The cruelty of the trait of kind people. What is cruelty? The Psychology of Violence: Causes and Consequences

Cruelty is a personality trait that is directly related to the moral and psychological aspects of the personality itself. Cruelty is an attitude expressed towards people or animals around them, which implies rudeness, infliction of pain, inhumanity, insults and other forms of violence.

There is also another aspect of the definition of cruelty, which involves taking pleasure in the suffering of another in the course of actions that are unacceptable in a particular culture. Accordingly, the question of how to deal with cruelty can be resolved in terms of the differences in these approaches, as well as have their own characteristics in different cultural communities. After all, what for some may be considered humiliating and unacceptable, representatives of other cultures can bring pleasure and be revered or express respect.

Common to any manifestation of cruelty is the consciousness of destructive actions. This concept stands apart from affective outbursts of aggression or from harm caused by drugs or mental illness. With cruelty, we always mean a person's understanding of the consequences of his actions for another and an awareness of their destructive direction.

Cruelty, as a habit, is inherent in people with various mental disorders. A variety of deviations and their depth can be triggered by a person's own psychological trauma, a critical moment in life, or in the process of prolonged abuse of the person himself, as a result of which an adequate perception of the world was disturbed.

The tendency towards violent behavior is inherent in every person, being the opposite. This means that those who are cruel are capable of magnanimous acts of compassion, and those who have endured and regretted for a long time can be extremely cruel to those whom they previously protected. Until cruelty is manifested in the active world, a person cannot claim to be fully aware of themselves and in control of their behavior.

The stronger and deeper a person hides his cruelty, the more force it can break out. So mothers who do not recognize this quality in themselves can mock children, children get eyes on live kittens, and surgeons can perform operations without anesthesia.

What is cruelty

Cruelty is often referred to as a synonym for aggression, but these concepts cannot replace each other. filled with feelings (fear, hunger, self-defense, possessiveness), and cruelty is empty. She personifies complete indifference to the feelings and needs of others, a lack of understanding that another can be hurt, sad or offensive. Cruelty is inherent only in humans and has nothing to do with the animal world, there is pure aggression, which always reflects the needs of reality, whether it be the extraction of food or the defense of their territory. No animal is capable of bringing suffering to others for its own pleasure.

Many people believe that cruelty is aimed at maintaining the uniqueness of one's own ego and exclusivity by exercising power and power over others. Others believe that cruelty is a way of defense, anticipating the possible blows of a stronger opponent or gradually weakening him with constant attacks. The theory of traumatic events presents cruelty as a certain shell of insensitivity surrounding a too vulnerable person who, unable to cope with the injustice and the resulting pain, turned off his sensitivity to the world completely. At the same time, the same vulnerable core of the personality remains inside, and if you get to it through all the barriers of cruelty, you can face a frightened child in need of support.

Cruelty always reflects dissatisfaction with oneself or manifestations of one's life, which attracts others to account instead of changes on its part. This is a trait that hides deep inner problems, such as excessive vulnerability, and complexes, attempts to demonstrate strength that does not exist.

A cruel person is perceived to be strong and almost omnipotent (due to a lack of sensitivity and a decrease in moral principles), but this trait is not positive and strong among everyone else. Since there are no internal and external constraining factors (more precisely, sensitivity to them), the manifestations become stronger each time. So, at first, a person can offend others, then give a slap on the head, then beat him to fractures and complex hematomas, and if everything is not stopped at this stage forcibly, then cruelty takes the form of torture, sadism and murder. Thus, it is a self-accelerating tragedy, often ending in crime.

Cruel people usually have difficulty in communication, there are no relatives and friends, but they have a huge baggage of internal pain points. Such people leave themselves with their problems, and their inner world constantly hurts, perhaps that is why the sensitivity to other people's pain disappears.

The only period of manifestation of cruelty as a norm is a short period of childhood, when the child learns to control his own emotional sphere, and is busy with active knowledge of the world. At certain stages, there is a need to inflict pain on others, so that, on our own experience, an understanding of refusal from it comes, reciprocal responses are received and the consequences are realized. Problems begin when this period ends, but the violence remains.

Causes of cruelty

Cruelty has many faces in its manifestations, but there is not a single person who would not have encountered it. Someone is more fortunate, and he only hears about it in the news, and someone lives in it all the time. There are as many reasons for violent behavior as there are cases, but all of them can be divided into several categories.

The most common reason is dissatisfaction with your life, in which the accumulation of stress and irritation requires an exit. Usually, those who are closest and least protected become such a lightning rod (in families these are children, at work they are subordinates, in deserted places these are animals and tree branches). This state of mixed anger and powerlessness needs psychological correction, because over time leads to psychosomatic disorders (usually of the cardiovascular system) and disrupts the social interaction of the individual.

