Synonyms
Definition
Civil courage (or moral courage) can be defined as (1) an act to help (2) other living beings (3) at the risk of personal disadvantages.
Civil courage, also known as moral courage, is defined as an act to help other living beings at the risk of personal disadvantages. The three main components included in this summarizing definition refer to the three recurring characteristics from the various definitions of civil courage based on broad and interdisciplinary literature on this topic (Osswald et al. 2010; Sasse et al. 2022; Sekerka and Bagozzi 2007; Willems 2021; Williams et al. 2022).
Different forms of civil courage can be distinguished, depending on the extent to which these three characteristics are either strictly or broadly applied. The goal of this contribution is not to argue that some or all of these criteria have to be present in a particular way in order to talk about civil courage. In contrast, the goal is to clarify different approaches to...
References
Bardi, Anat, and Shalom H. Schwartz. 2003. Values and behavior: Strength and structure of relations. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 29 (10): 1207–1220. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167203254602.
Brandstätter, Veronika, Kai J. Jonas, Svenja H. Koletzko, and Peter Fischer. 2016. Self-regulatory processes in the appraisal of moral courage situations. Social Psychology 47 (4): 201–213. https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-9335/a000274.
Dolsak, Nives, and Aseem Prakash. 2022. Will hurling tomato soup on Van Gogh’s sunflowers advance climate policy? Forbes, October 19, 2022. https://www.forbes.com/sites/prakashdolsak/2022/10/19/will-hurling-tomato-soup-on-van-goghs-sunflowers-advance-climate-policy/?sh=1c3ec63d4997
Greitemeyer, Tobias, Peter Fischer, Andreas Kastenmüller, and Dieter Frey. 2006. Civil courage and helping behavior: Differences and similarities. European Psychologist 11 (2): 90–98. https://doi.org/10.1027/1016-9040.11.2.90.
Greitemeyer, Tobias, Silvia Osswald, Peter Fischer, and Dieter Frey. 2007. Civil courage: Implicit theories, related concepts, and measurement. The Journal of Positive Psychology 2 (2): 115–119. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760701228789.
Hortensius, Ruud, and Beatrice de Gelder. 2018. From empathy to apathy: The bystander effect revisited. Current Directions in Psychological Science 27 (4): 249–256. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721417749653.
Jonas, Kai J., and Veronika Brandstätter. 2004. Zivilcourage. Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie 35 (4): 185–200. https://doi.org/10.1024/0044-3514.35.4.185.
Kayser, Niesta, Tobias Greitemeyer Daniela, Peter Fischer, and Dieter Frey. 2010. Why mood affects help giving, but not moral courage: Comparing two types of prosocial behaviour. European Journal of Social Psychology 40 (7): 1136–1157. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.717.
Kinnunen, Suna P., Marjaana Lindeman, and Markku Verkasalo. 2016. Help-giving and moral courage on the Internet. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace 10 (4). https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2016-4-6.
Misztal, Barbara A. 2015. Civil courage: Its role in the contemporary world and its place in social science. Stan Rzeczy 2 (9): 18–42. https://doi.org/10.51196/srz.9.2.
Osswald, Silvia, Tobias Greitemeyer, Peter Fischer, and Dieter Frey. 2010. What is moral courage? Definition, explication, and classification of a complex construct. In The psychology of courage: Modern research on an ancient virtue, ed. Cynthia L.S. Pury and Shane J. Lopez, 149–164. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/12168-008.
Osswald, Silvia, Dieter Frey, and Bernhard Streicher. 2011. Moral courage. In Justice and conflicts, ed. Elisabeth Kals and Jürgen Maes, 391–405. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-19035-3_24.
Plötner, Maria, Harriet Over, Malinda Carpenter, and Michael Tomasello. 2015. Young children show the bystander effect in helping situations. Psychological Science 26 (4): 499–506. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615569579.
Pury, Cynthia L.S., Robin M. Kowalski, and Jana Spearman. 2007. Distinctions between general and personal courage. The Journal of Positive Psychology 2 (2): 99–114. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760701237962.
Sasse, Julia, Mengyao Li, and Anna Baumert. 2022. How prosocial is moral courage? Current Opinion in Psychology 44 (April): 146–150. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.09.004.
Sekerka, Leslie E., and Richard P. Bagozzi. 2007. Moral courage in the workplace: Moving to and from the desire and decision to act. Business Ethics: A European Review 16 (2): 132–149. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8608.2007.00484.x.
Song, Jiyeon, and Insoo Oh. 2017. Investigation of the bystander effect in school bullying: Comparison of experiential, psychological and situational factors. School Psychology International 38 (3): 319–336. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143034317699997.
van Bommel, Marco, Jan-Willem van Prooijen, Henk Elffers, and Paul A.M. Van Lange. 2012. Be aware to care: Public self-awareness leads to a reversal of the bystander effect. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 48 (4): 926–930. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2012.02.011.
van Bommel, Marco, Jan-Willem van Prooijen, Henk Elffers, and Paul A.M. van Lange. 2014. Intervene to be seen: The power of a camera in attenuating the bystander effect. Social Psychological and Personality Science 5 (4): 459–466. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550613507958.
Willems, Jurgen. 2021. Learning civil courage: A citizens’ perspective. Educational Researcher 50 (9): 679–681. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X211044159.
Williams, Monnica T., Sonya Faber, Arghavan Nepton, and Terence H.W. Ching. 2022. Racial justice Allyship requires civil courage: A behavioral prescription for moral growth and change. American Psychologist. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000940.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Willems, J. (2023). Civil Courage. In: Encyclopedia of Heroism Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17125-3_192-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17125-3_192-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-17125-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-17125-3
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences