The Psychology of Courage

Courage has always been considered a pivotal virtue in all cultures but until now, comparatively little systematic research has been conducted. This book from the American Psychological Association provides an extensive overview of current work, beginning with philosophical roots of courage in the writings of Aristotle, the Stoics and even Sartre. Physical courage is distinguished from moral or psychological courage and in turn from vital courage shown in putting up with hardship and illness and fighting for life. Moral courage is about doing what is best and authentic, a focus for existentialist writing. Various features of the meaning of courage are examined and frameworks presented including dispositions, characteristics, cognitive processes and behavioural responses. There are sections on basic research and theory, the courageous mindset, the nature of moral courage, and courage related to leadership and its role in social life. The conclusion points the way forward and reminds readers of the relationship between moral courage and disobedience as discovered in the experiments by Stanley Milgram when he pressurised his subjects apparently to inflict harm on other people. The last word has to go to Mark Twain, who said that 'courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.'