This is followed by a lack of understanding or indifference to the feelings of the one who is harmed. Often, people cannot understand how they harm by their words and actions, especially if they are not told about it. In situations where the person does not have serious emotional disturbances, both are responsible for the abuse. If it is unpleasant, painful, offensive to you, but you continue to pretend that everything is normal, neither directly nor indirectly making it clear that such treatment will hurt you, then the other person will not be able to learn about it telepathically, moreover, he can consider, what kind of appeal do you like.

Cruelty, as displaced aggression, is increasingly manifested with the emergence of society and its norms and rules. When a person does not have the opportunity to show dissatisfaction and aggression, defending his point of view in front of an authoritarian boss, then there is a high probability that he will break down in the family. If upbringing in the family is based on controlling one's feelings and complete submission, then over time such a person will show cruelty in all other accessible places. This behavior may indeed look like cruelty, unreasonable, but in fact it is displaced aggression and requires finding constructive ways of implementation.

If in childhood a person was deprived of the experience of pain, did not acquire an understanding of the consequences of his actions, then cruel manifestations can quite often occur in his behavior, without malicious intent, but solely from misunderstanding. A similar condition is similar with pathological abnormalities in the psyche, developmental disorders and decline.

The worst cause of cruelty in terms of its consequences is the desire to avenge the pain suffered. The harmful effects of this category are due to the fact that a person chooses the most painful and terrible ways to get even with the offender - from emotional to physical, often stretching it for a long time period and striking the most sensitive places. This happens when a person's own pain inside a person has burned out all remaining feelings and leads him to madness.

The last reasons for the emergence of cruelty are the most difficult and long-lasting in terms of their rehabilitation, as well as the perception of the world inherent in childhood. A person brought up in cruel conditions believes that this is not only the norm, but also a manifestation of love, and the correction of such a worldview requires tremendous effort, time and does not always end successfully.

Types of cruelty

The types of cruelty can be distinguished according to the object to which it is directed - to people and animals (usually this division is used in legal aspects to impose punishment under a certain article). Another system that distinguishes types of cruelty is based on its manifestation and severity.

So, there is latent cruelty when a person does not act directly. This can be expressed in caustic remarks that look like praise, but at the same time demeaning, or in the accidentally spilled hot coffee right on the lap of another. Overt cruelty, as opposed to the former, is usually a more daring manifestation and a harbinger of negative consequences. Here a big role is played by the previously obtained experience, which remained painful and then a person, at the slightest reminiscent of situations, can react with increased aggressiveness, even when something seemed to him. But in addition to such delicate moments, the infliction of physical suffering, emotional abuse and bullying, intentional humiliation and other manifestations are referred to as open cruelty. The legal framework provides for punishment precisely for open cruelty, since it is the only demonstrable and the most dangerous of all types.

Justified also refers to manifestations of cruelty, when a person perceives everything through certain filters, finds explanations for this, but stubbornly does not want to look at reality. The presentation of everything in gloomy colors and a shift in emphasis to the bad side can spoil life, both for the person himself and for those around him, in addition, it forms a certain type of perception of the world, where everyone is considered enemies or something plotting, which means that they do not deserve mercy. Another manifestation of minor cruelty includes constant bullying, teasing, calling offensive nicknames and other small but destructive daily manifestations.

Various experts suggest different ways to deal with cruelty: it can be imprisonment, compulsory or voluntary psychiatric treatment, psychotherapeutic consultations, change of activity, adjustment of the upbringing process, direct conversation with the designation of unacceptable relationships. It all depends on the form and severity of the manifestation of this personality trait in life.

Human society has been constantly and intensively developing for many centuries. Some eras are replaced by others, progress in all spheres of activity has erected man on the pedestal of the dominant species on planet Earth.

One thing is bad: on the path of progress, everything is changing, but no one with all the aspirations, strengths and possibilities could neither prohibit, nor overcome, nor abolish cruelty. This character trait, like many others, manifests itself in different situations, changing a person to unpredictable consequences.

What is cruelty?

Cruelty is selfish selfishness, envy, hatred and anger towards other people, towards life and towards yourself. This is the result of a lack of success in achieving your own goals and objectives, with deliberate or accidental harm to everything around you.

It's not a secret for anyone: what you sow, you reap - cruelty breeds cruelty. Causing harm to everything around in order to gain benefits for themselves, people do not think about the consequences that will not keep themselves waiting long.

