Assignment 2: LASA # 1: Literature Review Paper

1

Running head: REVIEW PAPER

Alisebeth Nelson

Argosy University Twin Cities

Advanced General Psychology

PSY492

Review Paper – Draft of Literature Findings

M2A3

June 2016

Abstract

This paper discusses the similarities, differences, and content of 10 articles and other resources the report and discuss the findings of research that has been done on the Psychology of Evil. The idea of a person being completely “evil” is still a new idea in psychology and all of the main research on this has been done within the past 70 years, so as of right now there is now hard proof that someone can really truly be “evil.” Most of the research done has been done based on the idea of an authority figure being the main reason why someone may do an evil task, not one on single person doing an evil thing on their own recognizance. This paper focuses on experiments performed by Milgram and Zimbardo and their findings, but also includes discussions from other sources.

The Psychology of Evil

There have been many discussions based on the research done to prove that humans can be and are instinctively evil beings. However, most of the research that has been presented to us has been performed with some type of authority that wills the participants to perform the “evil” acts. Becker states in his article “little effort has been made in psychology and psychiatry to study pathologies that afflict, not the aberrant neurotic or psychotic individual or social group, but the greater population of the psychologically normal” (2008). I would have to say that based on my schooling and the personal research that I have done that I would agree with this statement. All too often, any research performed to test the psychology behind good and evil only includes what we would call a “normal” individual; someone who has no type of psychotic diagnosis. Now if these experiments were tested on individual who was diagnosed with Antisocial or Borderline Personality Disorder, would the outcomes have been different? Becker states in this article that he believes that to be so. In this article he mainly focuses on Nazi leaders during the holocaust.

Chirico writes an article that is 22 chapters long that is divided in 5 sections to study this concept: “Basic issues and Controversies,” “Motivation and Cognitive Processes,” “Developmental, Personality and Clinical Aspects,” “Good and Evil,” and “Synthesis” (2011). Chirico starts his analysis with the main question that so many of us ask; “Why is there evil?” Chirico studies focus mainly on whether or not evil is a normal human condition or simply a side effect of mental illness. He also looks into the schemas of cognitions and morality.

Kadar’s article discusses a very interesting theory that the central goal of ecological psychology is for humans to create coping mechanisms to deal with everyday tasks, and sometime that these coping mechanisms can include evil behaviors. He states that sometimes an evil act is not necessarily deeply rooted in evil or abnormal behavior but simply used as a means to an end (2006). My main internal thought I had while researching this article was that this could be used as an explanation for those with Personality Disorders or Sociopathic tendencies. Their general lack of empathy for others could explain their sometimes evil acts. It is not necessarily that they want to do evil things, but primarily that they just don’t care as long it is helps them in the long run.

Javaid approaches the concept of evil from a sociological perspective. He states that an evil act is fluid and changes from society to society, group to group, and sometimes even person to person. For example, some remote tribes in third world countries still believe in animal and sometimes human sacrifice. Here in America that would be considered murder or inhumane treatment of an animal, but does that make it evil? Javaid believes that the concept of evil is all about your perspective on the subject.

De Vos’s article goes over evidence of both Milgram’s experiment and The Stanford Prison Experiment. He states that both of these experiments launched a new age of psychology, experiments, and the understanding of human behaviors. He goes on to say that these experiments can be looked at as “twin experiments.” He explains this by saying that Milgram’s paradigm of a psychology which explicitly draws its subject into the frame of it’s own discourse can be said to be the precondition of Zimbardo’s claim that his experiment offers a window onto the crucible of human behavior (De Vos, 2010). De Vos later relates both experiments to how prisoners are treated in places such as Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and that psychology is fundamentally based on a process of psychologization that turns its subjects into homo sacer of psychological discourse.

