Evildoing is learned through socialization into harmful organizations

Evidence

My argument thus far is simple. Most evildoers are produced by a process of socialization into doing evil, a process that makes them capable of doing evil autonomously and independently in the future. If this argument is correct, then we come face-to-face with a question that we now recognize as urgent. How are the organizations that socialize an individual into doing harm created and sustained? If they are an important source of harmdoers, then how do they themselves come about? — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3969

Categorization

• XREF: Reflects the Milgram/Bandura social-learning tradition; connects to Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment on role socialization. — connects to: Institutional evil requires a social psychology of how settings override members’ moral scruples — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology: Key Readings, 4030; Charismatic leaders exploit threat to create scapegoats and bring evil into being. — Jeff Greenberg and Spee Kosloff, Terror Management Theory: Implications…, 59