In 1948, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, however it has not had the envisaged impact. Over the next decades, the crimes of the Holocaust were followed by several episodes of mass murders and genocides. In addition to the high number of fatalities and devastating reports on consequences, the debate on genocide also exposes the presence of apathy and the inaction of bystanders in response to atrocities. Since genocides are often ignored by nations and general public, it is important to analyse the factors that cause apathy. Among others, the media, geographical and cultural distance of the tragedy, and the lack of feeling of similarity with victims may contribute to apathy. In search of the psychological deficiencies causing individuals to behave indifferently towards the tragedies of such a big scale, studies show the inability of numbers to convey meaning and trigger the emotions needed to motivate actions. This is known as psychophysical numbing, a phenomenon denoting that in crisis situations people tend to feel more compassion towards one victim than towards many victims, which leads to lack of response to the tragedies of larger dimensions, such as genocide. The purpose of this Master's thesis is to analyse the root causes which contribute to the feeling of apathy in individuals when mass killings are taking place. Theoretical discussion on possible causes will be based on the analysis of primary and secondary literary sources, while the empirical part will look at how psychophysical numbing contributes to the feeling of apathy in individuals during genocides through the lens of analytical questionnaire.
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