The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
What makes good people do bad things? How can moral people be seduced to act immorally? Where is the line separating good from evil, and who is in danger of crossing it?
Renowned social psychologist Philip Zimbardo has the answers, and in The Lucifer Effect he explains how–and the myriad reasons why–we are all susceptible to the lure of “the dark side.” Drawing on examples from history as well as his own trailblazing research, Zimbardo details how situational forces and group dynamics can work in concert to make monsters out of decent men and women.
Zimbardo is perhaps best known as the creator of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Here, for the first time and in detail, he tells the full story of this landmark study, in which a group of college-student volunteers was randomly divided into “guards” and “inmates” and then placed in a mock prison environment. Within a week the study was abandoned, as ordinary college students were transformed into either brutal, sadistic guards or emotionally broken prisoners.
By illuminating the psychological causes behind such disturbing metamorphoses, Zimbardo enables us to better understand a variety of harrowing phenomena, from corporate malfeasance to organized genocide to how once upstanding American soldiers came to abuse and torture Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib. He replaces the long-held notion of the “bad apple” with that of the “bad barrel”–the idea that the social setting and the system contaminate the individual, rather than the other way around.
This is a book that dares to hold a mirror up to mankind, showing us that we might not be who we think we are. While forcing us to reexamine what we are capable of doing when caught up in the crucible of behavioral dynamics, though, Zimbardo also offers hope. We are capable of resisting evil, he argues, and can even teach ourselves to act heroically. Like Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem and Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate, The Lucifer Effect is a shocking, engrossing study that will change the way we view human behavior.
From the Hardcover edition.
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars Interesting Story Book Worth Reading
Initially I bought the book thinking it was a pop-psychology book offering analysis and explanations on why good people turn evil. However, this book turns out to be, in my opinion, more of a story-telling book than a pop-science book. And it is a very addictive story book, taking the reader through one of the most well-known psychological study (Stanford Prison Experiment) to a modern world shaping event (Abu Ghraib scandal), with various analysis and other experiments mentioned along the way. It gives you the insights to human psychology, as well as the mind of the author - the experimenter of the Standford Prison Experiment and expert witness for the Abu Ghraib scandal.
5 Stars Excellent
Excellent. A punch in the face to anyone who thinks of him or herself as a good person.
1 Stars JUNK SCIENCE
None of the ‘guards’ had training or experiences as guards, and none of the ‘prisoners’ had any experiences as prisoners; everyone was acting how they imagined prisoners and guards should act.
The book is a disappointment.
2 Stars A deeply flawed argument: Emerging evidence behind the Stanford Prison Study
There is no problem in making the argument that it is possible for “good people” to commit evil actions. There is much research evidence, particular from the study of the psychology of genocide, to support this argument. There is a huge problem, however, with using the Stanford Prison Study as evidence to support this argument.
As a brief illustration, while Zimbardo claims that “the power of the situation was stronger than that of the individual” in the prison study, there is much evidence to suggest that the manner in which people behaved can be traced directly to their personalities. For example, it takes a certain kind of person to sign up for a 2 week simulation study of “prison life” in the first place. We even have experimental evidence to back up this logical assumption (see Carnahan & McFarland, 2007 in Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin). People who sign up for a prison study are likely higher in aggressiveness, authoritarianism, machiavellianism, narcicissm, and social dominance, and lower on empathy and altruism. The 24 who were invited to participate in the study were not randomly selected from the 75 who signed up. The 12 invited to be prisoners did not last the full 6 days either - what is more, those who stayed in scored more than 4 times as high on authoritarianism as those who dropped out (correlation of .90!!!).
Ultimately though, with heaps of methodological problems (including experimenter interference, no clear hypotheses, no control group - hence not the Stanford Prison “Experiment” but the Stanford Prison Study) the SPS does not tell us about the power of the situation. It tells us much more about the power of personality. Remember Zimbardo describing the participants: “there were 3 kinds of guards (sadistic, obedient, lenient) and 3 kinds of prisoners (those who resisted or fought back, obedient ones, and those who broke down).” More evidence of different personalities reacting differently in the same situation.
Zimbardo has done some good research, but this is not it. Sadly this is what he chooses to keep talking about. Very sad that a leading figure in social psychology continues to write and talk about a very, very faulty conclusion. One really has to suspend all critical thinking to accept his conclusions.
Other references that might help include Reicher & Haslam’s BBC prison study, as well as Zimbardo’s own 1972 publication (which lists that correlation of .90).
4 Stars Why good people do bad things.
Philip Zimbardo’s “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil” is an engaging look at (primarily) how prison systems can force good people to do bad things. Overall, the book is sympathetic; Zimbardo takes a psychologist’s approach to things, and never fails to implicate himself in wrong-doings.
What wrong-doings could there be? In 1971, Zimbardo was in charge of what has become known as the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE), where college students were given one of two roles: A prisoner or a prison guard. They were to hold this role (the prisoners day-in and day-out) for two weeks. The result: The guards began abusing their power, so much so that the experiment had to be called off after less than a week. Zimbardo gives a day-by-day account of the experiment. He then goes on to analyze the horrors of Abu Ghraib, where Army Reserve MPs needless tortured and humiliated prisoners. The comparison is understandable: Zimbardo was an expert witness for one of the guards, and, as he proudly points out, his SPE was even mentioned in one of the investigations into Abu Ghraib.
“The Lucifer Effect” is at its strongest in the first half. Zimbardo is clearly a psychologist first and a writer second; but despite the repetition and sometimes awkward phrasing, his blow-by-blow account of the SPE is riveting and thought-provoking. The book meanders a bit near the end, as he goes on to condemn the Bush administration, and even steps out of the prison restrictions he has set himself, and looks at the Iraq conflict in general. It all ties in to a theme he has built himself–we should blame the System, and not the Person–but that premise could easily have provided material for another book. “The Lucifer Effect” is best when it is looking into the psychology of being a prison guard, of what people do when placed into such a situation. As such, it is an interesting, engaging insight into what makes a person “evil.”
Filed under: Mental Health Book Reviews