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44-462: A scapegoat may be an adult, child, sibling, employee, peer, ethnic, political or religious group, or country. A whipping boy , identified patient , or " fall guy " are forms of scapegoat. Scapegoating has its origins in the scapegoat ritual of atonement described in chapter 16 of the Biblical Book of Leviticus , in which a goat (or ass) is released into the wilderness bearing all the sins of

88-434: A biblical rite, which involved two goats and the pre-Judaic, chthonic god Azazel . In the modern scapegoat complex, however, "the energy field has been radically broken apart" and the libido "split off from consciousness". Azazel's role is deformed into an accuser of the scapegoated victim. Blame for breaking a perfectionist moral code, for instance, might be measured out by aggressive scapegoaters. Themselves often wounded,

132-576: A friend punished would provide an equivalent motivation not to repeat the offence. An archaic proverb which captures a similar idea is "to beat a dog before a lion". Whipping was a common punishment administered by tutors at that time. There is little contemporary evidence for the existence of whipping boys, and evidence that some princes were indeed whipped by their tutors, although Nicholas Orme suggests that nobles might have been beaten less often than other pupils. Some historians regard whipping boys as entirely mythical; others suggest they applied only in

176-617: A group necessitates that ingroup members settle on one specific target to blame for their problems. In management, scapegoating is a known practice in which a lower staff employee is blamed for the mistakes of senior executives. This is often due to lack of accountability in upper management. Literary critic and philosopher Kenneth Burke first coined and described the expression scapegoat mechanism in his books Permanence and Change (1935), and A Grammar of Motives (1945). These works influenced some philosophical anthropologists , such as Ernest Becker and René Girard . Girard developed

220-445: A matter of minutes and that such groups can form even on the basis of completely arbitrary and invented discriminatory characteristics, such as preferences for certain paintings. In neurology , there is an established literature about the innate propensity of the human brain to divide the world into us and them valence categories, where the exact membership of the in-group and out-group are socially contingent (hence vulnerable to

264-458: A psychological relief for a group of people. Girard contends that this is what happened in the narrative of Jesus of Nazareth, the central figure in Christianity. The difference between the scapegoating of Jesus and others, Girard believes, is that in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, he is shown to be an innocent victim; humanity is thus made aware of its violent tendencies and the cycle

308-418: Is a social group to which a person psychologically identifies as being a member. By contrast, an out-group is a social group with which an individual does not identify. People may for example identify with their peer group , family , community , sports team, political party, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or nation. It has been found that the psychological membership of social groups and categories

352-404: Is associated with a wide variety of phenomena. The terminology was made popular by Henri Tajfel and colleagues beginning in the 1970s during his work in formulating social identity theory . The significance of in-group and out-group categorization was identified using a method called the minimal group paradigm . Tajfel and colleagues found that people can form self-preferencing in-groups within

396-416: Is at risk; it is at this point that the scapegoat mechanism is triggered. This is the point where one person is singled out as the cause of the trouble and is expelled or killed by the group. This person is the scapegoat. Social order is restored as people are contented that they have solved the cause of their problems by removing the scapegoated individual, and the cycle begins again. Scapegoating serves as

440-519: Is broken. Thus Girard's work is significant as a reconstruction of the Christus Victor atonement theory. Notes Further reading Whipping boy A whipping boy was a boy educated alongside a prince (or boy monarch ) in early modern Europe , who supposedly received corporal punishment for the prince's transgressions in his presence. The prince was not punished himself because his royal status exceeded that of his tutor; seeing

484-511: Is called in-group homogeneity. Discrimination between in-groups and out-groups is a matter of favoritism towards an in-group and the absence of equivalent favoritism towards an out-group. Out-group derogation is the phenomenon in which an out-group is perceived as being threatening to the members of an in-group. This phenomenon often accompanies in-group favoritism, as it requires one to have an affinity towards their in-group. Some research suggests that out-group derogation occurs when an out-group

