Product Details
The Social Psychology of Good and Evil

The Social Psychology of Good and Evil
From The Guilford Press

List Price: $42.00
Price: $31.91 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com

24 new or used available from $24.86

Average customer review:

Product Description

This compelling work brings together an array of distinguished scholars to explore key concepts, theories, and findings pertaining to some of the most fundamental issues in social life: the conditions under which people are kind and helpful to others or, conversely, under which they commit harmful, even murderous, acts. Covered are such topics as the complex interaction of individual, societal, and situational factors underpinning good or evil behavior; the role of guilt and the self-concept; and issues of responsibility and motivation, including why good people do bad things. The volume also examines whether aggression and violence are inescapable aspects of human nature, and how cooperative interaction can break down stereotyping and discrimination.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #229611 in Books
  • Published on: 2005-04-06
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 498 pages

Editorial Reviews

Review
"This volume tackles one of the most profound issues of human life--why people engage both in behavior that is extraordinarily harmful to others and behavior that is extraordinarily beneficial. Chapters shed light on this issue from a wide range of perspectives, resulting in an extremely thought-provoking work. A useful text for advanced undergraduate- or graduate-level students, the book might even inspire social psychologists to organize new seminars around this topic."--Alice H. Eagly, PhD, Department of Psychology, Northwestern University

"Why do people sometimes engage in unimaginable brutality? Why at other times do they go out of their way to provide crucial assistance to others--even at great cost to themselves? And what could be more important questions for social scientists to address? The essays in this book will not definitively resolve these issues, but they will certainly change the way you think about them. I don't know of any better review of research on the nature of good and evil--in fact, it's hard to imagine one."--Leonard S. Newman, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago

"Miller brings together an all-star team of social psychologists to explore the roots of integrity, empathy, and self-sacrificial altruism--and of hate, terrorism, and self-gratifying greed. This state-of-the-art volume is a feast of humanly significant scholarship, and a guidebook for our time."--David G. Myers, Department of Psychology, Hope College
-- Review

Review

"Miller has produced a masterful volume featuring uniformly excellent chapters. Coverage includes conceptual issues, contexts and causes of harm, and the role of the self-concept, as well as a very welcome section on the possibilities of kindness. From distinguished social psychologists, many of the chapters are destined to become classics. Necessary reading for anyone concerned with good and evil."--Ralph W. Hood, Jr., PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga

"This volume tackles one of the most profound issues of human life--why people engage both in behavior that is extraordinarily harmful to others and behavior that is extraordinarily beneficial. Chapters shed light on this issue from a wide range of perspectives, resulting in an extremely thought-provoking work. A useful text for advanced undergraduate- or graduate-level students, the book might even inspire social psychologists to organize new seminars around this topic."--Alice H. Eagly, PhD, Department of Psychology, Northwestern University

"Why do people sometimes engage in unimaginable brutality? Why at other times do they go out of their way to provide crucial assistance to others--even at great cost to themselves? And what could be more important questions for social scientists to address? The essays in this book will not definitively resolve these issues, but they will certainly change the way you think about them. I don't know of any better review of research on the nature of good and evil--in fact, it's hard to imagine one."--Leonard S. Newman, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago

"Miller brings together an all-star team of social psychologists to explore the roots of integrity, empathy, and self-sacrificial altruism--and of hate, terrorism, and self-gratifying greed. This state-of-the-art volume is a feast of humanly significant scholarship, and a guidebook for our time."--David G. Myers, PhD, Department of Psychology, Hope College

“This remarkable resource was published just in time for my students’ use in 'Evil: Concepts and Realities.' Examining humanity's greatest mysteries from the viewpoint of the best minds in contemporary social psychology had a powerful impact on my students.”--Mark A. Hurst, PhD, The Evergreen State College


"Miller has corralled a refreshing mix of social psychological voices to examine the nature of kindness and cruelty. A classical social psychological emphasis on situational influences forms a common thread that blends standard approaches, theories, and findings with less expected, but welcome, contributions. This eighteen-chapter volume offers a bit of something for everyone. Graduate students and advanced undergraduates will find helpful literature reviews and discussions of conceptual approaches. Instructors will find several essays that are especially accessible to students. Those teaching interdisciplinary courses on the topic of good and/or evil will find a broad representation of social psychological perspectives. For seasoned scholars conducting research on good and evil, this book offers some new empirical evidence, but perhaps more valuable still are the unexpected insights generated by relating classic topics to the theme of good and evil. "--Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology

"The editor and contributors--all prominent researchers and theorists--clearly enjoyed crafting these chapters, which mix theory and empirical findings with critical, often personal, reflections on their topics. Their passion for the work makes the book extremely engaging, even when the topics are disturbing or disquieting....Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through researchers and faculty."--Choice

"A fine book, rich in scholarship and argument, rarely tendentious and often stimulating, clear and perceptive. It is to be recommended to scholars and the interested reader alike. It is timely and welcome."--Metapsychology

"An accomplished text that makes an important contribution to social psychology. In nursing, the book will be useful for those studying abuse and for lecturers working in nursing ethics."--Nursing Standard

"This excellent anthology can be recommended to a wide variety of audiences....Anyone who is interested in the social psychological literature on these topics could not find a better compilation of contemporary conceptions regarding these concerns....This is an excellent compilation of the most recent research by some of the more distinguished experts illuminating genuinely important social psychological questions."--The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease

"Includes chapters from renowned researchers and will be widely read by followers of experimental social psychology....A useful resource."--British Journal of Sociology

About the Author

Arthur G. Miller, PhD, is Professor of Psychology at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He received his doctorate in social psychology from Indiana University in 1967 and spent 1979/n-/1980 at Princeton University on a National Institute of Mental Health fellowship, studying with Ned Jones. Dr. Miller’s professional affiliations include the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. He is the editor of [i]In the Eye of the Beholder: Contemporary Issues in Stereotyping[/i] and the author of [i]The Obedience Experiments: A Case Study of Controversy in Social Science[/i]. Dr. Miller’s primary teaching and research interests include stereotyping and stigma, biases in attribution and social judgment, and judgmental reactions to diverse explanations of evil and violence.

Customer Reviews

One of the most important books books on morality you'll ever read5
I'll keep my comments brief because the editorial reviews on this book describe its basic essence. What I want to bring to the reader's attention is this: today there is much debate concerning the role that religion plays in developing moral behavior. This book shows how limited that role may actually be by demonstrating the biological and social forces that shape many of our ethical beliefs.

This book is so rich in information (many of the chapters can be easily read by the general public, but a few require some background in academic research)that I used it as the standard reference when writing a chapter on morality for the books Why We Believe What We Believe: Uncovering Our Biological Need for Meaning, Spirituality, and Truthand Born to Believe: God, Science, and the Origin of Ordinary and Extraordinary Beliefs, which I coauthored with Andrew Newberg.

This book demonstrates that human nature is equally driven to be both selfish and altruistic, hostile yet compassionate, and I came away from it with a very disturbing sense that we are far more amoral than we'd like to believe.

This book, however, is optimistic, and many chapters show how we can overcome personal and social biases and thus function more compassionately in the world. For example, several chapters refer to techniques that can be used in elementary school to teach children how to recognize and change discriminatory behavior.

Personally, the most disturbing chapter was written by Zimbardo, who conducted the Stanford "prison" experiment in the 1970s. In less than 24 hours, students automatically started to mistreat their student "inmates" in ways that hauntingly reflect the atrocities commited in Iraqi prisons by American soldiers. To some degree, we all little criminals, and once we acknowledge this unpleasant human trait, we can become better citizens, which is one of the goals that religious groups endeavor to achieve.