helping
Albert Bandura’s
“Moral Disengagement”
- 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
Deindividuation
- 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.
Mob
‘the moveable common people’
- negative connotations: often associated with lower class, disorder, and lack of respect for law
Crowd
aggregation or collection of individuals who may or may not share common purpose
usually temporary, don’t act in unified and singular manner
Continuum of Mob Violence
riots (least organization) - lynch mobs - vigilante groups (most organized)
Heal’s 8 Psychological Factors
- Novelty
- Release
- Power
- Justification
- Suggestibility
- Stimulation
- Conformity
- Deindividuation
Heal’s 8 Psychological Factors
Novelty
boredom; collective violence offers break from routine, excitment
Heal’s 8 Psychological Factors
Release
Violence/aggression is release for hostility, anger, frustration
Heal’s 8 Psychological Factors
Power
individuals feel empowered, intoxication by control of sense of superiority
Heal’s 8 Psychological Factors
Justification
power gives sense of legitmacy
Heal’s 8 Psychological Factors
Suggestibility
influenced by others in group
Heal’s 8 Psychological Factors
Stimulation
emotions in group can arouse/stimulate others
Heal’s 8 Psychological Factors
Conformity
pressures to conform or violence directed to non-conformists
Heal’s 8 Psychological Factors
Deindiviudation
collective nature of group diminishes one’s self of identity
Riots
tend to be least organized
Lynchings
Form of collective violence where group circumvent law & punish individuals for real/imaginary crimes
- term associated with Judge Charles Lynch
NAACP lynching requie
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
Vigilante Justice
Defined as organized, extralegal movement where participants take law into own hands
- Tend to be conservative groups intent on maintaining status quo
Vigilante Justice -
Rosenbaum and Sederbergs 3 Types
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
Riots
Paul Gilje
any group of twelve or more people attempting to assert their will immediately through the use of force outside the normal bounds of law
Influence of Groups
- 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
Asch Experiment
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
Power of Groups
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)
2003 Columbia Space Shuttle Disaster
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
Mob Mentality
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
Behaviour Contagious
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.
Trigger
Something that draws people together like police shooting or court decision, media coverage of certain events
Convergence
Actions of one person (e.g. throw rocks at windows, looting) quickly mirrored by others in crowd
History of Lynching
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
James Byrd
- 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.
