Holocaust debates centered on perpetrator psychology without living social psychologists

Evidence

At the time, there was much public and academic discussion of two monographs that are cited quite a bit in this book: Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men and Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners. The discus­ sion centered around what caused Holocaust perpetrators to act as they did, with special attention devoted to how perpetrators construed their own behavior and the extent to which they had been affected by powerful situational forces. What was being discussed, in other words, was the social psychology of the Holocaust. Unfortunately, when any social-psychological research was cited, it tended to be quite dated. And much to our distress, few actual social psycholo­ gists seemed to be entering into the public discourse. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 8

Categorization

• XREF: Browning’s Ordinary Men and Goldhagen’s thesis form the situational-vs-ideological debate this whole Glick volume is answering. — connects to: Holocaust social psychology requires both ideological attraction and conformity obedience — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 851; Explaining the Holocaust via sadistic hatred obscures its most sinister truth

Broader Connections

• Holocaust social psychology requires both ideological attraction and conformity obedience #expands (0.82) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 851
• Explaining the Holocaust via sadistic hatred obscures its most sinister truth #qualifies (0.72)