The question that the Lucifer Effect book as us is what makes good people do bad things? Zimbardo explains how and why we are all susceptible to the lure of “the dark side.” Getting history from his researches Zimbardo conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment and detail how situational forces and group dynamics can work in concert to make monsters out of decent men and women. The book highlights and summarizes the way individuals can resist the temptation to give into evil from the prisoner abuse and torture in Abu Ghraib to organized genocide. Before reading this book I wasn’t interested in it and seeing the name of the book. When I saw Lucifer written in bold letter I was like oh no am I going to read about gothic, evilness, the devil. …show more content…
There are consequences for each individual’s action but in Zimbardo perspective there was only one that was similar to Kant’s theory on Categorical Imperative. Zimbardo theory is more similar to Aristotle over yes they should face the consequences but we have to examined on what that individual did before we punish them look at the environment they were in. In other word Aristotle emphasizes that people were not naturally good or bad. People simply exhibited different characters, depending on what their habits of behavior were (p.52) I can say this about Zimbardo people can have courage, firmness and not be good. In order for someone to be morally good they have good will. Zimbardo conducted the Stanford Experiment he uses few college students to play a role a prison guards and an inmates and the inmates was forced to obey every command that the prison guards tells them in a mock prison environment. As I am reading about the experiment I was astonished that Zimbardo just sat there and watch everything that was going on in the experiment when the prison guards refusing the inmates to use the bathroom and making them perform humiliating and degrading acts and he did do nothing to stop that
In the Lucifer effect, there were many questionable things that occurred involving the Stanford Prison Experiment. The Stanford Prison experiment, which was created by Philip Zimbardo himself, involved the division of young college age men to perform the task of guard or prisoner. He gave each job a particular uniform that they had to wear and minimal training, so that he could observe what the guards would do. He aimed to prove the hypothesis that good people are willing to do bad things if they are in certain situations.
“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 prison experiment was meant to function in much the same way, the prevailing idea being that with no direction, the guards would become the teachers and begin to wield their inherent authority and power over the prisoners, or learners. To essentially prepare both sides for the roles they would play in the prison, Zimbardo instructed the guards to strip the prisoners naked on arrival to the prison before being fitted with chains and given a simple one piece prison gown to wear, with no underwear provided. This humiliation perpetrated by the guards and accepted by the prisoners set the tone for the experiment. The guards wore khaki pants and official looking uniforms, were geared with night sticks and whistles and as a finishing touch wore mirrored sunglasses to hide their eyes from prisoners. (Konnikova, 1) The guards worked in shifts of 8 hours and maintained constant watch on the prisoners. All of this created a sense of authority for the guards both in the eyes of the prisoners as well as their
In Chapter 7 of The Lucifer Effect, Zimbardo uses a form of logos called inductive reasoning as means to present a conclusion based from his observations in the experiment. He present this, when he writes, “Role playing has become role internalization; the actors have assumed the characters and identities of their fictional roles” (Zimbardo). In particular, he draws from specific examples of the participants’ behavior, and concludes the subsequent changes in behavior as the byproduct of role internalization. As described, the participants have become so engrossed in their roles, they have literally become the characters themselves. This fulfills the logical appeal as he uses specific cases in order to illustrate a generalization. Furthermore,
Stanley Milgram conducted the experiment to put participants into immoral situations to obey an authority figure of some measure, and he tested their performance and willingness, to participate in acts that strayed away from their belief of right and wrong. Zimbardo conducted an experiment in some ways similar. He conducted an experiment to see if people would assume the expected normal roles of what a prisoner is expected to do and what an authority figure like a prisoner guard is supposed to do. So both Zimbardo and Milgram at this point are trying to prove that authority and the social norm of how authorities should act generates psychological effects on their performance, as well as people who are expected to be below and obey an upper hand.
Now sure, the Stanford prison guards didn’t go that far as the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib but the torture and abuse towards the prisoners became worse by the day indicating they could have gone as far as Abu Ghraib. However, in both cases there are unusual punishments and cruelty. This was due to the authority allowing it, ordering it, just didn’t care or didn’t know. Like the Stanford Prison Experiment, Zimbardo didn’t do anything to stop the abuses at the mock prison but allowed it.
Gray, P. (October , 2013 19). Why zimbardo’s prison experiment isn’t in my textbook the results of the famous stanford prison experiment have a trivial explanation. Retrieved from
Evil can be a difficult thing to speak on, as it makes people uncomfortable. There is inherent evil in everyone, and Philip Zimbardo presents a compelling and frighteningly true case showing this. Zimbardo is the psychologist who headed the controversial Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971, and was also an expert witness at Abu Ghraib. He has a book out called The Lucifer Effect, which explores the evil’s of the human mind, and how people will change when put into the right (or wrong) situations. Needless to say, Zimbardo is more than qualified to seriously explain the evils of the human mind.
In the summer of 1971, at Stanford University, Philip G. Zimbardo developed The Stanford Prison Experiment to test his theory on the Lucifer Effect. The idea that good people can become evil when placed into an atrocious situation or a position of authority over others. For this experiment they set up a simulation prison in a corridor of Stanford University, they collected 24 average, male, volunteer, undergraduates who were all tested previously for psychological abnormalities, and split them up into two groups, guards and prisoners (Stanford Prison Experiment) All guards wore identical khaki uniforms and aviator shades to de-individualize them and hide their emotions. Also, they had been given no training or instruction on how to be a prison guard, and were given free reign to do whatever was necessary to maintain law and order in the prison. Whereas prisoners were forced to wear thin paper gowns with nothing underneath to humiliate them, and a metal chain on their ankle to constantly remind the prisoners of the...
The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted in 1971 by Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University. The purpose of the experiment was a landmark study of the human response to captivity, in particular, to the real world circumstances of prison life. In social psychology, this idea is known as “mundane realism”. Mundane realism refers to the ability to mirror the real world as much as possible, which is just what this study did. Twenty-four subjects were randomly assigned to play the role of "prisoner" or "guard" and they were made to conform to these roles.
After only six days the Stanford Prison Experiment was stopped, after they originally planned it to last for two weeks. This was not because Zimbardo thought it should be, of the guards out of line behavior, or because outsiders thought so. The experiment finally stopped because of a graduate student was helping Zimbardo told him that it was out of control. I am very surprised from the results of the experiment. The power of situations was shown to be much more powerful than I ever would have thought. Because of the way the prisoners were treated, I do not think there will ever be another experiment like this ever again, even though a lot of valuable information was attained for conducting it.
In 1971 a group of researchers came together headed by a Stanford University psychologist named Philip Zimbardo performed an experiment called The Stanford Prison Experiment. Using a mock prison setting in the basement of one of the campus buildings at Stanford University, with young college students roleplaying as either a prisoner or guard to determine the psychological effects in a particular social situation. His hypothesis being that social roles can influence and change the behavior of those given that particular role.
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
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
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.