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Preventing the next Abu Gharib

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Date Issued:
2010
Summary:
The cruelty of Military Police guards at Abu Ghraib prison contributed to American shame and questions regarding how such cruelty emerges. The accepted approach of "situational attribution theory" - based upon Zimbardo's (1973, 2007) social psychological perceptions and results of the Stanford Prison Experiment - proposed that personality or "disposition" has little role in the emergence of such cruelty. Termed "institutional cruelty," this manuscript presents the possibility that understandings and preventive measures afforded by situational attribution theory can be extended via acknowledgement of a greater role played by disposition. Psychoanalytic and object relations approaches are presented to this end. The manuscript addresses the most puzzling characteristics of institutional cruelty: 1) rapidity of onset, taking days or, at most, weeks for initial expression, 2) emergence in ordinary, normal individuals, and 3) emergence in the "mock" situation of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Criminological, organizational culture, and social psychological theories are explored for their application to institutional cruelty.
Title: Preventing the next Abu Gharib: understanding institutional cruelty from the perspective of object relations theory.
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Name(s): Hofacker, Paul.
College for Design and Social Inquiry
School of Criminology and Criminal Justice
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Issuance: monographic
Date Issued: 2010
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Physical Form: electronic
Extent: xii, 304 p.
Language(s): English
Summary: The cruelty of Military Police guards at Abu Ghraib prison contributed to American shame and questions regarding how such cruelty emerges. The accepted approach of "situational attribution theory" - based upon Zimbardo's (1973, 2007) social psychological perceptions and results of the Stanford Prison Experiment - proposed that personality or "disposition" has little role in the emergence of such cruelty. Termed "institutional cruelty," this manuscript presents the possibility that understandings and preventive measures afforded by situational attribution theory can be extended via acknowledgement of a greater role played by disposition. Psychoanalytic and object relations approaches are presented to this end. The manuscript addresses the most puzzling characteristics of institutional cruelty: 1) rapidity of onset, taking days or, at most, weeks for initial expression, 2) emergence in ordinary, normal individuals, and 3) emergence in the "mock" situation of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Criminological, organizational culture, and social psychological theories are explored for their application to institutional cruelty.
Identifier: 624787437 (oclc), 2100581 (digitool), FADT2100581 (IID), fau:3400 (fedora)
Note(s): by Paul Hofacker.
Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010.
Includes bibliography and footnotes.
Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Subject(s): Abu Gharib Prison.
Prisoners of war -- Abuse of -- Prevention
Iraq War, 2003- -- Prisoners and prisons, American
War on Terrorism, 2001- -- Moral and ethical aspects
Object relations (Psychoanalysis)
Good and evil -- Psychological aspects
Held by: FBoU FAUER
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/2100581
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Host Institution: FAU