Reicher

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Reicher Haslam Rethinking The Psychology of
Tyranny

• Background

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What were Reicher Haslam interested in?

• Rethinking the Psychology of Tyranny
• Tyranny the arbitrary and/or oppressive exercise
  of power in an unequal social system

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Why did tyranny need rethinking?

• Zimbardos SPE
• Implications of SPE
• Changing face of tyranny
• Rise in number of people imprisoned
• Alternative theory SIT

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Zimbardos SPE
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Issues from SPE

• Conclusions focussed on the power of social roles
  group membership in shaping behaviour. People
  have little choice in what they do, they behave
  according to assigned roles
• Implications of these conclusions
• Tyrants cannot be held responsible for what they
  do, and so should not be challenged, their
  behaviour is an inevitable product of the
  situation they are in

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Issues from SPE

• Ethics
• Ideas from SPE have not really been tested or
  challenged as conditions in the study became so
  extreme study had to be terminated, not thought
  possible to replicate the study ethically
• SPE conducted in 1969

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Terrorism
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(No Transcript)
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• Can terrorist actions be explained using theories
  of social roles and group membership?
• Are these people responsible for their actions is
  their behaviour and inevitable product of the
  situation they are in?

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Changing face of Tyranny
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Changing face of Tyranny
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Abu Gharib

• In 2004 it came to public attention
• that Iraqi prisoners at Abu Gharib were being
  abused at the hands of American soldiers.
• Prisoners were stripped naked sexually
  humiliated, they were wired up and told to stand
  on a box if they fell off they would be
  electrocuted.
• They were beaten and tortured both physically and
  psychologically all whilst soldiers took pictures
  of themselves smiling with their thumbs up next
  to their victims.
• Several soldiers were tried and convicted to as
  many as 10 years in prison for their actions.
• Many blamed the hideousness of the situation,
  orders from above and a lack of information on
  how to behave appropriately

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Changing Prison Populations

• If putting people into prisons makes their
  behaviour worse and the behaviour of their guards
  brutal then we need to look again at our criminal
  justice system.
• Over 9 million people are imprisoned world wide
• In England Wales 80,000 people are imprisoned,
  a huge rise since the 1960s

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Alternative Theories - SIT

• Social Identity Theory
• People only act in terms of group membership if
  they identify with the group (self categorisation)

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Self categorisation

• Permeability
• If group members believe that it is possible to
  move out of the group they will not categorise
  themselves as group members

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Self categorisation

• Security
• How aware are the group members of alternative
  ways of thinking about the group membership and
  the relationship with other groups, if they are
  aware of alternatives they may challenge
  inequalities

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Dispositional vs. Situational Hypothesis

• Dispositional tyranny is a direct result of
  individual characteristics that pre-exist in a
  person
• Situational hypothesis anybody will behave in a
  tyrannical way when placed in a certain situation
  or role regardless of their personal
  characteristics

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Free will?

• Free will we have choices about the way we
  behave
• Determinism we are forced to behave in a
  particular way because of the situation we are in