Gradual escalation binds perpetrators to destructive roles they would reject in one step
Evidence
Third, one of the distinctive features of the Milgram (1974) obedience paradigm is the sequential nature of the delivery of shocks. The learner’s “suf fering” intensifies in a gradual, piecemeal fashion. Milgram considered this manner of giving shocks one of the factors “that powerfully bind a subject to his role” (p. 149). The importance of this unfolding process as a facilitator of destructive obedience in Milgram’s laboratory has served to alert us to the vital role played by the step-by-step, escalating process that the Nazis used in the victimization of the Jews, as described by Hilberg (1985): The process of destruction unfolded in a definite pattern . — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 659
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to Milgram’s broader obedience literature and to the reader’s interest in how ordinary people become perpetrators through small steps rather than a single decision. — connects to: Genocide escalates from smaller harms that progressively change the perpetrators — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 126; People who harm others escalate the severity of harm they inflict — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 127; Extremist involvement has addictive properties tied to joint risk and struggle — Ryan Andrew Brown, Todd C. Helmus, Rajeev Ramchand, Alina I. Palimaru, Sarah Weilant, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Liisa Hiatt (RAND Corporation), Violent Extremism in America:…, 59 (+3 more)
- SEED: Article angle: ‘The Increment Is the Atrocity’ — how bureaucratic and experimental harm both work by splitting violence into steps small enough that each feels like no decision at all.
Broader Connections
- Committing early harm spirals perpetrators into escalating violence via rationalization.
#expands(0.95) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1607 - Initial acts of harm create psychological pressure that escalates into mass murder.
#corroborates(0.95)