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528-413: Is flogged in his stead: "a most ingenious device, by which to keep this troublesome young lordling in awe, without trenching on his foolish father's injunctions". The Fortunes of Nigel (1822) by Walter Scott describes Malagrowther , the fictional whipping boy of the young James VI of Scotland (later also James I of England): "Under the stern rule, indeed, of George Buchanan , who did not approve of

572-529: Is full of such projections, just as much as the backyard gossip of little groups and individuals." Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung considered indeed that "there must be some people who behave in the wrong way; they act as scapegoats and objects of interest for the normal ones". The scapegoat theory of intergroup conflict provides an explanation for the correlation between times of relative economic despair and increases in prejudice and violence toward outgroups . Studies of anti-black violence ( racist violence) in

616-426: Is perceived as blocking or hindering the goals of an in-group. It has also been argued that out-group derogation is a natural consequence of the categorization process. People have been shown to be differentially influenced by in-group members. That is, under conditions where group categorization is psychologically salient, people will shift their beliefs in line with in-group social norms . This generally refers to

660-499: Is provided by the French Catholic prelates Arnaud d'Ossat (1537–1604) and Jacques Davy Duperron (1556–1618), who were symbolically whipped by Pope Clement VIII in 1593 in proxy expiation on behalf of Henry IV of France (1553–1610), who had renounced Protestantism. Samuel Rowley 's 1604 play When You See Me You Know Me depicts the childhood of the future Edward VI. When he skips class to play tennis , Edward "Ned" Browne

704-410: Is sent to the chapel to be whipped by the master of children. Cranmer says, "Since he was whipped thus for the prince's faults. / His grace hath got more knowledge in a month. / Than he attained in a year before, / For still the fearful boy, to save his breech, / Doth hourly haunt him, wheresoe'er he goes." The prince persuades king Henry VIII to knight Ned: "the poor gentleman was pitifully wounded in

748-526: Is whipped by John Cheke for teaching Edward VI swear-words; when Edward protests that nobody has whipping boys any more, Cheke says "the Duke of Richmond had one". Cheke relents from giving FitzPatrick the whipping owed to Edward. Sarah Ruhl 's 2016 play "Scenes from Court Life, or The Whipping Boy and His Prince" includes whipping boys in its depictions of Charles I and Charles II of England. Some accounts of modern slavery include instances of slaves punished for

792-520: The Oxford English Dictionary is from a 1647 Bible commentary by John Trapp on 1 Tim 5:20 : "Those Presbyters that sin publikely ... and those who were convicted by two or three witnesses ...: Rebuke before all, yet not as if they were whipping boyes". In Book V of Gil Blas (1715) by Alain-René Lesage , when the Marquis of Leganez forbids his son's tutors from beating him, Don Raphael

836-529: The fusiform face area (FFA), an area of the fusiform gyrus located in the inferior temporal cortex of the brain linked to object and face recognition, when viewing same race faces compared to other race faces. Lower activity in the FFA reflects a failure to encode outgroup members at the individual level rather than the categorical level, which comes at the expense of encoding individuating information. This suggests out-group or unfamiliar faces may not be "faces" with

880-620: The neurological level, where in-group favoritism and out-group bias occurs very early in perception. This process can begin by simply viewing a person's face. Research indicates that individuals are faster and more accurate at recognizing faces of ingroup vs. outgroup members. For example, researchers in a cross-race recognition study recorded blood oxygenation level-dependent signal (BOLD) activity from black and white participants while they viewed and attempted to remember pictures of unfamiliar black faces, white faces and objects. They found that participants in this study exhibited greater activity in

924-466: The southern United States between 1882 and 1930 show a correlation between poor economic conditions and outbreaks of violence (e.g. lynchings) against black people. The correlation between the price of cotton (the principal product of the area at that time) and the number of lynchings of black men by whites ranged from −0.63 to −0.72, suggesting that a poor economy induced white people to take out their frustrations by attacking an outgroup. Scapegoating as

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968-423: The 1987 Newbery Medal for children's books, tells of the brattish Prince Horace who learns humility on an adventure with his whipping boy, a rat-catcher named Jemmy. In George R. R. Martin 's fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire , published from 1991, the characters Tommen Baratheon and Joffrey Baratheon have a whipping boy named Pate. In David Belbin 's 2002 children's novel Boy King , Barnaby FitzPatrick