Forms of violence

Cruelty has different forms of manifestation: causing physical pain to a living creature without any pity and compassion, hurtful words, all kinds of actions and even inaction, and often - unhealthy fantasies. She finds a loophole in straightforwardness and stubbornness, in mockery and deceit, in anger and unfriendliness, in intolerance of the mistakes of others.

The worst thing is when cruelty brings pleasure, moral or physical. This is sadism. Moreover, people, animals, plants, buildings, monuments, transport, places of leisure, etc., suffer from the harmful effects.

Causes of cruelty

People are not born cruel. In society, there have always been norms of behavior, ethics and morality, on the border of which cruelty dormant. Abusive people become abusive for many reasons:

1. Inflated or low self-esteem. Dissatisfaction with life and yourself.
2. The concepts of morality and ethics have lost their validity.
3. Self-affirmation in a distorted form as a misunderstanding of the methods of self-preservation.
4. Childhood fears that have survived in adulthood among people who are faced with indifference, cruel punishment and a strict regime of education in childhood.
5. Demonstration of your greatness and power in humiliating, mocking words, oppression and suppression, violence, murder. Sadism is the highest form of cruelty.
6. Pride and, as a result, a sense of revenge.
7. Concealment of personal complexes due to inferiority and weakness.
8. Manifestation of inhumanity in inaction, getting pleasure from it, deliberate refusal to help.

Tolerable cruelty

To gain a deeper understanding of what cruelty is, you need to consider it as a reaction to intolerable circumstances that threaten a person's existence. And the more violent they are, the more the response goes off scale.

The psychology of cruelty is a fine line on which good and evil balance. Is it possible to be a harmless, sympathetic, compliant person for everyone if you are faced with meanness, injustice, humiliation and insults? Probably not. And they are afraid of the cruel, shunned, sometimes even respected.

A tough person is a strong personality. Kindness cannot be opposed to cruelty if human life depends on it. Therefore, cruelty must be developed not for violence, but in order to resist it.

Why are there violent people? Man is by nature a predator. If you look back at the whole history, then the wars with the most brutal destruction of all living things cannot be counted. Therefore, in any developed society, laws are needed, the violation of which is fraught with severe punishment. Cruelty is an integral part of life, which means that you need to learn to live with it and fight, look for new models of behavior.

Examples of violence in everyday life

Every person at least once asked that there is also cruelty, examples of which are found all the time. All media outlets are simply full of reports of outrage and violence. Television, radio, press, Internet, fiction and scientific literature, history textbooks - everywhere you can come across examples of cruelty.

Any historical social order, kings, serfdom, wars, repressions - everything is permeated with cruelty. The cult of cruelty in religions, sacrifice, aggression, intimidation, abuse of power, off-scale crime rates and impunity, terrorism is also cruelty.

In family life, examples of cruelty are suppression of the will, energetic vampirism, creating obstacles to the realization of intellectual, creative and professional opportunities, all kinds of prohibitions in planning offspring, budget, leisure, etc.

And, of course, cruelty to animals is an abyss from which it is impossible to get out. If a person is capable of offending a dumb creature, then it is already difficult to call him a person.

What is cruelty in the children's world

Very often, cruelty is manifested in children who are out of control. Child abuse is primarily associated with unfavorable family relationships. Lack of respect between family members, frequent quarrels in the presence of children reduce the level of trust in parents, from which there is anger and aggression in the child.

Attention, caring, patience, frankness will help protect children from cruelty. A personal role model is very important. The absence of cruelty on the part of parents towards children and people around them will raise the respect in the family to the proper level. Seeing and appreciating a child's personality, reckoning with his opinion and interests, trying to see the world through his eyes is the key to success in the eternal problem of fathers and children.

How to defeat cruelty?

Knowing and understanding what cruelty is, you can take certain measures to protect yourself from it. Among them are simple methods and work on yourself:

1. If you realize that cruelty is evil, then this is the first step towards solving the issue of getting rid of it.
2. You need to love yourself, people and the whole world around you, thereby getting rid of your inner fears.
3. You need to give to the world what you yourself want to receive: mercy, compassion, goodness.
4. Increasing self-esteem, striving for success, public recognition is one of the most effective ways to combat cruelty.
5. Limiting the circle of communication. Surrounded by kind and decent people, the world becomes cleaner.

Thus, cruelty is due to both external and internal factors that are embedded in a person from childhood. We talked not only about our own ability to be cruel, but also about the very attitude towards such a manifestation of other people. Therefore, it is necessary to fight and prevent this character trait from childhood, instilling in the child kindness and mercy to the people around him.

As often yesterday, a person whose character seemed to us almost ideal, shows unheard-of and unexpected cruelty towards others. If we analyze his behavior before such situations, we can find some indirect signs of cruelty and aggressive behavior of a person (hereinafter referred to as the subject). Let's take a look at what to look out for when getting to know the subject and communicating closely with him.

