Asked by Niall Fowler on Jul 04, 2024
Verified
David's history teacher asked him why so many German people complied with Hitler's orders to systematically slaughter millions of innocent Jews. David suggested that the atrocities were committed because the Germans had become unusually cruel,sadistic people with abnormal and twisted personalities. Use your knowledge of the fundamental attribution error and Milgram's research on obedience to highlight the weaknesses of David's explanation.
Fundamental Attribution Error
The tendency to overestimate the influence of personal traits and underestimate the effects of situations when explaining others' behaviors.
Milgram's Research
A series of social psychology experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram, which measured the willingness of participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience.
Obedience
is the act of following orders or instructions from an authority figure, often studied in psychology as a behavior of compliance.
- Comprehend the relevance of the foot-in-the-door effect and its illustrative examples.
- Elucidate the notion of deindividuation and its consequences on collective behavior.
- Comprehend the principle of groupthink, its underlying reasons, and strategies for its avoidance.
Verified Answer
Milgram's research on obedience also highlights the weaknesses of David's explanation. Milgram's experiments demonstrated that ordinary individuals could be influenced to commit harmful actions under the authority of a perceived legitimate figure. This suggests that obedience to authority figures and the influence of situational factors played a significant role in the compliance of Germans with Hitler's orders, rather than solely attributing it to their individual personalities.
Therefore, David's explanation fails to consider the broader social, political, and situational factors that contributed to the atrocities committed during the Holocaust. It is important to recognize the complex interplay of individual and situational factors in understanding human behavior, rather than simplistically attributing it to inherent traits of a particular group of people.
Learning Objectives
- Comprehend the relevance of the foot-in-the-door effect and its illustrative examples.
- Elucidate the notion of deindividuation and its consequences on collective behavior.
- Comprehend the principle of groupthink, its underlying reasons, and strategies for its avoidance.
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