This article examines the psychological and cultural-societal origins of genocide and mass killing, with a focus on the Holocaust. Difficult conditions of life in a society, like severe economic problems or political conflict and violence, give rise to powerful needs—for security, protection of the psychological self, comprehension, connection, and hope. Certain cultural-societal characteristics create a predisposition for group violence. They include devaluation of a subgroup, strong respect for authority, a monolithic culture, certain societal self-concepts, and a history of aggression. They intensify needs and make it probable that the group deals with them by scapegoating, usually a subgroup of society “preselecte” by the history of cultural devaluation, by adopting nationalistic and/or “better world” ideologies that identify the victims as the enemy, and by joining movements. As perpetrators begin to harm victims, they change. Their evolution, with steps along a continuum of destruction, ends in genocide or mass killing. Both internal bystanders, members of the society, and external ones including other nations, usually remain passive, which encourages perpetrators. Internal bystanders share with perpetrators a “societal tilt” and psychological processes like just world thinking, moral equilibration, and the exclusion of victims from the moral realm. Passivity changes bystanders and some evolve into perpetrators. People who endanger themselves to help victims are guided by moral values and empathy and in contrast to perpetrators (and bystanders) are “inclusive.” They also change as a result of their own actions, and even if at first motivated by ties to specific victims, many develop intense commitment to helping.

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