Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Here's a new psychological study that shows why those who participate in torture will nearly always defend torture as legitimate by dehumanizing the person being tortured.
"Our research suggests that torture may not uncover guilt so much as lead to its perception," says Gray. "It is as though people who know of the victim's pain must somehow convince themselves that it was a good idea -- and so come to believe that the person who was tortured deserved it."
Here's the really interesting part of the study:
Not all torture victims appear guilty, however. When participants in the study only listened to a recording of a previous torture session -- rather than taking part as witnesses of ongoing torture -- they saw the victim who expressed more pain as less guilty. Gray explains the different results as arising from different levels of complicity."Those who feel complicit with the torture have a need to justify the torture, and so link the victim's pain to blame," says Gray. "On the other hand, those distant from torture have no need to justify it and so can sympathize with the suffering of the victim, linking pain to innocence."
Which means that those who participated in or ordered torture are pretty much the last people we can trust to evaluate its effectiveness.
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True as far as it goes. But as you point out, torture also creates a perception of innocence in those disconnected from it. So people who didn't participate in or ordered torture are also biased. All we can really say about judging the effectiveness of torture is that it can't be done on an emotional basis.
However the study does mean the torturers are undermining their own authority by creating a perception of innocence for the people they're hurting.
Disclaimer: I haven’t read the study yet. This is just based on Ed’s summary here.
Posted by: Abby Normal | November 3, 2009 9:50 AM
These findings don't surprise me. Social psychology is a fascinating subject, and it rarely lines up with our intuitions.
Posted by: catgirl | November 3, 2009 10:01 AM
Reminds me of something I seem to recall Fyodor Karamazov saying in The Brothers Karamazov to the effect of "I don't hate people for what they've done to me, but rather for what I've done to them." He doesn't hate people who have been nasty to him. He hates people to whom he has been nasty.
Posted by: Doug | November 3, 2009 10:09 AM
Torture is punishment, and to punish the innocent is unjust. No one wants to be unjust, so we invent reasons why the person deserved it to make ourselves good. Terrorism is the new witchcraft.
The people who did this are criminals. Yes, even the functionaries who carried it out. They should have refused, that was their moral and legal duty, they did not, that was their choice, and they are criminals for it. All should be imprisoned, though sadly none likely will. The founding fathers continue to spin in their graves, and our president continues the mockery began by Bush of the very values upon which our federation is founded.
Posted by: Julian | November 3, 2009 10:20 AM
One thing I recently found out about the Stanford Prison Experiment is that it wasn't just the "guards" who became sadistic bastards -- the experimenters started to behave in bizarre ways as well.
The reason I mention it now is that the "perception of guilt" phenomenon reminds me of what happened in the Prison Experiment when one of the "inmates" started to have a mental breakdown. Not only did the "guards" think he was faking, but the experimenters didn't want to release him. Yeah, that's right, they initially wanted to keep him against his will as part of their experiment. Of course they quickly realized they were being batshit crazy and let the poor guy go, but damn...
I always pictured the experimenters in the Standford Prison Experiment as dispassionate observers of brutality, but it turns out even they were drawn in for a time by the powerful psychological effects of dehumanizing the "inmates".
Posted by: James Sweet | November 3, 2009 10:31 AM
James wrote:
"One thing I recently found out about the Stanford Prison Experiment is that it wasn't just the "guards" who became sadistic bastards -- the experimenters started to behave in bizarre ways as well."
This post made me think of the Stanford Prison Experiment, as well. Those curious may want to check out the recent book authored by the organizer:
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
By Philip G. Zimbardo
Also, the website is worth a look:
http://www.prisonexp.org/
Later!
Posted by: threetorches | November 3, 2009 11:29 AM
Self-justification bias. Nobody wants to think of themselves as bad people, which is how you get torturers justifying torture, prosecutors resisting post-conviction DNA testing, even murderers becoming serial killers. They have to believe that what they did was right, and to prove to themselves that it was, they do it again. Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) has a ton of examples of this sort of thing happening. Good book.
