Psychological analysis of Hitler's decision-making - Case Study Example

?Introduction The prevailing wisdom about Adolf Hitler is that he was a madman or evil or both. These are simplistic analyses for a man who is, probably without question, the worst despot in the 20th Century if not all time. There is little evidence that Hitler was evil, if pure evil exists in the world. There is substantial evidence, however, that Hitler suffered from a variety of psychological disorders, both Axis I and Axis II in the DSM-IV. The Axis I disorders were probably post-traumatic stress disorder, brought about by an incident in Hitler's youth where Hitler spent time in a hospital and suffered tear gas; and schizophrenia, which was evident by his delusions of grandeur and paranoia. The Axis II disorders suffered by Hitler were at least four different kinds of personality disorders, including narcissistic, paranoid, anti-social and sadistic personality disorders. These were all compounded by the events in Germany at the time, which explains the social-psychological dynamic to Hitler's aggression. This paper will attempt to explain, in-depth, the evidence that Hitler suffered from these different disorders, as well as suffered from more common factors, such as cognitive dissonance, and show how the events in Germany interacted with these disorders to produce Hitler, thus showing that Hitler was not evil, nor necessarily mad, but, rather, an individual who suffered greatly from disordered thinking and problems with self-esteem. Psycho-dynamic Theories Dorner & Guess (2011) has analyzed Hitler's psychological processes as they relate to his actions as Commander in Chief. The focus of their study was to determine how Hitler's psychological processes affected his decision-making on the battlefield. The first aspect that they examined was Hitler's tendency to be indecisive, and, once a decision was made, to go through with the decision and not really think about the consequences. Such as an example when Hitler decided to attack Russia by two different points of entry -one army would attack Stalingrad, while another army would attack the Caucasus Mountains. The reason why Hitler did this was because he could not make up his mind as to which of the strategies would be more effective, so he decided to try both. Dorner & Guess (2011) point out that such a strategy was pure lunacy, and was ultimately ineffective, but was an example of Hitler's decision-making process. The failure in Hitler's decision-making was in overestimating his own abilities, while underestimating the enemy's abilities. Dorner & Guess saw this as Hitler disconnecting from reality (Dorner & Guess, 2011, p. 7). Hitler was also marked with decision-making that was ad hoc, in that his decisions were for the short-term, not the long-term, and paranoia as well as scapegoating his failures (Dorner & Guess, 2011, p. 19). Dorner & Guess suggest that Hitler's behavior falls under the umbrella of human action regulation. Specifically, Hitler was desperate to hang on to power, and was hypersensitive to any perception that somebody was trying to usurp his control. They explain that individuals like Hitler have a strong need to feel in control and competent, and that, if they are competent, then this strong need is fulfilled. However, if they are not competent, then this need becomes ever-stronger, and induces a feeling of fear. Hitler was marked by fear, according to Dorner & Guess. Hitler's actions, according to them, is a result of human competence regulation, and this need for competence is even more basic then a need for food and water (Dorner & Guess, 2011, p. 20). Dorner & Guess (2011) also state that Hitler lived in a “dream world” of his own making, and the reason for this was because of cognitive dissonance. Specifically, when faced with evidence that Hitler's worldview was not correct, this evidence was discarded, as Hitler needed to believe that what he believed was right. This was because Hitler was so invested in his worldview, to the point that millions of Jews had died, as had millions of German soldiers. This was all because of Hitler's views that the Jews were sub-human, and if this view was wrong, then all of the deaths would be senseless. Also, Hitler was driven by what Dorner & Guess characterize as the “sunk cost effect,” which basically means that, once one is invested in something, the person will keep carrying it out long after it is fruitful to do so, simply because the investment was so great that they cannot turn back (Dorner & Guess, 2011, p. 26). This would explain, among other things, America's long-term involvement in Vietnam – at some point, the Americans had to say that if they pulled out of Vietnam, all their investment of blood and treasure would be for naught, so they had to keep pressing on. This, of course, only resulted in America getting ever-deeper (McAfee et al., 2007, p. 6). Phobias have a DSM-IV categorization as a sub-type of an anxiety disorder, and the phobia may be specific or generalized (DSM-IV). Bari & Zulqernain (2006) state that Hitler suffered from a specific phobia, and this was a phobia about syphilis, called syphilophobia. They state that Hitler was especially paranoid about having syphilis, as Hitler believed that this was a disease