Scapegoating

For other uses, see Scapegoat (disambiguation).

projection by groups. In this case the chosen individual,

or group, becomes the scapegoat for the groups problems. Political agitation in all countries is full of such
projections, just as much as the backyard gossip of little
groups and individuals.[3] 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.[4]

Scapegoating (from the verb to scapegoat") is the practice of singling out any party for unmerited negative treatment or blame as a scapegoat.[1] Scapegoating may be
conducted by individuals against individuals (e.g. he did
it, not me!"), individuals against groups (e.g., I couldn't
see anything because of all the tall people), groups
against individuals (e.g., Jane was the reason our team
didn't win), and groups against groups.
A scapegoat may be an adult, child, sibling, employee,
peer, ethnic, political or religious group, or country. A
whipping boy, identied patient or "fall guy" are forms
of scapegoat.

2 At the group level

At the individual level

The scapegoat theory of intergroup conict provides an

explanation for the correlation between times of relative
economic despair and increases in prejudice and violence
toward outgroups.[5] Studies of anti-black violence in the
southern US between 1882 and 1930 show a correlation
between poor economic conditions and outbreaks of violence (e.g., lynchings) against blacks. 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.[6]

A medical denition of scapegoating is:[2]

Process in which the mechanisms of
projection or displacement are utilized in
focusing feelings of aggression, hostility,
frustration, etc., upon another individual or
group; the amount of blame being unwarranted.
Scapegoating is a tactic often employed to characterize
an entire group of individuals according to the unethical or immoral conduct of a small number of individuals
belonging to that group. Scapegoating relates to guilt by
association and stereotyping.

Scapegoating as a group necessitates that ingroup members settle on one specic target to blame for their
problems.[7] Scapegoating is also more likely to appear
when a group has experienced dicult, prolonged negative experiences (as opposed to minor annoyances).
When negative conditions frustrate a groups attempts at
successful acquisition of its most essential needs (e.g.,
food, shelter), groups develop a compelling, shared ideology that - when combined with social and political pressures - may lead to the most extreme form of scapegoating: genocide.

Scapegoated groups throughout history have included almost every imaginable group of people: genders, religions, people of dierent races, nations, or sexual orientations, people with dierent political beliefs, or people diering in behaviour from the majority. However,
scapegoating may also be applied to organizations, such
as governments, corporations, or various political groups.

1.1

Scapegoating can also cause oppressed groups to lash out

at other oppressed groups. Even when injustices are committed against a minority group by the majority group,
minorities sometimes lash out against a dierent minority
group in lieu of confronting the more powerful majority.

Projection

Main article: Psychological projection

In management: Scapegoating is a known practice in

Unwanted thoughts and feelings can be unconsciously management where a lower sta employee is blamed for
projected onto another who becomes a scapegoat for the mistakes of senior executives. This is often due to
ones own problems. This concept can be extended to lack of accountability in upper management.[8]
1

6 FURTHER READING

The scapegoat mechanism in

philosophical anthropology

Literary critic and philosopher Kenneth Burke rst

coined and described the expression scapegoat mechanism in his books Permanence and Change (1935),
and A Grammar of Motives (1945). These works inuenced some philosophical anthropologists, such as Ernest
Becker and Ren Girard. Girard developed the concept
much more extensively as an interpretation of human culture. In Girards 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 conict between the desiring parties. This
mimetic contagion increases to a point where society is at
risk; it is at this point that the scapegoat mechanism[9] 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. The keyword here
is content. Scapegoating serves as a psychological relief for a group of people. Girard contends that this is
what happened in the narrative of Jesus of Nazareth, the
central gure in Christianity. The dierence 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 is broken. Thus Girards
work is signicant as a reconstruction of the Christus Victor atonement theory.

See also
Anti-semitism

Social stigma
Stereotype
Victim blaming
Victimisation
Witch-hunt

5 References
[1] Scapegoating. Out of the FOG. Retrieved 2012-03-07.
[2] scapegoating - Denition. [Link]. 1998-1212. Retrieved 2012-03-07.
[3] M.-L. von Franz, in C. G. Jung, Man and his Symbols
(London 1964) p. 181
[4] C. G Jung, Analytical Psychology (London 1976) p. 108
[5] Poppe, Edwin (2001). Eects of changes in GNP
and perceived group characteristics on national and ethnic stereotypes in central and eastern Europe.. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 31 (8): 16891708.
doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2001.tb02746.x.
[6] Hovland, C. I.; Sears, R. R. (1940).
ies of aggression:
VI. Correlation
with economic indices.
Journal
ogy: Interdisciplinary and Applied.
doi:10.1080/00223980.1940.9917696.