Posted by: Gretchen | November 3, 2009 11:54 AM
Gretchen, I was reminded of that book as soon as I finished reading the first sentence of Ed's post. The results of the study he cites are entirely in accord with the main thesis of that book.
The book also says (among other things) that a sort of opposite effect occurs, and can be induced. The authors note that if, for whatever reason, people who don't like you are compelled to be kind to you at some point, they are much more likely to be kind to you, and like you more, after that, simply because their need to rationalize their initial kindness causes them to conclude that they like you more than they actually did.
I have also heard elsewhere that a technique sometimes used by spies to inject false information into the intelligence services of other countries is to let themselves be captured and tortured for this information, the idea being that the torturers will be that much more likely to believe if they had to torture to get. Similar psychological processes may be at play in that situation. Unfortunately, I cannot back this up right now, so take it with a grain of salt.
Posted by: valhar2000 | November 3, 2009 12:22 PM
This looks like it would be a good complement to the paper showing that the psychological impacts of torture pretty much guarantee that it doesn't provide accurate information:
O'Mara, Shane (2009) "Torturing the brain" Trends in Cognitive Sciences. In press. 4 pages
Full Text: http://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/fulltext/S1364-6613%2809%2900199-5
Posted by: Umlud | November 3, 2009 12:58 PM
A refreshing thread of constructive, useful comments, including some interesting "further reading" suggestions. And Julian constructed a great soundbite: "Terrorism is the new witchcraft." That quote brings to min the witch test in "Quest for the Holy Grail."
Posted by: Jim Babka | November 3, 2009 2:17 PM
Good stuff, Ed.
Gretchen said:
"...torturers justifying torture, prosecutors resisting post-conviction DNA testing, even murderers becoming serial killers."
I recognize this wasn't your main point, but I'm not sure of the validity of the third example. I don't have it in front of me, but John Douglas' The Anatomy of Motive divides multiple-killers into three categories: spree killers, mass murderers, and serial killers. Spree killers are self-explanatory; mass murderers are clocktower killers, for example; and serial killers are those that choose victims based upon some set of common characteristics or circumstances. While the first two either consciously or unconsciously know they won't survive their killings, the third does not want to get caught. Moreover, each has different behavioral patterns, triggers, and motivations for committing murder. And, (according to Douglas) such people tend to conform fairly closely to the models.
It therefore doesn't seem right to draw a straight line from being a murderer to being a serial killer (or spree killer or mass-murderer or whatever), with self-justification bias pointing the way. Though in many cases, there certainly is the aspect of dehumanizing or objectifying your victims, just as with torture.
Posted by: Kris | November 3, 2009 3:47 PM
Kris,
I can't recall whether I took that example from David Buss's book The Murderer Next Door or Roy Baumeister's book Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty. The idea was not that murderers necessarily proceed on to being serial killers, but rather that they might become serial killers by feeling an internal moral conflict about their initial killing, and seek to justify their behavior by killing more people for the (ostensible) same or similar reason to their killing of the first one. So for example if you killed a prostitute, you might kill yet more prostitutes by telling yourself that the first one deserved to die by virtue of selling sex, and your killing of her was an act of justice.
Posted by: Gretchen | November 3, 2009 4:21 PM
Really I just wanted to throw another book on the "further reading" pile. :)
Posted by: Kris | November 3, 2009 4:35 PM
Gretchen,
Ah, interesting. I haven't read either of the books you mention. I'll have to see if my library has them; in the back of my mind I've been wanting a counterpoint to Douglas' book, because I have the sneaking suspicion he might be glossing over things to fit the narrative. It certainly sounds like those books present a very different interpretation!
I for one know from experience that killing the second koopa troopa comes very easily after killing the first.
Posted by: Kris | November 3, 2009 4:41 PM
Gretchen, do the authors address the Macdonald triad (fire setting, bedwetting, and animal torture)? Those behaviors in children/adolescents correlate well with later serial killer activity, but not with murderers or mass murderers. That doesn’t seem to mesh well with a behavior driven by post hoc justification.
