1 Running head: REVIEW PAPER Alisebeth Nelson Argosy University Twin Cities Advanced General Psychology PSY492 Review Paper – Draft of Literature Findings M2A3 June 2016 Abstract This paper discusses the similarities, differences, and content of 10 articles and other resources the report and discuss the findings of research that has been done on the Psychology of Evil. The idea of a person being completely “evil” is still a new idea in psychology and all of the main research on this has been done within the past 70 years, so as of right now there is now hard proof that someone can really truly be “evil.” Most of the research done has been done based on the idea of an authority figure being the main reason why someone may do an evil task, not one on single person doing an evil thing on their own recognizance. This paper focuses on experiments performed by Milgram and Zimbardo and their findings, but also includes discussions from other sources. The Psychology of Evil There have been many discussions based on the research done to prove that humans can be and are instinctively evil beings. However, most of the research that has been presented to us has been performed with some type of authority that wills the participants to perform the “evil” acts. Becker states in his article “little effort has been made in psychology and psychiatry to study pathologies that afflict, not the aberrant neurotic or psychotic individual or social group, but the greater population of the psychologically normal” (2008). I would have to say that based on my schooling and the personal research that I have done that I would agree with this statement. All too often, any research performed to test the psychology behind good and evil only includes what we would call a “normal” individual; someone who has no type of psychotic diagnosis. Now if these experiments were tested on individual who was diagnosed with Antisocial or Borderline Personality Disorder, would the outcomes have been different? Becker states in this article that he believes that to be so. In this article he mainly focuses on Nazi leaders during the holocaust. Chirico writes an article that is 22 chapters long that is divided in 5 sections to study this concept: “Basic issues and Controversies,” “Motivation and Cognitive Processes,” “Developmental, Personality and Clinical Aspects,” “Good and Evil,” and “Synthesis” (2011). Chirico starts his analysis with the main question that so many of us ask; “Why is there evil?” Chirico studies focus mainly on whether or not evil is a normal human condition or simply a side effect of mental illness. He also looks into the schemas of cognitions and morality. Kadar’s article discusses a very interesting theory that the central goal of ecological psychology is for humans to create coping mechanisms to deal with everyday tasks, and sometime that these coping mechanisms can include evil behaviors. He states that sometimes an evil act ...

1. 1
Running head: REVIEW PAPER
Alisebeth Nelson
Argosy University Twin Cities
Advanced General Psychology
PSY492
Review Paper – Draft of Literature Findings
M2A3
June 2016

2. Abstract
This paper discusses the similarities, differences, and content of
10 articles and other resources the report and discuss the
findings of research that has been done on the Psychology of
Evil. The idea of a person being completely “evil” is still a new
idea in psychology and all of the main research on this has been
done within the past 70 years, so as of right now there is now
hard proof that someone can really truly be “evil.” Most of the
research done has been done based on the idea of an authority
figure being the main reason why someone may do an evil task,
not one on single person doing an evil thing on their own
recognizance. This paper focuses on experiments performed by
Milgram and Zimbardo and their findings, but also includes
discussions from other sources.
The Psychology of Evil
There have been many discussions based on the research
done to prove that humans can be and are instinctively evil
beings. However, most of the research that has been presented
to us has been performed with some type of authority that wills
the participants to perform the “evil” acts. Becker states in his
article “little effort has been made in psychology and psychiatry
to study pathologies that afflict, not the aberrant neurotic or
psychotic individual or social group, but the greater population
of the psychologically normal” (2008). I would have to say that

3. based on my schooling and the personal research that I have
done that I would agree with this statement. All too often, any
research performed to test the psychology behind good and evil
only includes what we would call a “normal” individual;
someone who has no type of psychotic diagnosis. Now if these
experiments were tested on individual who was diagnosed with
Antisocial or Borderline Personality Disorder, would the
outcomes have been different? Becker states in this article that
he believes that to be so. In this article he mainly focuses on
Nazi leaders during the holocaust.
Chirico writes an article that is 22 chapters long that is
divided in 5 sections to study this concept: “Basic issues and
Controversies,” “Motivation and Cognitive Processes,”
“Developmental, Personality and Clinical Aspects,” “Good and
Evil,” and “Synthesis” (2011). Chirico starts his analysis with
the main question that so many of us ask; “Why is there evil?”
Chirico studies focus mainly on whether or not evil is a normal
human condition or simply a side effect of mental illness. He
also looks into the schemas of cognitions and morality.
Kadar’s article discusses a very interesting theory that the
central goal of ecological psychology is for humans to create
coping mechanisms to deal with everyday tasks, and sometime
that these coping mechanisms can include evil behaviors. He
states that sometimes an evil act is not necessarily deeply
rooted in evil or abnormal behavior but simply used as a means
to an end (2006). My main internal thought I had while
researching this article was that this could be used as an
explanation for those with Personality Disorders or Sociopathic
tendencies. Their general lack of empathy for others could
explain their sometimes evil acts. It is not necessarily that they
want to do evil things, but primarily that they just don’t care as
long it is helps them in the long run.
Javaid approaches the concept of evil from a sociological
perspective. He states that an evil act is fluid and changes from
society to society, group to group, and sometimes even person
to person. For example, some remote tribes in third world