1012-606: The Pauper , the pauper's masquerade as Edward VI is aided by information from the prince's whipping boy, son and namesake of the late Sir Humphrey Marlow, a "Head Lieutenant" in Henry VIII's Household . Twain wrote, "James I. and Charles II. had whipping-boys, when they were little fellows, to take their punishment for them when they fell short in their lessons; so I have ventured to furnish my small prince with one, for my own purposes." The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman , which won

1056-401: The back parts, as may appear by the scar, if his knightship would but untruss there". Ned hopes the tutors will refrain from whipping a knight, to which the fool retorts, "If they do, he shall make thee a lord , and then they dare not." This work may have helped the idea of a whipping boy to take root. John Donne alluded to proxy whipping in a sermon he preached in 1628: "Sometimes, when

1100-408: The case of a boy king, protected by divine right , and not to mere princes. In Renaissance humanism , Erasmus ' treatises " The Education of a Christian Prince " (1516) and "Declamatio de pueris statim ac liberaliter instituendis" (1530) mention the inappropriateness of physical chastisement of princes, but do not mention proxy punishment. Hartley Coleridge wrote in 1852, "to be flogged by proxy

1144-406: The children of great persons offend at school, another person is whipped for them, and that affects them, and works upon a good nature; but if that person should take physic for them in a sickness, it would do them no good: God's corrections upon others may work by way of example upon thee; but because thou art sick for physic, take it thyself." The earliest attestation of the word "whipping boy" in

1188-444: The community, which have been placed on the goat's head by a priest. A medical definition of scapegoating is: Process in which the mechanisms of projection or displacement are used in focusing feelings of aggression , hostility , frustration , etc., upon another individual or group; the amount of blame being unwarranted. Scapegoating is a hostile tactic often employed to characterize an entire group of individuals according to

1232-404: The concept much more extensively as an interpretation of human culture. In Girard's view, it is humankind, not God, who has need for various forms of atoning violence. Humans are driven by desire for that which another has or wants ( mimetic desire ). This causes a triangulation of desire and results in conflict between the desiring parties. This mimetic contagion increases to a point where society

1276-399: The game, their versions of what transpired were so starkly different it appeared as though they had watched two totally different games. Some may wonder why in-group favoritism takes place, even in arbitrarily assigned groups where group members have nothing in common other than the group to which they were assigned. Research points to unconscious decision-making processes that takes place at

1320-496: The instruments of propaganda ), and the intensity exists along a spectrum from mild to complete dehumanization of the " othered " group (such as through pseudospeciation ). The psychological categorization of people into in-group and out-group members is associated with a variety of phenomena. The following examples have all received a great deal of academic attention. This refers to the fact that under certain conditions, people will prefer and have affinity for one's in-group over

1364-417: The majority. However, scapegoating may also be applied to organizations, such as governments, corporations, or various political groups. Jungian analyst Sylvia Brinton Perera situates its mythology of shadow and guilt . Individuals experience it at the archetypal level. As an ancient social process to rid a community of its past evil deeds and reconnect it to the sacred realm, the scapegoat appeared in

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1408-681: The offences of a master's child. In 19th-century southern China , among slave boys as study companions to candidates for the imperial examinations , one example was noted by James L. Watson . In Alex Tizon 's 2017 nonfiction essay " My Family's Slave ", the author's mother recounts a 1940s incident in which, caught in a lie, she made Lola, the titular servant, receive the punishment of 12 lashes of her father's belt. Biram Dah Abeid has alleged that slaves in Mauritania are used as souffre douleurs or whipping boys. Ingroups and outgroups In social psychology and sociology , an in-group

1452-565: The out-group, or anyone viewed as outside the in-group. This can be expressed in one's evaluation of others, linking, allocation of resources, and many other ways. How we perceive the actions of others are also affected by in-group favoritism. People may perceive the same action very differently depending on whether the action was executed by a member of the same group or a member of a different group. In fact, people tend to evaluate actions of their own group or team members much more favorably than those of outgroup members. An illustrative example of