I found Himma’s article and argument to be extremely interesting. I myself was raised in a Catholic household and was taught from a young age that there is no real thing as mental illness and that everything good and bad in this world is based on the free will we were given by God. I liked the idea of throwing this article in to get a completely different perspective on the science behind good and evil, or in this case the lack of science behind it. Himma uses the Free-Will Argument (FWA); the existence of free beings in the world who as a whole do more good than evil. The argument here is that a great moral good cannot be achieved without some kind of evil to relate it to, therefore, some type of evil has to exist to give us a frame of reference (Himma, 2010). The main weakness I found in this article was the lack of sociological and psychological backup for some of the evidence. Although most of the research he presents is from studying Christian views and religious leaders, which most would argue that has a complete lack of scientific evidence behind it anyway.

Deavel studies philosophers for the notion of evil for this article and states that the idea of good and evil are relational and are a necessary element for the greater good and that to truly understand the idea of good an evil, one must reject the idea of an omnipotent God or admit that an omnipotent God can be responsible for the evil in the world. The main argument of the article is that philosophy does not account for the idea that evil is a negation and that there lacks a distinction between moral and physical evil.

Discussion

I found a lot of good information with many good arguments and great research, but the main weakness I found in most of the articles is that although there was a lot of scientific research presented, most of the research in interpretation was opinion based. Although I am finding throughout my studies that a lot of psychological based studies are theory and opinion based. Albeit that the majority of the arguments I found were based on opinion, one of the main strengths I found and enjoyed was that they were all very strong arguments. I found myself reading one article and nodding and agreeing with what the author was stating and then reading the next article with a different point of view and then nodding and agreeing with that one while reading it.

Although the articles all presented a different kind of evidence supporting their claim they were all easy to read and switch back and forth too. It was almost like reading a transcript of a debate. Almost every article that I found presented a different form of research, a different opinion and different findings. So in a way, yes the articles did speak to each other, but in an even greater way they did not.

So far the evidence for this topic tells us that yes indeed there is good and evil in the world but as far as having one conclusive answer as to why; there isn’t one. My personal belief is that any one single person is capable of evil, whether there be a mental illness or not, it is the situation that drives us to perform an act of evil. Someone otherwise incapable of murder may take the life of another if meant saving a loved one. While on the other end of the spectrum you have someone like Jeffrey Dahmer, who was mentally ill and committed murder because it pleased him to do so. So I guess in a way you could say that I agree with the argument that evil is relative to the individual and the society.

I think it would be difficult to refine my research topic down even further because the science and the psychology of evil is still a relatively new subject of discussion in the world of psychology and will be a subject of debate for many years to come.

References

Bartlett, S. J. (2008). THE HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN EVIL: ERNEST BECKER AND ARTHUR KOESTLER. The Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 48(3), 340. Retrieved from https://login.libproxy.edmc.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/222471962?accountid=34899

Chirico, D. (2012, April 01). The Social psychology of morality: Exploring the causes of good and evil. Choice Reviews Online, 49(08), 1539. doi:10.5860/choice.49-4763

Deavel, C. J. (2007). Relational evil, relational good: Thomas aquinas and process thought. International Philosophical Quarterly, 47(3), 297. Retrieved from https://login.libproxy.edmc.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/216007222?accountid=34899

De Vos, J. (2010). From milgram to zimbardo: The double birth of postwar psychology/ psychologization. History of the Human Sciences, 23(5), 156. Retrieved from https://login.libproxy.edmc.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/819727822?accountid=34899

HIMMA, K. E. (2010). Plantinga's version of the free-will argument: The good and evil that free beings do. Religious Studies, 46(1), 21-39. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0034412509990230

Javaid, A. (2015). The sociology and social science of 'evil': Is the conception of pedophilia 'evil'? Philosophical Papers and Review, 6(1), 1-9. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.5897/PPR2014.0112

Kadar, E. E., & Effken, J. A. (2006). Beyond good and evil: Prelude to a science of the future. Ecological Psychology, 18(4), 319-363. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15326969eco1804_5

Shermer, M. (2006). The science of good and evil: Why people cheat, gossip, care, share, and follow the golden rule. College Quarterly, 9(3), 175. Retrieved from https://login.libproxy.edmc.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/229297750?accountid=34899