Tag: disengagement

Displacement of responsibility (Moral disengagement, part 5)

Posted on by kathiemm

The fourth mechanism of moral disengagement described by Albert Bandura is displacement or diffusion of responsibility.

Man with crossed arms, fingers pointing at others ("don't blame me")
Photo by Achim Hering (Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported. From Wikimedia Commons)

Displacement of responsibility refers to claims that, for example, you are not being immoral when committing an atrocity while “just following orders.” Such claims dominated the Nuremberg Trials at the end of World War II.

Under the Nuremberg Principles, which are the basis of current international law, “only following orders” has explicitly been identified as an unacceptable defense.  Nevertheless, it continues to appear in military contexts and probably led to the reducing of Lt. William Calley’s sentence for the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War.

More recently, in preparing the nation to accept his plan to invade Iraq, President George W. Bush declared: “Our enemies have openly declared that they are seeking weapons of mass destruction, and evidence indicates that they are doing so with determination…. History will judge harshly those who saw this coming danger but failed to act.”

In other words, it is not our fault that we are going to war; they made us do it.

After the fall of Iraq, when informed about the rioting and looting going on, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made his infamous remark, “Stuff happens,” another way of avoiding responsibility for the chaos.

It is easy to find online many quotes from U.S. leaders concerning the war in Iraq. Take a look at them and see how many examples you can find of displacement or avoidance of responsibility and the other mechanisms of moral disengagement we have been discussing.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Note: This post was adapted from my previously published article in Peace Psychology (a publication of the American Psychological Association), Spring, 2009.

Euphemistic labeling (Moral disengagement, part 3)

Posted on by kathiemm

Truthful Language NOT!Another moral disengagement mechanism identified by psychologist Albert Bandura is euphemistic labeling. This mechanism refers to the process of sanitizing language in order to detract from the emotional intensity of the reality being referenced.

Some examples of euphemistic labeling:

  • “Friendly fire,” used to describe the accidental killing of soldiers by their own comrades
  • “Servicing the target,” used as a substitute for bombing missions
  • “Collateral damage,” applied to the killing of innocent civilians

Another favorite is “enhanced interrogation”—not exactly the term most of us would use when describing repeated efforts to bring  a 15-year-old boy almost to the point of drowning over and over again.

An excellent example of euphemistic labeling by the U.S. government was changing the name of one of its major executive departments from the Department of War to the Department of Defense.

Consider the 1982 U.S. invasion of Grenada, a tiny Caribbean island. Six thousand U.S. troops bravely took on almost 125 powerful Cuban soldiers (for which 7,000 medals were handed out); U.S. students in a medical school waited to be rescued; and a U.S. newspaper helpfully published a map of the city of Granada in Spain. Sadly, an aircraft bomb hit the wrong target and some children at an orphanage were killed.

And what was the U.S. government “defending” against? The building of a 5,000 foot runway that Soviet jets in Cuba might be able to use to bomb, well, somewhere.

In the next post, we describe the moral engagement alternative to euphemistic language—that is, telling it like it is. In the meantime, please comment and share examples of euphemistic labeling that you’ve noticed.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Note: This post was adapted from my previously published article in Peace Psychology (a publication of the American Psychological Association), Spring, 2009, as well as Corgan, M., and Malley-Morrison, K., Operation URGENT FOLLY, International Psychology Bulletin,  Spring, 2008, 28-30.

Pseudo-moral justifications (Moral disengagement, part 2)

Posted on by kathiemm

In our August 30 post, we introduced psychologist Albert Bandura‘s mechanisms of moral disengagement. Today we begin to explore the six strategies Bandura has identified.

Bandura indicates that often people “cognitively reconstruct” an inhumane  behavior to make it into something different from–that is, more moral than–what it actually is. One way to do that is to cloak the behavior “in moral wrappings.”

Bandura uses the term “moral justification” to describe this process.

When political/military leaders want their followers to go to war and kill “the enemy,” they argue that the killing is justified, even “moral.” They often claim that war has moral goals such as fighting oppression, making the world safe for democracy,  spreading peace, and so forth.

In this regard,  Bandura cites Voltaire, who said “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

In our view, Bandura has identified an important process manipulated by people in power. This process has been effective in getting ordinary people to kill and torture, while still viewing themselves as moral and even as followers of the Golden Rule.

On the other hand, we dislike the ambiguous use of  “moral” in front of “justifications.” It suggests that the justifications are “moral” rather than “pseudo-moral.” For this kind of moral disengagement, we suggest that a better term would be “spuriously moral justifications” or “pseudo-moral justifications.”

Over the next few weeks, we will continue to explore mechanisms of both moral disengagement and moral engagement. Alternating posts between the two types of mechanisms, we hope to illustrate the spectrum of moral behaviors as they apply to engaging peace.

The next post will address the reciprocal of  pseudo-moral justifications–specifically, principled moral arguments.

Dr. Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Note: This post was adapted from my previously published article in Peace Psychology (a publication of the American Psychological Association), Spring, 2009.

Moral disengagement – Introduction

Posted on by kathiemm
Photo of 3 monkeys in "hear, speak, see no evil" poses
Hear, Speak, See No Evil. Toshogu Prefecture, Japan. (Unconditional permission granted by photographer, via WikiMedia Commons.)

Psychologist Albert Bandura has devoted his life to the study of human aggression and violence.  It is his theoretical constructs that we begin considering today.

Bandura recognized that shame and guilt are uncomfortable emotions and that people will utilize a variety of strategies to avoid feeling them.

For some people, feelings of shame and guilt resulting from bad behavior may lead to positive character development, mature intimacy, generativity, and integrity.

Other people use strategies of “moral disengagement” to help them avoid shame or guilt while continuing to behave badly.

According to Bandura, “mechanisms of moral disengagement” can serve to satisfy their users that they are behaving morally because they are conforming to the values of their role models, spiritual guides, or political leaders.

Unfortunately, many leaders, often with the help of the media, promote the development and use of moral disengagement in order to insure their followers’ compliance in acts of horrifying violence against others.  For example, they encourage viewing “the enemy” as someone evil, inferior, and deserving punishment or even elimination.

Bandura has identified several types of moral disengagement that allow ordinary people to tolerate and even contribute to behaviors like torture, rape, and murder–behaviors that violate the ethics of reciprocity, the teachings of love and brotherhood in all major religious texts, and the human rights laws endorsed by the United Nations.

These mechanisms of moral disengagement include:

  • “Moral” justification–which we prefer to call “spurious moral justification”
  • Euphemistic labeling
  • Advantageous comparison
  • Displacement of responsibility
  • Disregard or distortion of consequences
  • Dehumanizing or demonizing the other

In upcoming posts, we will explore each of these mechanisms in more detail, and give common examples of their use. We will also introduce the mechanisms of moral engagement that allow individuals to resist spurious calls to violence in the name of peace.

Be sure to check back to learn more.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Note: This post was adapted from my previously published article in Peace Psychology (a publication of the American Psychological Association), Spring, 2009.