PSYC316

Description

Section information text: This graduate seminar will provide an overview of classic and current social psychological theories and research on the origins, course, and aftermath of ethnic violence (including e.g. hate speech and political campaigns against ethnic minority groups; slavery and other forms of oppression; ethnic mass killings and genocide). We will cover these themes from the perspective of the victim, bystander, and perpetrator. In the first half of the semester, we will examine societal and situational factors as well as psychological processes that influence how human beings come to perpetrate mass violence against members of other groups (such as dehumanization and deindividuation, entitativity and intergroup emotions, moral exclusion and social categorization processes); we will also look at the literature on bystanders and rescuers. In the second half of the semester we will focus on how individuals and groups cope with ethnic victimization and respond to it in its aftermath, including future generations. We will examine both destructive, negative outcomes (such as trauma, revenge, siege mentality and competitive victimhood) and constructive, positive phenomena (such as the effect of apologies and truth commissions, reconciliation and forgiveness, and inclusive victim consciousness that can motivate solidarity with other victim groups). While the focus will mostly be on social psychological literature, occasionally we will draw on sources from sociology, genocide studies, and clinical psychology. Students will be expected to write conceptual review papers and research proposals on a related topic of their choice, and they will be responsible to lead one of the weekly discussions.