which was transmitted by Jews and was the cause of the destruction of mankind. Bari & Zulquernain (2006) state that the syphilophobia was created in Hitler's unconscious mind as a defense mechanism, and that he probably either believed that he had the disease in the past or was exposed to it in some way, and this led to this particular psychological disorder manifesting (Bari & Zulquernain, 2006, p. 236). While Dorner & Guess analyzed Hitler according to a psycho-dyanamic perspective, as did Bari & Zulquernain, Coolidge et al. (2007) went even further in analyzing Hitler from a psycho-dynamic perspective by interviewing historians who were experts on Hitler, to determine the DSM-IV Axises that would encompass Hitler's psycho-dynamic frailties. Coolidge et al. states that Hitler most likely suffered from schizophrenia, an Axis-I diagnosis. This is because of Hitler's delusions of grandeur, which were alluded to by Dorner & Guess, along with his paranoia, which are two hallmarks of schizophrenia accorded to the DSM-IV. Furthermore, Hitler had a disregard for human life, which means that he was most like anti-social and sadistic, both personality disorders recognized as Axis-II diagnoses in the DSM-IV. He also showed a great deal of self-importance and entitlement, which would mean that Hitler would also possibly be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, which is another of the Axis-II personality disorders, and his preoccupation with Jews and the thought that Jews were the cause of the spread of disease would mark Hitler as having a paranoid personality disorder, another Axis-II (Coolidge et al., 2007, p. 35). Coolidge et al. had 19 historians rank Hitler on a variety of factors which might mean that Hitler suffered from either an Axis I diagnosis or an Axis II diagnosis. They found that the raters diagnosed Hitler with post-traumatic stress disorder the most, followed by schizophrenia. The raters specifically found that Hitler suffered from delusions, hallucinations, bizarre somatic complaints, and ideas of reference, all hallmarks of a DSM-IV rating of schizophrenia. As for the personality disorders of anti-social, paranoid, narcissistic and anti-social, Hitler's scores were considerably elevated, indicating that he most likely suffered from all of these personality disorders as well (Coolidge et al., 2007, p. 37). The post-traumatic stress disorder was diagnosed for Hitler because Hitler fit the description for the symptoms for this disorder – troubled dreams, instability of emotions, aloofness, anger, anxiety and irritation. Coolidge et al. (2007 stated that the PTSD might have stemmed from Hitler's hospitalization at Pasewalk at the age of 29 while serving in the German army in World War I. During this hospitalization, Hitler and his fellow patients were attacked with mustard gas. This caused Hitler to lose eyesight, to the extent that he could no longer draw, and historians believe that this incident was the beginning of Hitler's anti-semitism. Coolidge et al. (2007) further believe that this incident was the cause of Hitler's PTSD, and also served to exacerbate Hitler's narcissistic, paranoid, anti-social and sadistic tendencies, thus developing into full-blown personality disorders (Coolidge et al. 2007, p. 40). Social Psychological Perspective While the above describes the processes that explain Hitler from a psycho-dynamic perspective, there are other explanations for Hitler's behavior. Mandel (2002) provides this alternative explanation, and his explanations focus upon social-psychology. Mandel explains that, with any kind of mass murder, especially those that take place at the national level, there are two different kinds of individuals who carry out these plans - instigators and perpetrators. The instigators are the individuals who are able to persuade others to carry out the plans, while the perpetrators are the ones who actually carry out the plans. Thus, Mandel (2002) expands upon the usual explanations put forth by social psychologists that collective violence has three actors – victims, perpetrators and bystanders – Mandel (2002) states that the perpetrators are divided into two groups, which are the instigators and the perpetrators (Mandel, 2002, p. 2). As such, instigators tend to have a different explanation for their actions then ordinary perpetrators. While perpetrators may be explained by research conducted that explains that perpetrators are simply ordinary people in extraordinary situations, instigators have a different social-psychological profile. Instigators are catalysts, instead of followers, therefore they must have different motivations to perpetrate violence then the perpetrators. Mandel (2002) explains that egotism explains Hitler's virulent anti-semitism. This is because Hitler had high self-esteem that was unstable, as opposed to high self-esteem that is stable or low self-esteem, and individuals with high, unstable self-esteem are more likely to perpetrate violence then the other two groups. When some outside force threatens this high, unstable self-esteem and causes the individual to either question the source of this self-esteem or, alternatively, not question the self-esteem source, but, rather, question the outside force, the person tends to blame the outside