Euphemistic labeling is one of the most effective psychological mechanisms form moral disengagement (Barbaranelli et al.,1996). Euphemistic labeling is when a harmful activity is masked as harmless by the use of less harsh language than what would describe the activity. This is widely used to make harmful conduct respectable and to reduce personal responsibility for it (Bandura, 1999). One example of how the Nazis used euphemistic labeling is in the naming and public description of concentration camps. The purpose of these camps was to collect the Jews, and other minorities, and perform horrific medical tests and executions. The German public’s knowledge of these camps was limited and knowledge of what was happening inside these camps was even more limited. Instead of calling them death camps they were called concertation camps, inferring that these minorities groups were merely being put in these camps away from the public.
Advantageous comparison is the other most effective psychological mechanism through which moral disengagement occurs (Barbaranelli et al.,1996). Advantageous comparison is when an immoral act is contrasted to a more heinous act causing that less immoral act to seem not so bad. By exploiting the contrast principle, reprehensible acts can be made righteous (Bandura, 1999). Nazi officials and higher-ranking Nazi officers used this tactic to convince the German public to hand them political power and to look good in the public’s eyes. The public turned the other way to the obvious demoralizing actions towards the minority groups such as the Jews because they viewed these minority groups as being responsible for Germany’s loss of World War 1 and economic downfall.
Another mechanism of moral disengagement is the displacement of responsibility. The displacement of responsibility for immoral acts works by taking the take of one’s actions and placing it on their superiors. Nazi prison commandants and their staffs divested themselves of personal responsibility for their unprecedented inhumanities (Andrus, 1969). They claimed they were simply carrying out orders (Kelman & Hamilton, 1989). The Nazi soldiers who sent the minority groups to concentration camps and who performed the medical experiments and execution were able to displace the responsibility of these peoples’ deaths because their commanders told them to and they were just following their orders. Normally these people would not want to participate in the execution of a mass amount of people, but because of the moral disengagement they had they were able to without most of the weight on them.
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The diffusion of responsibility, much like the displacement of responsibility, works by removing part of the responsibility of an immoral action. Many large-scale immoral actions involve many people performing small parts of the whole. By breaking down an action into smaller divisions that seem harmless by themselves, the responsibility of an action is diffused across all the individuals involved and the overall effect is obscured (Bandura, 1999). Most Nazi soldiers or officials were not involved in the Holocaust as a whole but rather only small parts. Many Nazi soldiers, after discovering the truth about the concentration camps were horrified at what they had done. Another implementation of the diffusion of responsibility comes in responsibility being spread knowingly across a group. People act more cruelly under group responsibility than when they hold themselves personally accountable for their actions (Bandura, 1999).
Disregarding consequences is yet another way of morally disengaging from a situation. This can involve discrediting the victim or flat out not caring about the consequences. When people pursue activities that are harmful to others for reasons of personal gain or social pressure, they avoid facing the harm they cause or minimize it. If minimization does not work, the evidence of harm can be discredited (Bandura, 1999). The Nazis most likely performed heinous acts towards these minatory groups despite not wanting to for rewards such as metals or promotions. In this process, people view themselves as faultless victims driven to injurious conduct by forcible provocation (Bandura, 1999). While this may not be the most effective way of morally disengaging from atrocities, there is one more mechanism that works very well.
Dehumanization is the last way that the Nazis morally disengaged from the Holocaust. By attributing demonic or bestial qualities to a group of people it become easier to brutalize them because they are viewed as low animal forms (Bandura, 1999). From (Bandura et al., 1975), in one of the experiments performed, dehumanized performers were treated more than twice as punitively as those invested with human qualities and considerably more severely than the neutral group. This means the dehumanization of these minority groups lead to considerably more severe treatment from the Nazis as they were viewed as inferior to the Arian race. Primo Levi (1987) reports an incident in which a Nazi camp commandant was asked why they went to such extreme lengths to degrade their victims, whom they were going to kill anyway. The commandant chillingly explained that it was not a matter of purposeless cruelty. Rather, the victims had to be degraded to the level of subhuman objects so that those who operated the gas chambers would be less burdened by distress.
