In the book “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil” allows readers to join the author, Phil Zimbardo, on a journey. Zimbardo compares his 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment to the prison abuses in Abu Ghraib in 2003. In the first chapter, Zimbardo poses the question, “Am I capable of being evil?” This question presents opportunity for experimentation in which Zimbardo takes full initiative. To better dissect the experiment, Zimbardo created three tiered analytical categories: The Person, The Situation, and The System. These categories break down the main components of the experiment, and individualize the factors that contributed to the “evilness” of the subjects. The title of the book and name of the theory, The Lucifer Effect, refers to the story from the Bible of the extreme transformation of Lucifer from God’s favorite angel to what is now know as the Devil. The book is a presentation of the transformation from a good person to a bad person; the journey …show more content…
Every Person had their own previous experiences and ties to the free world before being a part of this study. 2. They were all placed into this Situation. 3. It was within a System all of which was ultimately created by Zimbardo, who also fell victim to his own experiment. (by the fifth chapter, he had already been consumed by his role, even experiencing backlash of his own) The most interesting thing that I took from The Lucifer Effect was the fact that people use dispositional factors to avoid confronting the situation and systemic flaws that have existed for decades and still existing now. We as humans subconsciously create defense mechanisms to protect our mental and emotional health. Also, as humans, we tend to underestimate situations that we ourselves are not involved in. Zimbardo emphasizes that understanding evil is not excusing it but merely questioning it. Everyone should learn to be responsible for their own actions because the individual can learn how to resist immoral
Claudia Card begins by questioning the difference between wrong and evil. How do we know when something crosses the line between being just wrong, to being an evil act? How does hatred and motive play a part in this? How can people psychologically maintain a sense of who they are when they have been the victims of evil? Card attempts to explain these fundamental questions using her theory of evil; the Atrocity Paradigm (Card, pg.3).
Marianne Szegedy-Maszak, a senior writer at U.S. News and World, published her article, "The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal: Sources of Sadism," in 2004. She uses the article to briefly overview the scandal as a whole before diving into what can trigger sadistic behavior. The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal took place in 2004, wherein American troops humiliated and tortured Iraqi detainees (Szegedy-Maszak 75). The main objective of Szegedy-Maszak’s article is to investigate the causation behind sadistic behavior, exclusively in the Abu Ghraib Prison scandal. She effectively does so by gathering information and research from professional psychologists and professors of psychology, specifically Herbert Kelman and Robert Okin (Szegedy-Maszak 76). She finds
Things have gotten too out of hand, and situations will get much worse. Ethically speaking, Zimbardo made the right call because if the experiment continues, it would have been detrimental to the prisoner’s psyche. Zimbardo explains the event that occurred by stating, “The power of this situation ran swiftly and deeply through most of those on this exploratory ship of human nature. Only a few were able to resist the situational temptations to yield to power and dominance while maintaining some semblance of morality and decency. Obviously, I was not among the noble class (171).” By saying this, Zimbardo is fully aware that he let things get out of hand too
“Our young research participants were not the proverbial “Bad Apples” in an otherwise good barrel. Rather, out experimental design ensured that they were initially good apples and were corrupted by the insidious power of the bad barrel, this prison (229).” Philip Zimbardo, author of The Lucifer Effect, created an experiment of twenty-four college age men. He randomly assigned these ordinary, educated, young men with a role as either Guard or Prisoner. He questions whether or not good people will do bad things if they are given the opportunity. After the experiment is complete, he begins to compare the situations that occurred in the Stanford Prison Experiment with real life situations in Abu Giraib and Guantanamo Bay Prison. He points out many similarities that parallel the Stanford Prison Experiment. In every situation depicted, there is a good person in a seemingly “bad barrel” – or a bad situation that brings bad actions out of a good person.