Posted by: Abby Normal | November 3, 2009 5:14 PM
Abby,
Not to my recollection, no. However what you're describing sounds more like sociopathy, and neither of the books I mentioned delves much into that-- they're both very reason-based. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that there's more than one way to become a serial killer.
Posted by: Gretchen | November 3, 2009 5:28 PM
You see this in all sorts of human activities involving violence:
In war, the enemy isn't portrayed as people just like you with a different perspective on the situation. They are portrayed as frogs, krauts, gooks, japs, etc. The krauts in WWI skewered babies on bayonets, raped women, and were cannibals ... at least according to the propaganda put out by the allied governments. While WWII turned out to be true, prior cases of dehumanizing propaganda tended to be wrong or at least exaggerations.
In law enforcement you see it as well. Police officers who work in especially high crime areas often come to see everyone as a "perp." Lost a good college friend to this one, guy was always rather conservative but became a racist asshat who was abusive and honestly believed that the officers in the Dahmer case "simply made a bad call, could happen to anyone" when they turned a teenage boy over the Dahmer and told the prostitutes who insisted he was just a kid to "go away or we'll arrest you." Actual issue? Homophobic while men believed the white guy over the black women.
It's simply part of the overall us versus them tribal mentality. If I am part of the us or we involved in something, my actions have to be justified which means that "the other" has to be evil, sub human, etc.
Posted by: dogmeatib | November 3, 2009 5:30 PM
Abby,
The Douglas book does mention those 3 things. I was particularly surprised at the bed-wetting.
Posted by: Kris | November 3, 2009 5:51 PM
Ack! Posted too soon--my knowing about those 3 commonalities had an impact when I read Ender's Game for the first time just recently. Ender's (arguably sociopathic) brother, Peter, not only starts torturing animals fairly late in his childhood, but also seems to derive therapeutic value from it. This is not at all the impression I get of how it really works from Anatomy of Motive.
Posted by: Kris | November 3, 2009 5:56 PM
So, really, if I remember psych 101 right, this is really a demonstration of cognitive dissonance as applied to torture, right?
Posted by: Tybo | November 3, 2009 9:25 PM
This also seems like a manifestation of the "just world hypothesis", in which people who are suffering are thought to have deserved it because the justice is always done.
Posted by: Emily | November 3, 2009 10:03 PM
If that were the case, Emily, then the effect would not be different between the torturers and the observers.
Posted by: Tybo | November 3, 2009 11:14 PM
@Gretchen
True, I was thinking of sociopathic serial killers. While that may be appropriate in the majority of cases, I think I've revealed my own bias. I'm much more comfortable thinking about serial killers in that context and seem to have inappropriately thrown them all in that box. But you're right, not all serial killers fit the sociopath pattern. For those who don't, the justification theory is interesting, if rather unsettling on a personal level. I think I need to get over myself and check out your suggested reading.
@Kris
Thank you for your comments.
Posted by: Abby Normal | November 4, 2009 12:34 AM
@Abby
I appreciate your feedback! I enjoy your comments on Ed's blog and think you have interesting things to say. Which leads me to the perhaps regrettable followup,
Abby said:
"But you're right, not all serial killers fit the sociopath pattern. For those who don't, the justification theory is interesting, if rather unsettling on a personal level. I think I need to get over myself and check out your suggested reading."
I'm willing to bet very strongly (with imaginary money; so, double or nothing, place your bets!) that most fit the profile. Personally, I find it very hard (subtitled: "uhhhh, impossible?") not to equate serial killers with sociopaths.
Turns out my university library has neither of the books Gretchen mentioned. I'm turning to the city library now for decent referrals.
Posted by: Kris | November 4, 2009 12:52 AM
Yes, most serial killers are sociopaths, but not all. The term has a specific definition, laid out in the DSM-IV. Perhaps as many as a third of serial killers don't meet it.
Roughly here's what defines a sociopath:
Posted by: Abby Normal | November 4, 2009 9:57 AM
Wow. If you take options A, C, and F, you've described just about every college freshman.
Posted by: Kris | November 4, 2009 12:09 PM