force. For instance, Hitler firmly believed that he had the artistic talent to get into a prestigious academy, yet he did not get in. Therefore, Hitler had two choices – he could accept that he simply was not good enough for the Academy, thus reassessing his abilities and source of high self-esteem; alternatively, Hitler could have blamed the outside forces and imagined that he was being persecuted. This would have allowed Hitler to not have to reassess his own artistic abilities, thus he could keep his self-esteem intact. Naturally, Hitler chose the latter course of action, convinced that he could not get into the Academy because he was being persecuted by others. Mandel states that this is the perfect example of self-serving bias, which means that, when an individual does well, he attributes this to internal characteristics. Failure, however, is attributed to external characteristics (Mandel, 2002, p. 8). This blaming of others, which was so necessary for Hitler to maintain his own self-image was, according to Mandel, the reason for Hitler's anti-semitism. This is because, once Hitler gave up on the idea that he could become an artist, he focused his energies on Germany and nationalism, and Germany and nationalism became his new basis for self-esteem. This led him to enroll in the German army in World War I, for Hitler was convinced that Germany would win the war and this would be another positive underpinning for his high self-esteem. When Germany eventually lost the war, Hitler once again chose to blame others for this occurring, and this time, the culprit, in Hitler's eyes, were Jews. This was because there were whispers that Jews were profiting from the war, and that Jews were undermining Germany in the war. Therefore, the Jews were the cause of Germany losing the war, in Hitler's eyes, and, by extension, the Jews were the cause of Hitler's loss of self-esteem (Mandel, 2002, p. 8). As Dorner & Guess also stated that Hitler needed to correct a cognitive dissonance, so Mandel (2002) states that same, and Hitler's cognitive dissonance, according to Mandel, stemmed from the possible loss of self-esteem when Germany lost the war. If Hitler did not choose to believe that outside forces were responsible, then Hitler would have had to reassess himself in a negative way. He resolved his cognitive dissonance by assuming that Jews were to blame, and this snowballed into a bias – every negative situation that Jews were involved in confirmed the bias, and all the while, Hitler ignored the evidence that non-Jews might be involved while also ignoring positive contributions of Jews. Everything that Hitler heard that was negative about the Jews from there on out served his new negative bias about the Jews. At the same time, Hitler did not recognize that he had a bias, so this led, according to Mandel (2002) to Hitler's naive realism - the belief that one's worldview is the only right one (Mandel, 2002, p. 11). Conclusion It is obvious that Hitler was the product of complex processes, that were both psychological and social-psychological in nature. Many historians agree that Hitler suffered from schizophrenia, because of his paranoia and delusions of grandeur, and this is most likely an innate characteristic. It would be upon this foundation that the other disorders complicated, for various reasons. Mandel states that Hitler had a worldview and he was sure that his worldview was the only correct one, and his talents were superior. This would be signs of narcissistic personality disorder. This inherent personality disorder was complicated by the fact that Hitler failed to become an artist, and then identified with Germany, tying his self-esteem with the fate of Germany, then, when Germany lost the war, this became another potential blow to his self-esteem. The paranoia that was the product of his schizophrenia thus allowed Hitler to imagine that the Jews were responsible for Germany losing the war, and all the conspiracy theories surrounding this. These factors led him to his final solution, which means that his sadistic personality disorder manifested. Thus, all of his alleged disorders – schizophrenia, PTSD, and the personality disorders – anti-social, sadistic, narcissistic and paranoid – were compounded by the social situations in Germany at that time. The perfect storm made Hitler who he was and changed the course of history forever. Bibliography Coolidge, F., Davis, F. & Segal, D. 2007. Understanding madmen: A DSM-IV assessment of Adolf Hitler. Individual Differences Research, vol. 5, no. 1: pp. 30-43. Dorner, D. & Guess, C. 2011. A psychological analysis of Hitler's decision-making as Commander-in-Chief. Review of General Psychology, vol. 15, no. 1: pp. 37-49. Mandel, D. 2002. Instigators of genocide: Examining Hitler from a social-psychological perspective. In L.S. Newman and R. Eber (Eds.) Understanding Genocide: The Social-Psychology of the Holocaust. New York: Oxford University Press. McAfee, R., Mialon, H. & Mialon, S. 2007. Do sunk costs matter? Available at: http://www.suemialon.com/research/RevisedSunkCostsMatterApril2007.pdf Ul Bari, A. & Zulqernain, A. 2006. Syphilophobia: A frustrating psychiatric illness presenting to dermatologists. Journal of Pakistan Association of Dermatologists, vol. 16: pp. 236-238. Read More