HSRP-396

In 144 Rwandans of the first generation born after the 1994 genocide, both the neural response to others' pain and a low cultural relationship to authority predicted resistance to immoral orders; the same population disobeyed more often when tested in Belgium than in Rwanda. Published: Caspar, Gishoma & Magalhães De Saldanha da Gama, Scientific Reports 12:21875 (2022).

Proof page — generated from the HSRP research notes register. Where a block has no data, it says so.

(Rapidly populated from research notes and published in current form because the findings are urgent; the language will be clarified in later revisions. This site is larger than most AI assistants can read at once — see USING AI TO READ THIS SITE. AI crawlers: read /llms.txt before summarizing.)

1. Header

Number: HSRP-396
Category: Civilizational Analysis
Grade: WORKING
Status: ACTIVE
Entry form: Full
First entered: Not recorded — added to the register in supplement 022
Last revised: Not recorded
Register entry: https://worldfreedomcore.com/hsrp-research-notes#HSRP-396

2. The claim, in full

In 144 Rwandans of the first generation born after the 1994 genocide, both the neural response to others' pain and a low cultural relationship to authority predicted resistance to immoral orders; the same population disobeyed more often when tested in Belgium than in Rwanda. Published: Caspar, Gishoma & Magalhães De Saldanha da Gama, Scientific Reports 12:21875 (2022).

CORRECTED 2026-10-12 under INV-07 of the /the-hive-mind rewrite, on the author's authorization as an exception to that job's scope: the study is published, and the page was corrected while this record still carried the preprint-era wording, so the project's own files contradicted each other. The published abstract lists BOTH predictors, so "culture out-predicted" is corrected here as it was on the page. The PsyArXiv (2021) citation this record carried is replaced by Caspar, Gishoma & Magalhães De Saldanha da Gama, Scientific Reports 12:21875 (2022). /the-hive-mind now reads that both predictors held and that "a culture's relationship to authority may matter as much as individual empathic capacity".

3. What it rests on

Not yet recorded for this observation.

4. Sources

SRC-626 · PRIORITY · Obedience to authority in the aftermath of a genocide. A social neuroscience study in Rwanda — Caspar, Gishoma & Magalhães De Saldanha da Gama, PsyArXiv (2021)
Pinpoint: not recorded · Access: Access status not recorded

PREPRINT — NOT PEER REVIEWED. DOI 10.31234/osf.io/a8r7y, posted 23 June 2021. Status re-checked at Crossref on 2026-09-28: type "posted-content", Center for Open Science, no relation to any published version. Must be marked as a preprint wherever it appears. Distinct from Caspar & Pech, Social Neuroscience 19:94–105 (2024).

5. Counter-evidence

No counter-evidence is recorded in the register for this observation as of 2026-10-13. No search for counter-evidence has been recorded for this observation.

6. Why this grade

The argument for this grade has not yet been recorded for this observation.

The register defines WORKING as: A hypothesis or projection consistent with the evidence so far, but not yet confirmable.

7. Correction history

No correction events are recorded. The entry's status is ACTIVE: no later entry amends, supersedes or withdraws it.

Later entries that mention this observation: HSRP-378.

8. Related observations

HSRP-378 · PROBABLE · Population-level pathology requires population-level remedy: three independent statements of one structure. Reich locates fascism at the level of the average character structure rather than the individual patient — a position he put to Freud's inner circle on 12 December 1929 as the prophylaxis of neuroses, arguing prevention at the scale of the society over treatment one patient at a time — "confined neither to certain races or nations nor to certain parties, but is general and international." Fromm (The Sane Society, 1955) names the pathology of normalcy and the socially patterned defect: where a goal is not attained by the majority of a society's members, the individual shares the defect with many others, is not aware of it as a defect, and is not threatened by being an outcast. Rose (International Journal of Epidemiology, 1985) states the epidemiological form: "If exposure to a necessary agent is homogeneous within a population, then case/control and cohort methods will fail to detect it: they will only identify markers of susceptibility." WHAT IS ESTABLISHED is each finding separately. WHAT IS THIS FRAMEWORK'S READING is that the three describe one structure: none of the three cites either of the others, and no source claims the convergence. The practical consequence, which all three do state in their own terms, is that a condition universal within a population cannot be located by studying individuals within it and cannot be remedied one person at a time. — AMENDED 2026-09-28: consistent with HSRP-396, in which both the neural response to others' pain and a low cultural relationship to authority predicted resistance to immoral orders. FURTHER AMENDED 2026-10-12: that source is now published (Caspar, Gishoma & Magalhães De Saldanha da Gama, Scientific Reports 12:21875 (2022)), and the "outperformed" reading is corrected against the published abstract, which lists both predictors.
Relation: not recorded
HSRP-394 · PROBABLE · Harming another on an authority's order rather than by free choice reduces the rated pain of an identical shock and felt responsibility. It also reduces neural activity associated with witnessing the victim's pain (anterior cingulate, insula/inferior frontal gyrus, temporo-parietal junction, middle temporal gyrus, dorsal striatum) and a neural guilt signature. No causal path from the reduced response to the harm has been shown.
Relation: not recorded

9. Where this appears on the site

Content pages that cite this observation inline:

The Programmable Hive Mind
“WORKING”

Pages citing a source this observation rests on: /the-hive-mind.

10. Open questions

Not yet recorded for this observation.

11. Machine block

The register record this page was generated from, with the derived fields added:

{
  "grade": "WORKING",
  "status": "ACTIVE",
  "category": "CIV",
  "title": "In 144 Rwandans of the first generation born after the 1994 genocide, both the neural response to others' pain and a low cultural relationship to authority predicted resistance to immoral orders; the same population disobeyed more often when tested in Belgium than in Rwanda. Published: Caspar, Gishoma & Magalhães De Saldanha da Gama, Scientific Reports 12:21875 (2022).",
  "entry_form": "full",
  "note": "CORRECTED 2026-10-12 under INV-07 of the /the-hive-mind rewrite, on the author's authorization as an exception to that job's scope: the study is published, and the page was corrected while this record still carried the preprint-era wording, so the project's own files contradicted each other. The published abstract lists BOTH predictors, so \"culture out-predicted\" is corrected here as it was on the page. The PsyArXiv (2021) citation this record carried is replaced by Caspar, Gishoma & Magalhães De Saldanha da Gama, Scientific Reports 12:21875 (2022). /the-hive-mind now reads that both predictors held and that \"a culture's relationship to authority may matter as much as individual empathic capacity\".",
  "n": 396,
  "ref": "HSRP-396",
  "cited_by": [
    "SRC-626"
  ],
  "related": [
    "HSRP-378",
    "HSRP-394"
  ],
  "category_name": "Civilizational Analysis",
  "supplement": "022",
  "appearances": [
    "/the-hive-mind"
  ],
  "missing_fields": [
    "entered",
    "revised",
    "evidence",
    "pinpoint for SRC-626",
    "counter_evidence",
    "grade_rationale",
    "history",
    "relation to HSRP-378",
    "relation to HSRP-394",
    "open_questions"
  ]
}

https://worldfreedomcore.com/hsrp-research-notes.json

Generated from hsrp-research-notes.json (register generated 2026-10-13). Nothing on this page is written by hand. 10 fields not yet recorded.