The problem of evil is inescapable in this fallen world. From worldwide terror like the Holocaust to individual evils like abuse, evil touches every life. However, evil is not a creation of God, nor was it in His perfect will. As Aleksandr
Even the researchers themselves began to lose sight of the reality of the situation. Zimbardo, who acted as the prison warden, overlooked the abusive behavior of the prison guards until graduate student Christina Maslach voiced objections to the conditions in the simulated prison and the morality of continuing the experiment. "Only a few people were able to resist the situational temptations to yield to power and dominance while maintaining some semblance of morality and decency; obviously I was not among that noble class," Zimbardo later wrote in his book The Lucifer Effect (Zimbardo, 2007). According to Zimbardo and his colleagues, the Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrates the powerful role that the situation can play in human behavior. Because the guards were placed in a position of power, they began to behave in ways they would not normally act in their everyday lives or in other situations. The prisoners, placed in a situation where they had no real control, became passive and
It explains how can good people become perpetrators of evil and commit dreadful crimes. In the book, Zimbardo highlighted three psychological truth. First is that the world full with both evil and good, the barrier between the two is absorbent, and angels and devils can switch. Zimbardo claims that the one easily switch from someone good to someone who can hardly recognize himself or herself. He suggest that the one must be watchful and be stronger that the circumstances. In military and especially during war, the have no time to watch himself and see the person that they are turning to because they think that this is their job and it is orders that they can not disobey. Zimbardo utter that when the one is believed that others will be responsible for his or her actions, the one believe that they can act incognito and thinking that they people who are suffering are not as important. According to Zimbardo the conditions of the situation is what influence personal
When put into an authoritative position over others, is it possible to claim that with this new power individual(s) would be fair and ethical or could it be said that ones true colors would show? A group of researchers, headed by Stanford University psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo, designed and executed an unusual experiment that used a mock prison setting, with college students role-playing either as prisoners or guards to test the power of the social situation to determine psychological effects and behavior (1971). The experiment simulated a real life scenario of William Golding’s novel, “Lord of the Flies” showing a decay and failure of traditional rules and morals; distracting exactly how people should behave toward one another. This research, known more commonly now as the Stanford prison experiment, has become a classic demonstration of situational power to influence individualistic perspectives, ethics, and behavior. Later it is discovered that the results presented from the research became so extreme, instantaneous and unanticipated were the transformations of character in many of the subjects that this study, planned originally to last two-weeks, had to be discontinued by the sixth day. The results of this experiment were far more cataclysmic and startling than anyone involved could have imagined. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the discoveries from Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment and of Burrhus Frederic “B.F.” Skinner’s study regarding the importance of environment.
In the video Philip Zimbardo was talking about how evil was the exercise of power. First he went into the examples using American soldiers and how they abused prisoners during the Abu Ghraib Trials. He then went on to explain why the soldiers did this, what was the “Bad-Apples”, “Bad-Barrels”, and the “Bad-Barrel Makers”. He explained the Lucifer Effect, what makes us behave different (kind or cruel, villains or heroes, ect.). He showed an experiment where a dozen college students were given real-life prison examples and had to be stopped because most of the kids had emotional breakdowns. He explains how psychologist have attempted to understand why people act the way inhumanely in certain circumstances and explain
When taking in new information it is natural to rationalize every behavior, event or phenomenon, in order to understand that new knowledge. We want a clear, logical and reasonable explanation of why we behave like this, or think like that. However, in order to reach the goal of understanding, sometimes we make up reasons to excuse, and claim that it is the truth. In “Immune to Reality,” Daniel Gilbert believes that when we face negative situations, especially extreme negatives, we naturally build up a “psychological immune system” to protect ourselves. This system automatically organizes, then reasons in order to explain the negatives and comfort our ill feelings. This type of self-deception helps us to emotionally survive the negativity; it
Lucifer in Starlight by George Meredith Examining a poem in detail can bring out new meanings and ideas. By careful analysis, the full beauty of the poem can be appreciated. The poem "Lucifer in Starlight (p. 959)", by George Meredith, can be analyzed to refine the authors purpose, by examining every subtle hint, every possibility, for a deeper theme. Also, "deciphering" formal literary techniques such as metaphor, connotation, and symbolism is the key to unlock other expressions. The main theme of the poem is that Lucifer has no place out of his hell, and anything he tries to reenter heaven is futile.
Becoming Evil is such a valuable resource and has helped further understand the societal, cultural and psychological aspects of genocide and mass killings. However, it also provides further insight on why people do evil. Becoming Evil is separated into three parts which allows the reader to develop their own thoughts while Waller provides his opinions and the opinions of others on certain situations. The person writing this paper believes that Becoming Evil can be integrated into the course material to give students another viewpoint on the forces of evil that have plagued our world for the last
Many fatal consequences, caused by illogical reactions to problematic situations, can be avoided through a few easy, simple and “common sense” steps. In the essay “Deadly Mind Traps” author Jeff Wise writes to the everyday man and woman. Mr. Wise in his essay explains how the average person can make deadly mistakes even though logically they make little sense. Wise, offers multiple key terms to help the reader better understand his reasoning for his thesis. As well as, Wise produces multiple examples for the reader to connect the key terms to real life situations. Moreover, Wise not only gives key terms and examples to support his thesis he also gives examples of how to stay out of those situations. Wise from his essay demonstrates that his reader is an everyday person by using words such as we, us, you and our. And he uses everyday simplified words and terms which suggest inclusion instead of exclusion.
The results of committing evil acts have such a powerful effect on the human mind, that it is eventually destroyed by it.
Zimbardo, P. G. (2004). A Situationist Perspective on the Psychology of Evil: Understanding how good people are transformed into perptrators. In A. G. Miller (Ed.), The Social Psychology of Good and Evil (pp.21-50). New York: Guilford press.