Christian Jungersen - The Exception

‘Different ones.’

‘Which ones?’

Malene’s voice changes, as if it had all been a playful chat but now Anne-Lise has crossed the line. ‘Just drop it, Anne-Lise. And do try to stay calm.’

Iben chips in: ‘You mustn’t be so paranoid.’

Anne-Lise is about to say that she isn’t paranoid. But the situation is simply impossible. Every single day something like this occurs. What’s the point of protesting yet again? Every day she loses another point in the game.

Anne-Lise goes to the toilets to pull herself together. She checks her face in the mirror. Nothing shows. No tears moistening her face. Have her features become harsher over the last few weeks?

What was the meaning of Tatiana’s glance earlier? She seemed concerned. Why? And hadn’t they mentioned being drunk at work? How should she interpret that? Could it be that the others are spreading rumours that Anne-Lise drinks during working hours? It would explain Tatiana’s reaction.

She feels calmer now and walks back to the library. While she and Tatiana work together, Tatiana asks Anne-Lise about her response to the emails. Does she feel safer now that the sender has been arrested?

Anne-Lise is pleased at the thought that she could easily have given away more than she does. And if she had, Tatiana would have listened.

It takes them almost an hour to finish their work in the library. Afterwards Tatiana has to get back to the Council for Torture Victims. Anne-Lise escorts her through the Winter Garden to the front door. Malene gets up to say goodbye and in no time at all makes Tatiana laugh. Once more, Tatiana lingers in the central room.

Then Iben exclaims, her voice still full of laughter, ‘Oh, Tatiana, we haven’t had time to talk for ages! It’s a shame, but there’s been so much going on ever since we all — sorry, everyone except Anne-Lise — were sent those threats.’

Tatiana doesn’t quite understand the tone of Iben’s remark. Her mouth opens in surprise. ‘How do you …?’

Malene helps her out. ‘Oh, sorry! You couldn’t have known! It’s a running office gag that Anne-Lise sent those emails.’

Tatiana looks around and speaks slowly, searching for words. ‘Oka-ay.’

In that instant Anne-Lise feels she has spotted a new side to Tatiana. The older woman is always trying to make an effort to act ‘young’ in front of Malene and Iben. After all, she is almost thirty years older than they are, yet she tries hard to sound just as youthful and energetic.

‘Aha! Of course Anne-Lise must’ve sent the emails!’

They are all supposed to laugh or smile now, but the irony sounds awkward coming from Tatiana, and somehow her comment seems out of place.

The Psychology of Evil II

Social psychology contributes a myriad of surprising and uncomfortable insights into studies of perpetrator behaviour .

By Iben Højgaard

In his book On Killing , Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman states that, in a war situation, men and women who kill at a sufficiently great distance from the victims are, to the best of his personal knowledge, not traumatised later in life. The closer the soldier gets to the victim, the harder it is to kill. Yet no government has ever had to cancel plans for genocide for lack of people willing to carry out their orders.

How to resolve this contradiction?

In the previous issue of Genocide News , the article ‘The Psychology of Evil I’ referred to Stanley Milgram’s experimental work on the parameters of ‘obedience to authority’. There are dozens of other approaches in social psychology that also illuminate the psychology of the perpetrator. This article presents a small selection.

Actions shape attitudes

Generally we believe that it is our attitudes that determine our behaviour. The reverse is also true: what we do affects our way of thinking, our feelings and opinions.

It is unsettling for us when we realise that our actions are in conflict with our beliefs. To distance ourselves from this we unconsciously tend to adjust our attitudes and feelings, rather than change our behaviour. Social psychologists have carried out hundreds of experiments, attempting to pin down exactly how this change in attitude is accomplished.

Festinger and Carlsmith devised an experiment in which the subjects were given tedious tasks taking many hours to complete, such as moving tiny four-sided sticks about, forwards and back and from side to side. When the leader of the experiment finally told the subjects that the experiment was finished, they were also told that the leader’s assistant, who was to instruct the next subject in line and stress how exciting the task was, would be arriving late. The current subjects were then asked if they could possibly take over the assistant’s role, meet the new subjects and tell them about the procedure. One group was asked to lie about what a joy it had been to participate in the experiment. The other group was not asked to feign enthusiasm.

The first group was divided into two sections and offered either $1 or $20 for their trouble. It is worth noting that in 1959 the value of the dollar was relatively much higher than it is today.

The results showed that those who had been paid $ I and had lied to the new subjects felt that the experiment had actually been a good experience. Both those who had been paid $20 and those who weren’t asked to lie admitted afterwards that they had found the experience dull. The larger sum of money provided a strong, external incentive to lie to the new subjects, and hence they felt no subconscious need to change their original opinion of the experiment in order to explain their action to themselves. Only those who had received a small reward needed to change their views in order to establish a link between their thoughts and their action. This instinct is driven by lack of internal cogency, an uncomfortable state that is a key concept in social psychology and described by the term ‘cognitive dissonance’.

There are real-life decisions that lead to cognitive dissonance and thus to a switch in attitude. Consider a research officer with moral, liberal views who is offered a job with an advertising agency and accepts it. This means that she will begin to suffer from a discrepancy between her ideals and her actions and, unless she rejects the job offer, she must try to readjust her convictions to justify her new situation. After a few months she might argue, with genuine passion, that advertising is an essential aspect of democratic societies with a free-market economy. Also, she will probably maintain this opinion for the rest of her life, even if she spends only a relatively brief period in advertising.

Another example is the Jehovah’s Witnesses who soon learn that handing out pamphlets in the street serves a dual purpose. It will help to recruit new adherents to the faith, but it will also reinforce the bonds between the faithful and the sect. The first time they might well have been hesitant about going out pamphleteering, but afterwards they will come home with a stronger light of faith in their eyes.

The process can lead to increasingly charitable — or increasingly maleficent — behaviour. It can also create profound changes in outlook, much more so than would have been possible through words alone.

The Nazis relied heavily on this mechanism to ensure conformity among German citizens. The incalculable risks of refusing to make symbolic signs of support for the regime, e.g. the ‘Heil Hitler’ greeting, must have led to individuals asking themselves: ‘What’s the harm in just lifting my right arm?’ But every time someone conforms, their way of thinking will have changed.

The conclusion must be that simple acts, which in themselves appear to cause only limited damage, can lead to psychological changes that in turn make possible even greater and more destructive acts.