The Psychology of Evil: Case Studies of Evil Individuals

This essay delves into the complex psychology of evil, exploring whether individuals are born evil, made evil, or a combination of both. It defines evil as behavior causing harm and examines the characteristics of individuals unable to empathize. The essay analyzes the lives of Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Osama bin Laden as case studies, discussing their backgrounds, actions, and the factors that contributed to their evil deeds. It explores the role of environment, mental illness, and personal experiences in shaping their behavior. The essay argues that while some individuals may be predisposed to evil, environmental factors and personal struggles play a significant role in their development. It highlights the importance of understanding the psychology of evil to prevent future atrocities.

The Psychology of
Evil

Psychology is considered as a science of behaviour and mind set of an individual which
involves conscious, unconscious phenomena as well as feeling and thoughts. Psychology is a
broad concept that encompasses the study of human thought, behaviour, development,
personality, emotion, motivation etc. The personality of an individual reflect from their
behaviour. Humans can analysed as a combination of good and bad qualities (Miller, 2016).
‘Evil’ people are those who are unable to empathise with others. Thus for evil people, their own
needs and desired are the most important element as they are majorly concern on fulfilling their
own desires and needs. Some people are born evil, made evil and combination of both. In this
particular essay the evil nature of people and their background are discussed. The major purpose
of this essay is to providing different arguments about whether people are born evil, made evil or
a bit of both through quoting examples of evils deeds of individuals.
Evil is define as a powerful force which some people believe to exist and that causes
wicked and bad things to happen. However evil can also be described as to anything which cause
harm, with or without the moral dimension. Evil consisting as an intentionally behaviour of an
individual, in a way in which harm, abuse, demean, dehumanize, or destroy innocent of others,
or using one’s authority and systemic power to encourage or permit others to do so on your
behalf. In short, it is ‘knowing better but doing worse'. Natural evil is considered as an evil for
which not any non-divine agent can be held morally responsible for its presence. On the
contrary, moral evil is presented by the human activity. The existence of natural evil issues belief
in the Omni-benevolence or the omnipotence of deities and the availability of deities involving
god. This applies to different dictators such as Stalin and Hitler and other serial killers and
rapists. This report would argue that their potential characteristics is an inability to empathise
with others and treat them in appropriate manner (Zimbardo, 2011). They are not even able to
understand or sense other people’s emotions or their suffering and also cannot see the world
through other people’s perspective and so have no sense of their rights and norms. They consider
other people as an object to fulfil their own perspective and desires.
Many evil people have sacrificed many human lives for the purpose of achieving their
own ambitions and goals. The best suitable example to understand the evil deeds would be of
Joseph Stalin, a dictator, evillest dictator ever. Joseph Stalin is the former dictator of Soviet
Union and was famous for his brutal leadership. He had murdered the lives of millions of people
to attain his own purpose or agenda which is his Great Terror campaign, that cost a great deal of
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lives. The Great Terror was the capably named in the duration when Stalin was effectively
liquidated all traces opposition to his rule or regulation. Large number of purges controlled the
country and targeting all level of society involving children. Stalin answered that the parents
were more significant to confess to trumped-up charges subversion and disloyalty if they knew
their children lives were at major risk or conflicts (Jurkiewicz, 2015). In this situation, Stalin did
not show any kind for mercy for his opposition, even for children. Stalin took various extreme
actions to remain in power, which effect in millions of deaths occurred when Stalin was engaged
in the Five-Year Plans that deeply changed the USSR's economy and social components. Joseph
Stalin was famous political figure who was concern on utilise his power to terrorized others and
expand his own political, military and ideological agendas. As per the opinion of Ruwan M
Jayatunge (2014), Joseph Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his
death in 1953 ruled the country as an iron fist.
Joseph Stalin was born on 21 December 1879 to a cobbler Vissarion Djugashvili and
wife Catherine. His father was died when he was 11 years old. In his hard childhood, he was not
helped by two of his toes growing together and smallpox scars on his face. He was exiled twice
to Siberia in the year of 1902 and 1913 and even trains as he supported the revolutionary cause.
