Browning’s account of Holocaust perpetrators emphasized obedience and conformity

Evidence

Just as forcefully as he promoted his cognitive explanation, Goldhagen also rejected the possibility that other psychological or interpersonal forces might have played a role in the creation of Holocaust perpetrators. Goldhagen’s attention to these other explanatory factors was in part a response to the work of Browning (1992a), who in Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland offered a very different perspective on the behavior of the men and women who did much of the face-to-face killing of Jews as the Holocaust unfolded. In particular, Browning emphasized the social-psychological processes of obedience and conformity. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 316

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Milgram’s obedience paradigm was designed to explain Holocaust perpetration — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 596; Holocaust social psychology requires both ideological attraction and conformity obedience — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 851; Milgram’s obedience findings displaced motivational and personality explanations of genocide — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 736 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Holocaust killers volunteered eagerly rather than obeying reluctantly #contradicts (0.88) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 320
• Milgram’s obedience studies remain psychology’s dominant explanation of Holocaust perpetration. #corroborates (0.86) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 589
• Milgram’s obedience paradigm was designed to explain Holocaust perpetration #expands (0.85) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 596
• Holocaust social psychology requires both ideological attraction and conformity obedience #qualifies (0.82) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 851
• Milgram’s obedience findings displaced motivational and personality explanations of genocide #corroborates (0.80) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 736
• Holocaust perpetrators were normal and their institutions socially non-pathological #corroborates (0.80) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 89
• Perpetrators’ motivations extend beyond antisemitism to authority, duty, and loyalty #qualifies (0.78)
• Historical scholarship increasingly supports the functionalist view of Holocaust causation. #complicates (0.75) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 306