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What do People Mean when Speaking of Evilness?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2013

Mª Nieves Quiles ,
Mª Dolores Morera ,
Ana Delia Correa  and
Jacques Philippe Leyens
Mª Nieves Quiles*
Affiliation:
Universidad de La Laguna (Spain)
Mª Dolores Morera
Affiliation:
Universidad de La Laguna (Spain)
Ana Delia Correa
Affiliation:
Universidad de La Laguna (Spain)
Jacques Philippe Leyens
Affiliation:
Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium)
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Mª Nieves Quiles del Castillo. Departamento de Psicología Cognitiva, Social y Organizacional. Facultad de Psicología. Universidad de La Laguna. Campus de Guajara S/N. 38205 La Laguna. Tenerife. (Spain). E-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

The term evilness started to become popular in social psychology after the publication in 1999 of the special issue edited by Arthur G. Miller, “Perspectives on evil and violence”. It is usually used to define behaviors that are extremely and strongly harmful. However, the concept is still imprecise and needs to be empirically delineated. This article attempts to answer the following questions. What is evilness? What is the difference between aggression and evilness? We conducted several studies with three goals: to analyze how laypersons and experts define evilness, to verify whether laypeople distinguish between different intensities of evilness, and to determine the dimensions that predict aggression and evilness. The results offer preliminary answers to the three questions.

El término maldad comienza a difundirse en psicología social tras la publicación en 1999 del monográfico editado por Arthur G. Miller, “Perspectives on evil and violence”. Usualmente se emplea para definir acciones extremas e intensamente dañinas, pero el concepto es impreciso y necesita ser delimitado empíricamente. Este artículo trata de responder a las preguntas ¿Qué es la maldad? ¿Qué diferencias existen entre la maldad y el concepto tradicional de agresión? Para ello, llevamos a cabo varios estudios con tres objetivos: analizar cómo legos y expertos definen la maldad, verificar si las personas legas diferencian niveles de intensidad de la maldad y determinar las dimensiones predictivas de la maldad y la agresión. Los resultados ofrecen respuestas preliminares a las tres cuestiones.

Keywords

aggressionevilnessharmagresiónmaldaddaño
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , November 2010 , pp. 788 - 797
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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