The Psychology of Good and Evil: Why Children, Adults, and Groups Help and Harm Others

by Ervin Staub

This book explores the roots of goodness and evil by gathering together the knowledge gained in a lifelong study of harmful or altruistic behavior. Ervin Staub has studied what leads children and adults to help others in need and how caring, helping, and altruism develop in children; bullying and youth violence and their prevention; the roots of genocide, mass killing, and other harmful behavior between groups of people; the prevention of violence; healing victimized groups and reconciliation between groups. He presents a broad panorama of the roots of violence and caring and how we create societies and a world that is caring, peaceful, and harmonious.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction

612 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Dr. Ervin Staub is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Fellow of both the American Psychological Society and the American Psychological Association, where he served as President of the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict and Violence. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1965, after which he taught at Harvard University until 1973. Since then, he has published and edited numerous books and articles focusing on morality, pro-social behavior, genocide, peace and violence. His book, The Roots of Evil , inspired a three part television series of the same name shown on BBC television in England, and the Discovery Channel in the US. He credits his assisted escape from the Nazis in his native Hungary at the age of 6 with having "inspired me to dedicate my life to figuring out how to get people to respond to those who need help."

Reviews

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an uneven book -- perhaps it tries to cover too much territory. The parts that seemed strongest covered the ugly human tendency to adopt an "us vs. them" mentality and depersonalize people who are considered outside our own group. As bystanders, we may look the other way when others in our group mistreat others. Prof. Staub was born in Hungary and later emigrated to the United States. He is a child survivor of the Holocaust; he and his nuclear family survived the Nazi era in large part because of the efforts of non-Jewish friends who aided his family. Prob. Staub has devoted his professional life to the study of why people and groups choose to help and harm each other. Given certain conditions, groups of people become more and more violent toward others and try to exterminate people in other groups. Prof. Staub vividly and powerfully describes how and why this may occur, and also how some members of a group may defy peer pressure and help people outside the group who are being victimized. He makes the point that children should be taught actively to help others and to try to see other points of view.

In contrast to the above points, Prof. Staub seems to delve into too much miscellaneous material that would be better covered in a separate book. The details of psychological experiments in which the helpful and non-helpful behavior of bystanders was studied are described in a little too much detail. This level of detail is better presented in specialized psychology journals. Also, I was a little bothered by the idea of "emergencies" staged in order to study the behavior of bystanders. It seems a little unethical to involve bystanders who have not consented to be experimental subjects.

I would also have preferred that analysis of current U.S. political events had been omitted. I agree that some of U.S. foreign policy has been very misguided, but many of these events are still evolving and are too close at hand to view clearly under a microscope. Several sections reprinted from other sources, such as an intervention following the Rodney King incident, could also have been omitted. My overall opinion of this book is mixed -- it starts out very strong and then seems to wander around all over the place.

[Ledia · Rating 4 out of 5]

amazing book....it takes you to the psychology of human being, why some are takers and others are leavers, why some love and some hate....