By James Mwala (Participant from Tanzania)
This day was dedicated to the topic of Good Governance and Development and we had Dr. Judith Baessler from GIZ Civil Peace Service came in to handle the subject of “Understanding Violence” She kicked off by asking us “What makes nice people become murderers?” and in group work we came up with various answers that included; life challenges such as poverty, duress, ignorance, human nature, culture/socialization, rewards, inequalities in society, self defense, bad leadership/governance, need to belong/peer pressure, paranoia among others.
We looked at Gil Courtemanche quotation which stated “Each of us carries within ourselves all good and bad that humanity is capable” Through this, we were able to understand how masses of good people can be influenced to commit unimaginable atrocities.
Dr. Judith introduced us to Milgram’s Obedience Study which was a major psychological landslide in trying to define human nature. “There is something in human nature that makes us do things…” Milgram noted that once people are put into situation, they tend to act differently. “The social psychology of this century reveals a major lesson: often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act” Stanley Milgram noted.
In Milgram’s experiment, the voice that commanded the participants was of authority and promised the participants that he would take responsibility for what they did. This gave them confidence to ahead with what they were planning to do.
Dr. Judith further explained the “Foot in the door” effect whereby in trying to get someone’s consent, one begins by obtaining a smaller “yes”. This is basically to establish interest after which it is easier to gain consent. “People tend to comply more readily with a large request if they have already agreed with a smaller favour”
“Obedience is one crucial thing that makes people do things” We went ahead to discuss whether obedience was a good thing or a bad thing and Dr. Judith noted that blind obedience has a risk connected to it. “You do what I tell you to do because I have authority over you and you do not question…”
We also looked at the Stanford Prison Experiment by Dr. Phillip Zambardi who randomly got two groups of people and gave them different role; being prisoner and being prison guards. The guards wore silver sunglasses and uniforms as a sign of power while the prisoner were chained and locked up to remind them of their loss of freedom. The experiment was meant to last 14 days but within the first few days, conditions quickly detoriated. “The guards knew the prisoners had done nothing wrong but because of the environment, they believed that they had done something wrong…” After only 6 days, the experiment was shut down. The experiment showed how power changes people. “When we gain power, our personality tends to change” and “Roles we play in life influence our character” “The more the power, the more likelihood of abuse”
Finally Dr. Judith introduced us to the “Just world hypothesis” by Melvin Lerner (1965) which stated that people have a deep seated need to protect a belief that the world in general I a fair, safe and predicable place” People do not suffer underserved misfortunes and good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. People deserve what happens to them. Dr. Judith said that “We still have to believe it anyway despite knowing its wrong because if we do not, we lose our optimism”
In the afternoon, we drove to Rwanda Governance Board (RGB) where we discussed how economic growth can support democratic participation. Through RGB, the government of Rwanda has been able to check itself on various development indicators and set goals for the country’s development.
Quite a long and informative day!
NAR Peace Building Institute 