Goldhagen’s theory reduces genocide to individual anti-Semitic attitudes driving behavior

Evidence

In order to account for how seemingly ordinary Germans became Holocaust perpetrators, Goldhagen favored a “cognitive explanation.” As detailed in Hitler’s Willing Executioners (1996), this explanation boils down to not much more than what social psychologists would call attitude-behavior consistency. In other words, Goldhagen concluded that the murderous acts committed by many Germans during the campaign to eliminate Jews from European life were simple and straightforward reflections of murderous feelings toward Jewish people. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 312

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines what Goldhagen’s ‘cognitive explanation’ actually is in social-psychological terms: attitude-behavior consistency.
• XREF: connects to: Goldhagen argued antisemitic belief, not social pressure or conformity, drove perpetrator behavior. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 896; Goldhagen’s Holocaust study is fundamentally a social-psychological analysis — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 308; Holocaust social psychology requires both ideological attraction and conformity obedience — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 851 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Goldhagen argued antisemitic belief, not social pressure or conformity, drove perpetrator behavior. #expands (0.95) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 896
• Goldhagen rejected conformity explanations of Nazi perpetrators as illogical #corroborates (0.90) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 324
• Popular hatred was insufficient to drive the Holocaust #complicates (0.85) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 212
• Holocaust social psychology requires both ideological attraction and conformity obedience #complicates (0.82) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 851
• The commonsense antisemitism-explains-Holocaust causal link collapses under scrutiny. #corroborates (0.80) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 114
• The Holocaust was not the logical culmination of prior antisemitism #complicates (0.80)
• Goldhagen’s Holocaust study is fundamentally a social-psychological analysis #expands (0.78) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 308
• Milgram’s obedience findings displaced motivational and personality explanations of genocide #complicates (0.76) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 736