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

by Ervin Staub (Author)

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.

Author Biography

Ervin Staub is Professor Emeritus and the founding director of the doctoral program in the psychology of peace and violence at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He previously taught at Harvard University. He has studied the roots of caring, helping, and altruism and their development in children and adults, as well as the roots of genocide and other violence between groups, their prevention, and reconciliation. He is the past president of two societies, editor or co-editor of four books, and the author of six books and many articles and book chapters. He has worked in a variety of real-world settings, in schools to develop caring classrooms and active bystandership by students, and in Rwanda to promote reconciliation.