Dehumanization Results in Atrocities

Dehumanization Results in Atrocities

This study attempts to explain how dehumanization is the main factor in the acceptance of atrocities towards stigmatized groups in American society today, by implementing Daniel Goldhagen’s Theory in our research design. The premise of Daniel Goldhagen’s theory is about the dehumanization of Jewish people during the Holocaust in which ordinary Germans became Hitler’s aids. This study will measure the acceptance of atrocities towards African Americans and Arabs from the undergraduate student body at Nova Southeastern University. Based on Stanley Milgram’s famous obedience study, this study will use a video reenactment in combination with a follow-up questionnaire to measure the participants’ acceptance of atrocities. In the video that will be watched, the two experimental and one control group differ only in the sense that the learner’s race changed; actions are the same for experimenter, teacher, and learner. This study hopes to raise awareness on the ceaseless issue of dehumanization as the basis for atrocities against various ethnic groups in American society today.