4. countries still believe in animal and sometimes human sacrifice.
Here in America that would be considered murder or inhumane
treatment of an animal, but does that make it evil? Javaid
believes that the concept of evil is all about your perspective on
the subject.
De Vos’s article goes over evidence of both Milgram’s
experiment and The Stanford Prison Experiment. He states that
both of these experiments launched a new age of psychology,
experiments, and the understanding of human behaviors. He
goes on to say that these experiments can be looked at as “twin
experiments.” He explains this by saying that Milgram’s
paradigm of a psychology which explicitly draws its subject
into the frame of it’s own discourse can be said to be the
precondition of Zimbardo’s claim that his experiment offers a
window onto the crucible of human behavior (De Vos, 2010).
De Vos later relates both experiments to how prisoners are
treated in places such as Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and that
psychology is fundamentally based on a process of
psychologization that turns its subjects into homo sacer of
psychological discourse.
I found Himma’s article and argument to be extremely
interesting. I myself was raised in a Catholic household and was
taught from a young age that there is no real thing as mental
illness and that everything good and bad in this world is based
on the free will we were given by God. I liked the idea of
throwing this article in to get a completely different perspective
on the science behind good and evil, or in this case the lack of
science behind it. Himma uses the Free-Will Argument (FWA);
the existence of free beings in the world who as a whole do
more good than evil. The argument here is that a great moral
good cannot be achieved without some kind of evil to relate it
to, therefore, some type of evil has to exist to give us a frame of
reference (Himma, 2010). The main weakness I found in this
article was the lack of sociological and psychological backup
for some of the evidence. Although most of the research he
presents is from studying Christian views and religious leaders,

5. which most would argue that has a complete lack of scientific
evidence behind it anyway.
Deavel studies philosophers for the notion of evil for this
article and states that the idea of good and evil are relational
and are a necessary element for the greater good and that to
truly understand the idea of good an evil, one must reject the
idea of an omnipotent God or admit that an omnipotent God can
be responsible for the evil in the world. The main argument of
the article is that philosophy does not account for the idea that
evil is a negation and that there lacks a distinction between
moral and physical evil.
Discussion
I found a lot of good information with many good
arguments and great research, but the main weakness I found in
most of the articles is that although there was a lot of scientific
research presented, most of the research in interpretation was

6. opinion based. Although I am finding throughout my studies
that a lot of psychological based studies are theory and opinion
based. Albeit that the majority of the arguments I found were
based on opinion, one of the main strengths I found and enjoyed
was that they were all very strong arguments. I found myself
reading one article and nodding and agreeing with what the
author was stating and then reading the next article with a
different point of view and then nodding and agreeing with that
one while reading it.
Although the articles all presented a different kind of
evidence supporting their claim they were all easy to read and
switch back and forth too. It was almost like reading a
transcript of a debate. Almost every article that I found
presented a different form of research, a different opinion and
different findings. So in a way, yes the articles did speak to
each other, but in an even greater way they did not.
So far the evidence for this topic tells us that yes indeed
there is good and evil in the world but as far as having one
conclusive answer as to why; there isn’t one. My personal belief
is that any one single person is capable of evil, whether there be
a mental illness or not, it is the situation that drives us to
perform an act of evil. Someone otherwise incapable of murder
may take the life of another if meant saving a loved one. While
on the other end of the spectrum you have someone like Jeffrey
Dahmer, who was mentally ill and committed murder because it
pleased him to do so. So I guess in a way you could say that I
agree with the argument that evil is relative to the individual
and the society.
I think it would be difficult to refine my research topic
down even further because the science and the psychology of
evil is still a relatively new subject of discussion in the world of
psychology and will be a subject of debate for many years to
come.

7. References
Bartlett, S. J. (2008). THE HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY OF
HUMAN EVIL: ERNEST BECKER AND ARTHUR
KOESTLER. The Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 48(3), 340.
Retrieved from
https://login.libproxy.edmc.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest
.com/docview/222471962?accountid=34899
Chirico, D. (2012, April 01). The Social psychology of
morality: Exploring the causes of good and evil. Choice
Reviews Online,49(08), 1539. doi:10.5860/choice.49-4763
Deavel, C. J. (2007). Relational evil, relational good: Thomas
aquinas and process thought. International Philosophical
Quarterly, 47(3), 297. Retrieved from
https://login.libproxy.edmc.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest
.com/docview/216007222?accountid=34899
De Vos, J. (2010). From milgram to zimbardo: The double birth
of postwar psychology/ psychologization. History of the Human
Sciences, 23(5), 156. Retrieved from
https://login.libproxy.edmc.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest
.com/docview/819727822?accountid=34899
HIMMA, K. E. (2010). Plantinga's version of the free-will
argument: The good and evil that free beings do. Religious

8. Studies, 46(1), 21-39.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0034412509990230
Javaid, A. (2015). The sociology and social science of 'evil': Is
the conception of pedophilia 'evil'? Philosophical Papers and
Review, 6(1), 1-9. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.5897/PPR2014.0112
Kadar, E. E., & Effken, J. A. (2006). Beyond good and evil:
Prelude to a science of the future. Ecological
Psychology, 18(4), 319-363.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15326969eco1804_5
Shermer, M. (2006). The science of good and evil: Why people
cheat, gossip, care, share, and follow the golden rule. College
Quarterly, 9(3), 175. Retrieved from
https://login.libproxy.edmc.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest
.com/docview/229297750?accountid=34899