Milgram’s obedience findings displaced motivational and personality explanations of genocide

Evidence

Staub (1989) suggests that Milgram’s (1974) dramatic obedience experiments may have accelerated the demise of interest in motivational and personality approaches to understanding the Holocaust by showing that most people can be induced to become reluctant perpetrators when subjected to the demands of a destructive authority. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 736

Categorization

• XREF: Situational-authority accounts compete with the dispositional and group-threat mechanisms the reader is bridging; useful framing for the mechanism-lit review. — connects to: Goldhagen’s theory reduces genocide to individual anti-Semitic attitudes driving behavior — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 312; Browning’s account of Holocaust perpetrators emphasized obedience and conformity — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 316; Milgram reframed perpetrator compliance as situational deference, not coerced obedience — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 46 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• The 1960s shifted Holocaust explanation from individual psychology to group social psychology #corroborates (0.90) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 42
• Milgram’s obedience studies remain psychology’s dominant explanation of Holocaust perpetration. #corroborates (0.85) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 589
• Social psychologists explain genocidal behavior through situational pressure plus unexamined psychological processes #expands (0.75) — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 352