Conformity can intensify violence beyond what any individual would initiate alone.

Evidence

In general, the effects of a “situation” cannot be determined unless we understand how the people in that situation construed it. Behavior can thus be affected by people’s perceptions of others’ attitudes and beliefs even if those perceptions are inaccurate. Related to that, the attitudes of group members cannot be directly inferred from the collective behavior of the group. It should be emphasized that an application of this principle to the case of Holocaust perpetrators does not require the assumption that the members of killing squads were really pacifists at heart. It does, however, suggest that even in this kind of a situation conformity pressures could have led to behavior that was more extreme in terms of its violence and cruelty than would have been initiated by a person not subject to those pressures. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 372

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Any limit on violence is itself a socializing factor — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 296; Everyone carries a latent violence that specific conditions can trigger — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 474; Situational conformity pressure boosts aggression far more than personality traits do. (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Conformity to peers, not personality, drives obedient cruelty. #corroborates (0.94) — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 115
• Situational conformity pressure boosts aggression far more than personality traits do. #corroborates (0.93)
• Group-based discipline can coerce as powerfully as individual violence #expands (0.80) — , The Rod and the Child, 5601
• Individual and collective violence operate through separate psychological mechanisms #complicates (0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 382
• Disturbed individuals’ violent action depends mainly on self-regulatory ability to contain grievances #complicates (0.78) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1283
• Strong social ties also enable exclusion and violence toward outsiders #expands (0.76) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 528
• Everyone carries a latent violence that specific conditions can trigger #qualifies (0.74) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 474
• Social movements meet individual uniqueness and belonging needs but can become organized violence. #expands (0.74) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 1099
• Any limit on violence is itself a socializing factor #qualifies (0.72) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 296