1496-519: The perception that group members are similar to one another. An outcome of this is the out-group homogeneity effect. This refers to the perception of members of an out-group as being homogenous, while members of one's in-group are perceived as being diverse, e.g. "they are alike; we are diverse". This is especially likely to occur in regard to negative characteristics. Under certain conditions, in-group members can be perceived as being similar to one another in regard to positive characteristics. This effect

1540-497: The same intensity as in-group faces. Prior research has also shown that the devaluation and dehumanization of outgroup members is exacerbated when the initial encoding and configural processing of an outgroup face is impeded. So not only does this initial encoding process dehumanize outgroup members, it also contributes to a homogeneity effect, whereby outgroup members are perceived as more similar to each other than ingroup members. Categorization of people into social groups increases

1584-422: The scapegoaters can be sadistic, superego accusers with brittle personas , who have driven their own shadows underground from where such are projected onto the victim. The scapegoated victim may then live in a hell of felt unworthiness, retreating from consciousness, burdened by shadow and transpersonal guilt, and hiding from the pain of self-understanding. Therapy includes modeling self-protective skills for

1628-407: The speed of the hand movements. On average participants judged members of their own teams to be faster, although the hand movements were the exact same speed across the board. Similarly, Hastorf and Cantril conducted a pioneering study in 1954, where students of both Princeton and Dartmouth viewed a contentious football game between their two teams. Although they had watched the same motion picture of

1672-588: The tendency of groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclination of its members, although polarization toward the most central beliefs has also been observed. It has been shown that this effect is related to a psychologically salient in-group and outgroup categorization. In evolutionary psychology , in-group favoritism is seen as an evolved mechanism selected for the advantages of coalition affiliation. It has been argued that characteristics such as gender and ethnicity are inflexible or even essential features of such systems. However, there

1716-410: The unethical or immoral conduct of a small number of individuals belonging to that group. Scapegoating relates to guilt by association and stereotyping . Scapegoated groups throughout history have included almost every imaginable group of people: genders, religions, people of different races, nations, or sexual orientations, people with different political beliefs, or people differing in behaviour from

1760-407: The vicarious mode of punishment, James bore the penance of his own faults, and Mungo Malagrowther enjoyed a sinecure ; but James's other pedagogue, Master Patrick Young , went more ceremoniously to work, and appalled the very soul of the youthful King by the floggings which he bestowed on the whipping-boy, when the royal task was not suitably performed." In Mark Twain 's 1881 novel, The Prince and

1804-450: The victim or scape-goat of the royal misdemeanours". In current English, a "whipping boy" is a metaphor which may have a similar meaning to scapegoat , fall guy , or sacrificial lamb ; alternatively it may mean a perennial loser, a victim of group bullying or someone who is unfairly blamed for the actions of others. Young royals alleged to have had whipping boys include: An adult example often included in discussions of whipping boys

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1848-419: The victim's battered ego, and guidance in the search for inner integrity, to find the victim's own voice . Unwanted thoughts and feelings can be unconsciously projected onto another who becomes a scapegoat for one's own problems. This concept can be extended to projection by groups. In this case the chosen individual, or group, becomes the scapegoat for the group's problems. "Political agitation in all countries

1892-605: The way this phenomenon takes place can be demonstrated just by arbitrarily assigning a person to a distinct and objectively meaningless novel group; this alone is sufficient to create intergroup biases in which members of the perceiver's own group are preferentially favored. This phenomenon was demonstrated in an empirical study conducted by Molenberghs and colleagues in 2013. In the study, participants were arbitrarily divided into two teams where they watched videos of individuals of competing teams and individuals from their own team perform hand actions. Participants were then asked to judge

1936-529: Was the exclusive privilege of royal blood. ... It was much coveted for the children of the poorer gentry , as the first step in the ladder of preferment." John Gough Nichols wrote in 1857, "the whole matter is somewhat legendary, and though certain vicarious or rather minatory punishments may have been occasionally adopted, it does not seem likely that any one individual among the King's schoolfellows should have been uniformly selected, whether he were in fault or not, as

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