5 psychological mechanisms that allow people to hurt others

Evil exists. There are even psychological mechanisms that allow people to hurt others. They are justifications and displacements of responsibility where there are those who even feel pleasure in causing harm to others.

There are psychological mechanisms that allow people to hurt others. They are sophisticated strategies that create evil behavior, acts that outline a brain aimed at obtaining its own benefits at the expense of hurting those close to it. Thus, and although it may seem striking and even incomprehensible to us, there are those who even feel pleasure with this type of behavior.

Perverse acts exist. Furthermore, it is often said that the more intelligent a person is, the more twisted their behavior can be when it comes to manipulating others, causing harm. Likewise, living one of these experiences firsthand after being a victim or reading about them never ceases to surprise us and, above all, worry us.

It is assumed that the human being is, above all, a social being. We understand that, as such, we should be more oriented towards cooperation, respect and harmony to ensure the well-being of the group. However, as we well know, this is not always the case. Albert Bandura, professor at Stanford University and expert in social psychology, points out something interesting.

People do not carry out evil acts just for the sake of it. The brain knows and understands when something is wrong. For this reason, and to dissuade this contradiction, it carries out a series of processes, of psychological mechanisms to justify certain acts. Evil is instrumental, since you always expect to get something in return.

“Whoever fights with monsters must be careful not to become a monster himself. When you look for a long time into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”

-Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche-

5 psychological mechanisms that allow people to hurt others

The psychological mechanisms that allow people to hurt others have been studied by authors such as Bandura or Gianluca Gini. This same study was carried out in 2016 in which a series of mental processes and strategies are detailed with which a person can justify their harmful and adverse behavior.

Read Also: 15 famous phrases by Paulo Coelho

1. Moral justification

No matter how striking it may seem to us, the evil person always has a moral justification. We can see this, for example, in jihadists. Thus, behind their violent acts there is something more than mere hatred of the Western world. There is, without a doubt, his religious and moral impulse, the need to obtain prestige in his community and the aspiration to become that mujahidin who, after losing his life, is praised by everyone.

Bandura also reminds us that at a given moment, and Beyond the education received, most of us can carry out violent acts if we find a moral justification.

2. Displacement of responsibility

Another psychological mechanism that allows people to hurt others is placing the weight of responsibility on other people’s shoulders.. “I have done this because I have been ordered to, because someone asked me to, because it is what was expected of me.” All of this is reasoning that reflects this diffusion of one’s own responsibility.

3. Dehumanization

Dehumanization is, without a doubt, one of the most fearsome psychological processes. It is that in which the person carries out a violent act because he does not see in the other a being that deserves respect. He dehumanizes whoever is in front of him, he sees them as an entity without the capacity to feel, as someone who lacks rights, a reason for being or existing.

We could see this during the Second World War with the Holocaust and it can also be seen in certain profiles of murderers or psychopaths.

Read Also: Geniuses and figures, even in their epitaphs

4. Projection of blame

“I did it because he/she deserved it. I have acted in this way because they have provoked me, because they have threatened me, because I could not stand their behavior any longer…” These situations make up one of the most common psychological mechanisms that allow people to hurt others.

It’s more, In the words of Francesc Torralba, doctor in Philosophy at the University of Barcelona, evil is almost always reactive. That is, when a person understands that they have been offended, bothered or attacked, they defend themselves. Whether we believe it or not, evil acts always have a reason behind them, although that motivating stimulus is very difficult for us to understand.

5. Distortion of consequences

Distortion of consequences shapes that behavior in which someone minimizes the effects of what happened. He distorts them in such a way that in his mind everything is justified. Meanwhile, the other person suffers the effect of that insult, that attack, that mistreatment…

To conclude, as we can see, the psychological mechanisms that allow people to hurt others are based on very sophisticated cognitive processes. It is true that in many cases there is a pathological component behind it. which is summarized in a disorder or the effect of a specific education. However, there are people whose behavior does not always respond to these factors.

Evil is real and has many faces. Let’s learn to detect them and, above all, as Nietzsche would say, not to become other monsters ourselves.