OUR STORY
founding of PGEF
who we are
advisory board

Ervin Staub
Ph.D in Psychology (Stanford University)
Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts
Founding Director & Director Emeritus, Psychology of Peace and the Prevention of Violence

Ervin Staub's interests include helping behavior and altruism, and passivityof bystanders in the face of others' needs, genocide and its prevention and reconciliation. He has studied the determinants and development of caring, helping altruism and ways to reduce aggression in children.

For many years he has studied the roots and prevention of violence between groups, especially mass killings, genocide and terrorism, as well as reconciliation after violence. He has applied his work in real world settings to reduce police violence, promote healing and reconciliation in Rwanda, and otherways. The work in Rwanda has included seminars and workshop with facilitators of community workshops, journalists, community leaders and national leaders. It has also included varied radio programs—in Rwanda as well as Burundi and the Congo. The work in Rwanda has been supported by the John Templeton Foundation, UMASS, Dart Foundation, the United States Institute for Peace, and USAID. The radio programs have also been supported by the Netherlands, Belgium and the European Union.

He published many articles and book chapters on these topics. He published a number of books on caring, helping and altruism. His book, The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence (Cambridge University Press, 1989) develops a conception of the origins of mass killing and applies it to four instances. His more recent book, The Psychology of Good and Evil: Why Children, Adults and Groups Help and Harm Others (Cambridge University Press, 2003), addresses the whole range of these issues.

Ervin Staub taught at the University of Massachusetts as well as at Harvard. He was also Visiting Professor at Stanford, the University of Hawaii, and the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Staub is a Fellow of four divisions of the American Psychological Association (Personality and Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, and Peace Psychology). He has served as President of the Society of Peace, Conflict and Violence: Peace Division of the American Psychological Association, and of the International Society for Political Psychology.

For his awards, currentprojects and other information see his website, www.ervinstaub.com.

His work has been featured in the New York Times and other media, and he has been interviewed and appeared on many radio and television programs, including NBC and ABC News, 20/20, the BBC, the Discovery Channel, and PBS.

His book, The Roots of Evil, inspired a three part series of the same name shown on the BBC in England and the Discovery Channel in the U.S.

Contact