He got his first job in the year of 1917 and become general secretary in 1922. When he was
young, he experienced the life as bank robber, an agitator and an assassin. As per the views of
Andrew Osborn (2011), after a long road to get into power, he became a paranoid, ruthless,
unforgiving, brutal and vengeful dictator. He has made a 30-year reign of violence, terror,
destruction and murdering. He was very much cruel in nature if any individual spied on him,
disrespected him, or voted against him, was surely doomed to die as he was killed that person.
His very first plan was to develop the Soviet Union into an industrial superpower country so that
high growth can be attained. For fulfilling his purpose, he used to do unethical things like death
of people, scold them, threaten etc. he used to send people to slave labours and were forced to
work until their death. The large industrial strategy became a living hell for large number of
people. He signed the death warrants for ten and thousands of people who were not in favour of
him or voted against him.
Stalin liked those who are followed his orders. He also concerned on finding out popular
figures, an intelligent, and independent person, having potential power to influence people
against him. He used to give order to shoot the person as he can't see any one to came in power
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and take his position. Stalin once kissed a little girl in public and she had become famous or
thought that Stalin cared for her and her family, but he later killed her parents (Reicher, Haslam
and Smith, 2012). The major reason of killing the girl and her family is that he does not want any
kind of bad impression on his political career. These kind of incidents create terror among people
about Stalin. Stalin once said “One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is simply a statistic.” he
used to even kill people who were defending their country in against of Nazis. In his, ruling time,
people who were in prison for any reason were forced to fight in world war two and if they
returned, no benefits were provided to them and they would be sent back to the prison. He died
in 1953 from a stroke.
Different people has their own set of norms and culture and their behaviour represents
their personality. People’s personality and behaviour are the result of ‘hard-wired’ genetics, or
the consequence of developmental and contextual life experiences, or perhaps a bit of both. In
the case of Joseph Stalin, he was not born evil but the situations made him evil. He belongs from
an abusive, dysfunctional and poor family in Georgia (Haslam, Reicher and Platow, 2010). Stalin
faced numerous worse issues like small pox when he was young as a child, as a young child
Stalin underwent severe physical and psychological distresses that has worst influence on his
adult life. Stalin feared his alcoholic father who physically and verbally abused him and his
mother. All such issues made him evil as he lost emotions and kindness for people. He was made
evil as his poor background and struggle life made him evil.
Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 in Braunau am Inn, a town in Hungary, Austria. The
psychopathology of Adolf Hitler described that from the year of 1889 to 1944, he suffered from
the mental illness. Both during his lifetime or after his death. Adolf Hitler was Chancellor of
Germany, from 1933 to his death in 1945, became Germany’s Fuhrer. He was the Australian
Born Politician and famous leader of the Nazi Party. Hitler was the centre of Nazi Germany War
Policy, involving creating and overseeing the Holocaust. Hitler was significantly responsible for
the death of up-to 11 million people but during the world war two his political actions were
caused death of around 50 million people. As per the views of Stephen Diamond (2014), Adolf
Hitler and his Nazi party perpetrated as one of the evillest deep by analysing the World War 2
and holocaust that led to tens of hundreds of lives lost or irreparably damaged. Adolf Hitler is
often determined as a madman in part because most individuals were unwilling to accept such
enormity of evil as anything other than the by-product of psychosis.
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Hitler was known as evil because of his action as he was affected through the mental
illness. Before came into power, Hitler wanted to be an artist but he failed (Hood Jr, 2011). Then
he decided that he wanted to be a member of the German army. He put his efforts and became
solder in World War one. During the world war one he saves his self, as he was escaped and
returned back to Germany. He believed that Germany lost because they had surrendered by
enmities and this made Germany powerless. He then turned his proper attention to the Jews. He
believed that the Jews were the reason of Germany’s problems and as per his opinion Jews were
not counted as a human being. His major plans were to get rid of every Jew in Europe and
control the world. Hitler would kill any Jew, enemy, or anyone that he thought was a problem for
his political party. He used to do many kind of experiments just to killed people by, using carbon
dioxide gas etc. These experiments killed over 3,00,000 people. Hitler had a baked goods
program (Stump, 2012). Hitler himself was answerable for the deaths of more than 11 million
people (5,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses, 15,000 homosexuals, 100,000 Freemasons, 100,000 of the
mentally ill, 500,000 Gypsies, 750,000 Slavs, 3 million non-Jewish Poles, 3 million, Russians
and 6 million Jews) but his activity originated the deaths of around 50 million people. On 1945,
Hitler committed suicide by gunshot.
