Neuroscience
After news broke that US soldiers had mistreated their prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq, a common reaction among pro-war politicians was to remind the public that: "It would have been worse under Saddam". Whatever the truth of this claim, new research suggests that comparing a current situation with an even worse atrocity comes with a price - it desensitises our judgment of future moral violations.
Forty student participants read an account of the atrocities committed by US troops at Abu Ghraib. A random subset of these students then read about the torture and executions that took place at the prison during Saddam Hussein's regime. Regardless of their own beliefs, they then had to compose an argument for how conditions at the prison would have been worse under Saddam's control. Other students, instead of reading about the prison under Saddam, read about an Iraqi prison run by Danish guards where captives were treated ethically. These students then had to compose an argument for how the standards of the Danish guards were better than the US guards. A control group of students just read about the US troop atrocities.
After all this, the students reported their own views on the US troop atrocities and they answered questions about how US troops should treat prisoners in the future - for example, by stating whether or not they agreed with the use of torture to gain enemy information.
It turned out that the students who'd been asked to compare US-controlled Abu Ghraib conditions with conditions when under Saddam Hussein's control subsequently reported more lenient views of the atrocities by US troops and, most crucially, expressed lower ethical standards regarding how US troops should treat prisoners in the future, than did the control students and the students who compared US with Danish prison standards.
Keith Markman and colleagues who conducted the research said: "Our point is to question the usefulness of drawing a comparison between Abu Ghraib under American control and Abu Ghraib under Saddam's control....[I]t appears that the contemplation of such a comparison lowers personal standards toward the very comparison standard against which one is seeking to contrast."
_________________________________
MARKMAN, K., MIZOGUCHI, N., MCMULLEN, M. (2008). "It would have been worse under Saddam": Implications of counterfactual thinking for beliefs regarding the ethical treatment of prisoners of war. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(3), 650-654. DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2007.03.005
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- Are Prisoners Calmer When Their Cells Are Painted Pink?
On the back of research first published in 70s and 80s, an increasing number of jails in the Western world are painting their cells pink, in the belief that doing so has a calming effect on prisoners. Unfortunately, this early research was poorly designed....
- What The Textbooks Don't Tell You - One Of Psychology's Most Famous Experiments Was Seriously Flawed
Zimbardo speaking in '09Conducted in 1971, the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) has acquired a mythical status and provided the inspiration for at least two feature-length films. You'll recall that several university students allocated to the...
- Can Good People Really Turn Bad? Re-visiting The Stanford Prison Experiment
The idea that certain situations can turn good people evil has spread like wildfire ever since Philip Zimbardo's (in)famous Stanford Prison Experiment. The study ended prematurely when the "ordinary" participants acting as "guards" turned sadistic....
- Elsewhere
For when you've had enough of journal articles: A feature article on violent behaviour, and another on drugs to combat mental fatigue, both open-access in the latest issue of Scientific American Mind. Read the winning entries in the National Amazing...
- The Cognitive Dissonance Of Zealous Republicans
In a remarkable preliminary study presented at the 2009 Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping, scientists at Emory University reported that Republicans were less disgusted by images of torture and human rights violations -- i.e., the infamous...
Neuroscience
The price of thinking "It would have been worse under Saddam"
After news broke that US soldiers had mistreated their prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq, a common reaction among pro-war politicians was to remind the public that: "It would have been worse under Saddam". Whatever the truth of this claim, new research suggests that comparing a current situation with an even worse atrocity comes with a price - it desensitises our judgment of future moral violations.Forty student participants read an account of the atrocities committed by US troops at Abu Ghraib. A random subset of these students then read about the torture and executions that took place at the prison during Saddam Hussein's regime. Regardless of their own beliefs, they then had to compose an argument for how conditions at the prison would have been worse under Saddam's control. Other students, instead of reading about the prison under Saddam, read about an Iraqi prison run by Danish guards where captives were treated ethically. These students then had to compose an argument for how the standards of the Danish guards were better than the US guards. A control group of students just read about the US troop atrocities.
After all this, the students reported their own views on the US troop atrocities and they answered questions about how US troops should treat prisoners in the future - for example, by stating whether or not they agreed with the use of torture to gain enemy information.
It turned out that the students who'd been asked to compare US-controlled Abu Ghraib conditions with conditions when under Saddam Hussein's control subsequently reported more lenient views of the atrocities by US troops and, most crucially, expressed lower ethical standards regarding how US troops should treat prisoners in the future, than did the control students and the students who compared US with Danish prison standards.
Keith Markman and colleagues who conducted the research said: "Our point is to question the usefulness of drawing a comparison between Abu Ghraib under American control and Abu Ghraib under Saddam's control....[I]t appears that the contemplation of such a comparison lowers personal standards toward the very comparison standard against which one is seeking to contrast."
_________________________________
MARKMAN, K., MIZOGUCHI, N., MCMULLEN, M. (2008). "It would have been worse under Saddam": Implications of counterfactual thinking for beliefs regarding the ethical treatment of prisoners of war. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(3), 650-654. DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2007.03.005
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- Are Prisoners Calmer When Their Cells Are Painted Pink?
On the back of research first published in 70s and 80s, an increasing number of jails in the Western world are painting their cells pink, in the belief that doing so has a calming effect on prisoners. Unfortunately, this early research was poorly designed....
- What The Textbooks Don't Tell You - One Of Psychology's Most Famous Experiments Was Seriously Flawed
Zimbardo speaking in '09Conducted in 1971, the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) has acquired a mythical status and provided the inspiration for at least two feature-length films. You'll recall that several university students allocated to the...
- Can Good People Really Turn Bad? Re-visiting The Stanford Prison Experiment
The idea that certain situations can turn good people evil has spread like wildfire ever since Philip Zimbardo's (in)famous Stanford Prison Experiment. The study ended prematurely when the "ordinary" participants acting as "guards" turned sadistic....
- Elsewhere
For when you've had enough of journal articles: A feature article on violent behaviour, and another on drugs to combat mental fatigue, both open-access in the latest issue of Scientific American Mind. Read the winning entries in the National Amazing...
- The Cognitive Dissonance Of Zealous Republicans
In a remarkable preliminary study presented at the 2009 Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping, scientists at Emory University reported that Republicans were less disgusted by images of torture and human rights violations -- i.e., the infamous...