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„… and harming your enemies“ : Is there a need for a psychology of emnity?
Lauenstein, Oliver (2014): „… and harming your enemies“ : Is there a need for a psychology of emnity?, in: Bamberg: opus.
Faculty/Chair:
Author:
Corporate Body:
Annual Meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology
Publisher Information:
Year of publication:
2014
Pages:
Language:
English
Remark:
Poster Beitrag
Abstract:
While numerous studies into phenomena of intergroup conflict, outgroup derogation and similar negative relations between groups exist, there is a noticeable absence in the literature. Safe from some contributions on enemy-images in the late 1980ies, hardly any literature on enemies or enmity as a concept exists. Given Carl Schmitt’s (1932) argument for the distinction between friends and enemies as being particularly important for political thoughts and behaviours, this is somewhat surprising. However, even within neighbouring disciplines, such as philosophy or sociology, a similar lack of debates on enmity can be found. The main goal of this paper is twofold, firstly it will present an overview of the existing literature on enmity (e.g. Holt, 1989; Wiseman & Duck, 1995; Zur, 1991), providing a tentative definition of ‘enemies’ from a psychological perspective and discussing the predominant historical context of psychological studies on ‘enemies’, namely the decline of the Soviet Union as a major ‘global enemy’ to the ‘Western World’. Given there is no similar treatment of contemporary conflicts, e.g. with regards to Political Islam, it will secondly pose the question whether a clearly defined concept of enmity can add to our understanding of conflict beyond existing models of social identity and intergroup hate (e.g. Reicher, Haslam & Rath, 2008) or social cognition and contempt towards the outgroup (e.d. Cuddy, Fiske / Glick, 2008).
Type:
Conferenceobject
Activation date:
February 6, 2015
Permalink
https://fis.uni-bamberg.de/handle/uniba/21047