Social Trauma: A Socio-Psychological Perspective

In this chapter, we develop a socio-psychological perspective on collective violence. We focus on theoretical approaches and empirical studies that aim for explaining why and how ordinary people engage in deeds of mass atrocities. Social psychology offers two different perspectives for an understanding of perpetrator action in the sense of social trauma: The first emphasizes the power of the situation and of the group action that unfolds in it, pointing out that anyone can become a perpetrator if the situation allows it. The other perspective focuses on the formation and impact of often deeply rooted prejudices, resentments and hate-occupied stereotypes, which are historically, culturally, socially and politically very specific and have an impact far beyond the situation and motivate and drive violent action. We refer to the well-studied case example of the genocidal deeds of the German police battalion 101 in the context of the Shoah as a key paradigm of social trauma and discuss strengths and weaknesses of both research perspectives.