The Roots of Goodness and Resistance to Evil: Inclusive Caring, Moral Courage, Altruism Born of Suffering, Active Bystandership, and Heroism

Product Description

In
The Roots of Goodness and Resistance to Evil, Ervin Staub draws on his extensive experiences in scholarship and intervention to illuminate the socializing experiences, education, and trainings that lead children and adults to become helpers/active bystanders and rescuers, acting to prevent
violence and create peaceful and harmonious societies. The book collects Staub’s most important and influential articles and essays in the field, compiling a variety of examples of helping behaviors as well as discussions of why we should help and not harm others. He addresses a wide range of such
behaviors, from helping people in everyday physical or psychological distress, to active bystandership in response to harmful actions by youth toward their peers (bullying), to endangering one’s life to save someone in immediate danger, or rescuing intended victims of genocide.

Staub engages with ways to promote active bystandership in the service of preventing violence, helping people to heal from violence, and building caring societies. He explores the range of experiences that lead to active bystandership, including socialization by parents, teachers (and peers) in
childhood, education, experiential learning, and public education through media. He examines what personal characteristics or dispositions result from such experiences, which in turn lead to caring and helping. Staub also considers how circumstances influence people–both individuals and whole
groups–and how they join with personal dispositions to determine whether people remain passive in the face of others’ need or instead help others and behave in morally courageous or even heroic ways. He considers how moral and caring values can be subverted by circumstances, and outlines ways to
resist that possiblity. He also considers how past victimization and the resulting psychological woundedness, which can lead to “defensive violence” or hostility toward people and the world, may be transformed by other experiences, leading to “altruism born of suffering.” The book draws on research
and theory as well as work in applied settings. Ultimately this book will help readers explore how we can turn ourselves into active, helpful people and what we need to do to create peaceful and caring societies.

Review

“In this superb…deeply erudite and moving volume… Ervin Staub draws together an impressive array of researches and organizational efforts… (It) would make a superb text for college students at any level as well as a valuable resource for professionals in social agencies as they struggle to
understand the roots of community violence and to learn techniques to cope-to enhance empathy and prosocial behaviors in families and neighborhoods. The author suggests ways that teachers, parents, and also bystanders to violence can address obstacles and increase the quota of kindness and the
flowering of altruism among children and adults.”
—
PsycCRITIQUES

“In this excellent book, Ervin Staub writes from a lifetime of knowledge and experience, both personal and professional. He has never been a bystander. You will cherish his insight, and perhaps even more the goodness of his heart.”
—
Richard Rhodes, historian and author of
Why They Kill and
The Making of the Atomic Bomb, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award

“Ervin Staub has devoted his life-from his childhood Holocaust escape to his distinguished career-to resisting evil and pursuing goodness. This important volume recaps his career as the world’s leading expert on evil and goodness, harm and helping, radicalization and reconciliation. His life and
scholarship point the way to wider circles of ‘moral inclusion,’ to responding with moral courage, to raising children who become helpful and even heroic adults, and to empathy nurtured by suffering.”
—
David G. Myers, Professor of Psychology, Hope College, and author of
Social Psychology, 11th Edition

“This book is a compilation of the insights of a