After spending a week at Auschwitz in Poland discussing the psychology behind genocide with policy makers and government officials, University professor Paul Slovic will give a lecture today at 4 p.m. in 146 Straub. His talk, titled “If I look at the Mass I Will Never Act: Psychic Numbing and Genocide,” will address the ways in which society today favors individuals in crisis as opposed to an entire group suffering.
The psychology department hosts several speakers each term to discuss the recent research as part of the department’s colloquia program.
Slovic, who just finished his seminar at the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation, has studied the signs that lead to genocide and the why behind a darker part of human history that tends to repeat itself.
“He’s incredibly well-known in the field,” said University psychology professor Sara Hodges, who serves on the colloquium committee that invited Slovic to speak. Hodges said that Slovic works from a scientific background studying psychological effects but he is also able to analyze the social psychology of decision-making about issues like smoking and risk perception.
“It’s an incredible combination to have been so successful in both realms,” said Hodges.
Bob O’Connor, the director of the Decision, Risk and Management Sciences program for the National Science Foundation, helps fund Slovic’s travels. Slovic researches psychic numbing, a technique emphasizing the human inclination to care more for an individual in need than for many people in need. Slovic said psychological data show that people tend to become more emotionally numb when the number of people affected increases.
“He is an incredibly wonderful scholar,” said O’Connor. “He’s focusing on questions that matter to the world.”
O’Connor said he is very interested in the work Slovic does in conducting experiments to understand how people process information, how they make decisions and how these decisions affect their behavior.
“The world every few years has a genocide, and we see a report and wonder why we sit back and let it happen,” said O’Connor.
Slovic, who has recently focused on the crises in Darfur and Rwanda, declares in his lecture that there are psychological factors explaining why people are indifferent to genocide.
Slovic said that he and his team of researchers at Decision Research in Eugene – a non-profit organization that investigates human judgment, decision-making, and risk – conducted studies in which they ask subjects if they would donate $10,000 to one child in need or to thousands or millions of children. Slovic said the subject most often chooses to save the individual.
“You can’t connect emotionally to a lot of people, but you can to one,” said Slovic. “As the numbers increase, it’s hard to feel for more. We lose compassion.”
The seminar, scheduled by the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation, brought a number of scholars from around the world together to present their work to an audience of policy makers and government officials from 11 different countries. Slovic said the group discussed why it is that good people and nations who care a lot are so indifferent.
“We are often very compassionate and do a lot to help individuals, but when the needs get great, we basically give nothing,” said Slovic. “This has happened over and over again in the last century.”
Slovic said some of the warning signs of genocide include increased hate speech, hate propaganda and previous history of genocide in a nation.
Slovic, who had not been to Auschwitz before, said he took an extensive tour of the camp with a guide. He toured Auschwitz 2, also called Auschwitz Birkenau, by himself.
Back in Eugene, Slovic said he hopes people will take away from his talk the relevance this has to today.
“I hope people will get an appreciation of the fact that these atrocities are still with us,” said Slovic. “The Holocaust was not just an isolated operation of human evil.”
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Professor will discuss psychology behind genocide
Daily Emerald
May 21, 2008
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