People had fear of Hitler as he was very cruel in nature and killed people for fulfilling his
own purpose. He was born to be evil as he was suffered by a mental issue. Hitler has often been
associated with mental disorders such as hysteria, megalomania or paranoid schizophrenia. He
was both born evil or made evil as his mental condition made him to do things like threaten
people, killed etc. as well as his opinion also made him evil as he was accused to gain power and
if any one interrupt or dishonest him he killed that person.
Usama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Ladin were born on March 10th , 1957 in Riyadh,
Saudi Arabia, a son of Yemeni Mohammad bin Awad bin Laden, a millionaire construction
magnate with close ties to the Saudi royal family and Mohammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Syrian
Hamida al-Atta’s (then called Alia Ghanem). Osama bin Laden studied business administration
at King Abdul Aziz University in Jiddah, it is likely that he also received instruction in religious
studies (Ayal and et. al., 2015). His time at the University was key to his future role as a leader
of Al-Qaeda, not only influencing his extensive views but also polished him with the skills to
market Al-Qaeda.
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After the formation of al-Qaeda, began as a logistical network to support Muslims
fighting against the Soviet war during the Afghan war; members were recruited throughout the
Islamic world. Individuals were not born terrorist neither they become in one stroke because
numerous of incidents are incurred in their life which enforce a person to get involved in terror
due to community and environment where he completed his study. However, one of the major
belief of his life is that civilians were enemy that includes women's, children and various other
member of society. He thought that Muslims are in a major crisis and threat as well as exploited
by whole community in various manner (Bilewicz and Vollhardt, 2012). Therefore, because of
all this opinion he was indulged in terrorist attacks and harming others for defending his entire
religion. If anyone can understand the reason behind person behaviour, then he/she can't judge an
individual in negative manner. Hence, the study sets the examples of distinct situations which
describes that evil is not certain in humans, this can be born or made or combine. Born evils
cannot be controlled but manipulated by providing proper environment but some people become
evil due to struggling and worse family background and experiences.
From the above given report, it has been concluded that different people has different set
of norms and their behaviour which is based on their family background which reflects their
personality. Born evil people are selfish, self-absorbed and narcissistic in nature, as other
individual only get value for them to the extent which they can provide help them to satisfy their
own needs or to which they can exploit or harm them. As Stalin was crucial in nature as he
suffered various kind of mental pressure in his life so he lost emotions and feelings in regards to
people. Adolf Hitler was called evil as he was suffered by the mental issue and he was very
much bad in nature as he killed people for his own purpose or intention.
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REFERENCES
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Bilewicz, M., & Vollhardt, J. R. (2012). Evil Transformations: Social-Psychological Processes
Underlying Genocide and Mass Killing. Social psychology of social problems: The
intergroup context. 280.
Haslam, S. A., Reicher, S. D., & Platow, M. J. (2010). The new psychology of leadership:
Identity, influence and power. Psychology Press.
Hood Jr, R. W. (2011). The Psychology of Evil. Explaining evil. 1.
Jurkiewicz, C. L. (2015). The foundations of organizational evil. Routledge.
Miller, A. G. (Ed.). (2016). The social psychology of good and evil. Guilford Publications.
Offermann, L. R., & et. al., (2014). See no evil: Color blindness and perceptions of subtle racial
discrimination in the workplace. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology.
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Reicher, S. D., Haslam, S. A., & Smith, J. R. (2012). Working toward the experimenter:
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followership. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 7(4). 315-324.
Stump, E. (2012). Providence and the Problem of Evil. In The Oxford handbook of Aquinas.
Zimbardo, P. (2011). The Lucifer effect: How good people turn evil. Random House.
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