Confronting Humanity at its Worst

Leonard S. Newman earned his PhD in social-personality psychology at New York University. He is an associate professor at Syracuse University, where he serves as Associate Chair of the psychology department. Dr. Newman is co-editor of Understanding Genocide: The Social Psychology of the Holocaust and co-author of Social Psychology: A Storytelling Approach (both with Ralph Erber). His research interests include social stigma, dehumanization, psychological defense, and public perceptions of psychological research.

Genocides are profound moral failures, that much is obvious. The thoughtful, provocative chapters in this superb volume go beyond that to explain the ways in which genocides are human failures. The book's gift to readers is in positioning them to see how social psychology helps us to prevent, and respond to, genocides, and can help all of humanity to heal."

• Acknowledgements PART 1: Lighting the Fuse: Psychological and Emotional Predispositions For Extreme Intergroup Violence Chapter 1: Genocide and the Male Warrior PsychologyAdam Tratner and Melissa McDonald Chapter 2: Obedient authoritarians or lay Darwinists? Ideological motivations of genocideMicha? Bilewicz Chapter 3: How Envy Can Incite Anti-Semitism and GenocideRichard H. Smith and Charles E. Hoogland PART 2: The Genocidal Mindset Chapter 4: Emotional Sources of Intergroup AtrocitiesMichael J. A. Wohl, Nassim Tabri, and Eran Halperin Chapter 5: The many roles of dehumanization in genocideNick Haslam Chapter 6: Moral Courage and Moral Disregard: Different Sides of the Same Coin?Allison B. Mueller and Linda J. Skitka Chapter 7: Understanding Intergroup Violence and Its Aftermath From Perpetrator and Victim PerspectivesMengyao Li and Bernhard Leidner PART 3: Evil is Not Inevitable: New Perspectives on Obedience and Social Influence Chapter 8: Engaged Followership and Engaged Fellowship: Towards a Unified Analysis of Harm-doing and Helping Stephen D. Reicher and S. Alexander Haslam Chapter 9: In what way is evil 'banal'? Hanna Arendt's (interactionist) thesisLeonard S. Newman PART 4: Never Again, Never Forget, Never Forgive, or Never Mind: The Aftermath of Extreme Intergroup Violence Chapter 10: The Aftermath of Genocide: Divergent Social Psychological Processes among Victim and Perpetrator GroupsJohanna Ray Vollhardt and Michelle Sinayobye Twali Chapter 11: Understanding and Counteracting Genocide DenialRezarta Bilali, Yeshim Iqbal, and Samuel Freel Chapter 12: Why do people become perpetrators of genocide? The dangers of explanationYing Tang and Leonard S. Newman