Source A
Yang, Grace Danging. “Cognitive Dissonance, Social Psychology, and Unit 731.” University
Writing Program: Brandeis University. www.brandeis.edu/writing-program/write-
now/2022-2023/yang-grace/index.html. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.
The following excerpt is from a student research paper. The paper examines Japan’s Unit 731, a
covert research and development unit for the Japanese Army during WWII, and considered one of
the most disturbing war crimes of the war.
When discussing war crimes, dehumanization is often assumed as a factor. However, when
examining Unit 731 more closely, it becomes clear that the victims’ use to researchers
was because of their humanity, and that dehumanization was not the primary mechanism that drove
the researchers to commit atrocities. These perpetrators dehumanized their victims in their official
terminology and everyday talk to rationalize their actions to themselves, but they did not truly
believe that their victims were not human. Looking beyond dehumanization, we find their actions
can be explained at least in part by a complex interplay of selfish motivations with evolutionary
group-oriented mechanisms.
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While distressing, studying atrocities like Unit 731 is an important first step to making sure they
never happen again. Unit 731 shows us that unethical human experimentation is not unique to
Auschwitz or to Tuskegee but comes from universal, evolutionary psychological mechanisms. Unit
731 shows us how our evolved tendency to act for the good of the group can turn ugly when our
judgment is clouded. Unit 731 demonstrates the power of cognitive dissonance in using a clearly
false dehumanizing belief to justify horrific war crimes that were driven ultimately by conformity
and obedience. While the perpetrators must have understood, on some level, that their victims were
human, they used dehumanization to justify their actions. These actions were ultimately motivated
by the interplay of simpler, selfish motives with the more powerful group-oriented motivations of
conformity and obedience.
Japanese Unit 731: A History of War-Time
Horror
The grief and terror caused by Japanese experimentation during The Second World War.
Unit 731, was a covert research and development unit for the Japanese Army during the Second
Sino-Japanese War as well as the Second World War. It conducted biological and chemical
warfare research, pushing the limits of human experimentation leading to some of the most
notorious war crimes ever committed. Despite this, the research conducted there also resulted in
some of the most profound discoveries; thus, leading to discourse on whether they should be
used or not. Granted they may be some of the most important research at the time, the methods
used to get them were inhumane and extremely unethical. CCTV’s Guan Yang tells this story
from the remains of the headquarters of Unit 731 in northeastern China’s Harbin city.
Directors: CCTV, Presented by Guan Yang, reporter
Date: 13 November , 2016
This video can be viewed at the link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT6z0wRPAwg
