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/lp/pier-professional/psychic-freezing-to-lethal-malevolent-authority-Cfwh7X4T2d
- Publisher
- Pier Professional
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2010 by Pier Professional Limited
- ISSN
- 1759-6599
- eISSN
- 2042-8715
- DOI
- 10.5042/jacpr.2010.0332
- Publisher site
- See Article on Publisher Site
Abstract
Several historical examples are given that indicate that people taken prisoner appear to psychically freeze and/or become compliant to their captors, even when death at the captors' hands is imminent and when small numbers of captors make escape a real possibility. It is argued that: freezing is a normative response to apparently inescapable capture; ‘escapability’ of capture is underestimated as a result of freezing; and rebellion is rare. Psychological theories of this psychic freezing include: 1) social psychological explanations of learned helplessness in prisoners; 2) trauma reactions of dissociation and numbing; and 3) studies from affective neuroscience suggesting freezing is a brain response to a perceived inescapable attack and may be related to hiding.
Journal
Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research – Pier Professional
Published: Jul 1, 2010
Keywords: Massacres