Minor studof lynchings

of Psychol9: 301310.

[7] Glick, Peter (2005). Choice of Scapegoats. In Dovidio,

John F.; Glick, Peter; Rudman, Laurie. On the Nature of
Prejudice: Fifty Years after Allport. Blackwell Publishing.
pp. 244261. doi:10.1002/9780470773963.ch15. ISBN
9780470773963.
[8] The Art of Scapegoating in IT Projects PM Hut, 15 October 2009
[9] Mimesis - The Scapegoat Model, Jean-Baptiste Dumont

Bullying
Dehumanization

6 Further reading

Frustrationaggression hypothesis

6.1 Books

The Golden Bough

Identied patient
Kick the cat
Kiss up kick down

Colman, A.D. Up from Scapegoating: Awakening

Consciousness in Groups (1995)
Douglas, Tom Scapegoats:
(1995)

Transferring Blame

Mobbing

Dyckman, JM & Cutler JA Scapegoats at Work:

Taking the Bulls-Eye O Your Back (2003)

Moral panic

Girard, Ren: The Scapegoat (1986)

Sacricial lamb

Perera, Sylvia Brinton Scapegoat Complex: Toward

a Mythology of Shadow and Guilt (Studies in Jungian Psychology By Jungian Analysts) (1986)

Shooting the messenger

3
Pillari V Scapegoating in Families: Intergenerational
Patterns of Physical and Emotional Abuse (1991)
Quarmby K Scapegoat: Why We Are Failing Disabled People (2011)
Wilcox C.W. Scapegoat: Targeted for Blame (2009)
Zemel, Joel: Scapegoat, the extraordinary legal
proceedings following the 1917 Halifax Explosion
(2012)

6.2

Miller, Norman; Pollock, Vicki (2007). Displaced

Aggression. In Baumeister, Roy; Vohs, Kathleen.
Encyclopedia of Social Psychology. SAGE Publications. doi:10.4135/9781412956253.n155. ISBN
9781412916707.

Academic articles

Binstock, R. H. (1983). The Aged as Scapegoat. The Gerontologist. 23 (2): 136143.

doi:10.1093/geront/23.2.136. PMID 6862222.
Boeker, Warren (1992). Power and Managerial Dismissal: Scapegoating at the Top. Administrative Science Quarterly. 37 (3): 400421.
doi:10.2307/2393450. JSTOR 2393450.
Gemmill, G. (1989). The Dynamics of Scapegoating in Small Groups. Small Group Research. 20
(4): 406418. doi:10.1177/104649648902000402.
Katz, Irwin; Class, David C.; Cohen, Sheldon
(1973). Ambivalence, guilt, and the scapegoating of minority group victims. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 9 (5): 423436.
doi:10.1016/S0022-1031(73)80006-X.
Khanna, Naveen; Poulsen, Annette B. (1995).
Managers of Financially Distressed Firms: Villains or Scapegoats?".
The Journal of Finance. 50 (3): 919940. doi:10.1111/j.15406261.1995.tb04042.x.
Maybee, Janet (2010). The Persecution of Pilot
Mackey (PDF). The Northern Mariner/le marin du
nord. XX (2): 149173. ISSN 1183-112X.
Schopler, Eric (1971).
Parents of psychotic children as scapegoats.
Journal of
Contemporary Psychotherapy.
4 (1): 1722.
doi:10.1007/BF02110269.
Vogel, E. F.; Bell, N. W. (1960). The emotionally disturbed child as the family scapegoat. Psychoanalysis and the Psychoanalytic Review. 47 (2):
2142. ISSN 0885-7830.

6.3

Hammer, Elliott D. (2007). Scapegoat Theory. In Baumeister, Roy; Vohs, Kathleen. Encyclopedia of Social Psychology. SAGE Publications. doi:10.4135/9781412956253.n465. ISBN
9781412916707.

Reference books

Glick, Peter (2010).

Scapegoating.
In
Weiner, Irving B.; Craighead, W. Edward.
The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology (4th
ed.). John Wiley & Sons. pp. 14981499.
doi:10.1002/9780470479216.corpsy0817. ISBN
9780470479216.

7 External links
Scapegoating
Scapegoating in Group Analytic Theory (PDF les)
Scapegoat Society
The Scapegoat

8 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

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8.3

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