Everything is perfect.

You came on a first date, liked each other, and have cute small conversations. Your new chosen one is well-mannered, restrained, devoid of nervousness and calculates his every action. Stop! Everything is too perfect. It is very difficult to control every little detail of your behavior, especially when you first meet a nice person. This means that the person has put on a mask and is trying to appear better than he really is. The question is, what is the purpose of this behavior? Is it a great desire to please or an unwillingness to show your true self?

Egocentrism.

Everything should go according to the plan and desire of the person. He will never sacrifice personal pleasure in order to please another person. If he needs to accompany a loved one to an event, while missing his favorite auto races, he will choose the latter. We can say that this is ordinary selfishness, and what does cruelty have to do with it? Moreover, in any situation where there will be a choice between the interests of a person and his partner, he will choose his interests, even if, at the same time, the second suffers (physically or psychologically). Failure to put oneself in the place of another and understand the harm caused is also cruelty, albeit not obvious.

Mood.

The subject undergoes an abrupt change in mood if things don't go the way they want. Its internal state is completely dependent on external factors. He does not have self-sufficiency, self-control and independence, thanks to which a person behaves calmly and controls the situation (and not the situation controls him).

Expression of anger.

Frequent emotional outbursts, expressions of anger, even in petty situations. Provoke the person into conflict and see how they behave. He may, due to a petty claim, raise his voice sharply, but quickly become the same. Or raise the tone of the waiter who brought the wrong dish. Or in public transport, rudely scold a person who stepped on his foot. The most truthful emotions last the first couple of seconds, and then a person regains control over himself and becomes good-natured and calm. Therefore, carefully monitor the satellite's first reaction to provoking factors.

Impatience for the opinions of others.

The subject seeks, at any cost, to impose his point of view. And he gets very nervous if he is dealing with a confident and conscious person who has his own opinion on everything. Providing advice, guidance is a desire to control someone else's life. And a cruel person does not recognize someone else's will and point of view other than his own. If your friend started to prove something nervously, interrupting and not letting you put in a word, this is a bad sign. In future relationships, he will control every step of his half, and impose absolutely everything - from clothing style, social circle and ending with a system of values.

Man is a pathological liar. For fear of being rejected, showing his true face, he lies, constantly seeks excuses for his antics and makes others guilty of everything. The comrade does not like to talk about his misdeeds, or he finds excuses. As in the situation:
- Darling, where were you yesterday?
- It's a lie! Who told you?

Unusual situations.

You can find out about the unusual actions that the interlocutor did. Pay attention to the following: participation in extreme situations in which the interests of other people (animals) are affected, all kinds of pranks of friends who, at the same time, experienced fear, resentment, and disappointment. He may accidentally mention such adventures himself.

Coercion into certain sexual activities, while the desires of the other partner are not taken into account. And even on the contrary, knowing about the unwillingness of a person to do something, the desire to achieve it at any cost. The subject does not have an internal boundary, and each time he will invent more and more sophisticated sexual behavior until an unforeseen situation occurs in which someone gets hurt.

Behavior with other people.

Deliberate provoking of conflict situations, causing behavior in society. The subject chooses a victim weaker than him (physically, mentally), and with his peers tries to behave with restraint, to control his actions. Remember, have you ever had situations when in a dangerous situation (hooligans in the alleyway, aggression of wild dogs, etc.) your companion behaved suspiciously, showed cowardice?

For example, you walked holding hands, and a crowd of young people passed by who asked for a smoke. And your young man's hand twitched at the same time, betraying fear, unwillingness to defend himself. If passers-by demanded money, your companion could well leave you and run away. The most interesting thing is that such a person will then find a million reasons to justify his behavior, from rushing to the last tram and ending with a sharp premonition of a suddenly turned on iron at home.

Family behavior.

In a relationship, a person seeks to take a dominant place, while humiliating the dignity of loved ones. If he is not rebuffed, he becomes convinced of the correctness of his behavior and aggravates the abuse. An indirect sign of cruelty in the family can be a biased attitude towards children, in which it is important not to understand the situation, namely to find the child's guilt and a reason for subsequent punishment.

It is very difficult to immediately reveal the hidden cruelty of the interlocutor. This can be done only when a stressful situation arises in which a person cannot control himself and behaves naturally. With a strong desire, you can specifically create such a situation in order to look at the reaction of a new acquaintance. In any case, if there are even several points described in this article in a person's behavior, it is worth taking a closer look at him more closely and objectively. And draw conclusions on further communication with him.

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