The criminology specialist reviews the recent crime statistics and tries to find the causes of the dramatic upswing in the wave of crimes. In addition to the evident connections between multiple disadvantage and crime, he surveys the psychological types of family influences promoting crime, the crisis of institutions and the changes of social values with special regard to the radical growth of value of material wealth.

The author discusses the psychological causes of the current extreme right-wing tendencies in contemporary Germany. He underlines the role played by increased social tensions (and the consequential increase in disappointment) in the gaining ground of right-wing trends. He stresses the need for making fine distinctions when analysing the causes of racism and chauvinism. (See e.g. the difference between great power, conquering chauvinism and the chauvinism of crisis stricken groups aimed at excluding competition.) He sees the means countering extreme right-wing attitudes in the extension of direct democracy. He calls attention to the fact that the ideas of "people" or "people's power" can be interpreted both democratically and nationalistically: and the future will greatly depend on which of these two will win.

The study tries to determine the ideas and functions of belief and ethics. The authors seek an answer to the question why did the new moral paradigm which was attempted to be created by the socialist movements fail? Finally, the article attempts to find out under what conditions does a truly new moral paradigm have a chance to be realised?

The outstanding Hungarian born American social psychologist discusses the psychological conditions of genocide in this study which was so successful at the 2nd European Congress of Psychologists. He primarily relies on the experiences of the massacre of the Armenians early this century, the Cambodian reign of terror, the Argentine military dictatorship and the persecution of Jews in fascist Germany. He shows the process by which groups under social frustration get to the relief of murder inhibitions – arriving there step by step from the stage of the devaluation of scapegoat groups -, and on the other hand, he analyses the psychological changes of the "bystanders", as the passivity of these people is an important precondition of carrying out the aggression. At the end, he calls attention to the fact that the same mechanisms can be mobilised against the minority selected to be the scapegoat, be they ethnic, religious or political groups.