Philip Zimbardo – The Lucifer Effect

PHILIP ZIMBARDO – THE LUCIFER EFFECT

Philip Zimbardo explores the mechanisms that make good people do bad things, how moral people can be swayed into acting immorally, and what this says about the line between good and evil.

The effect of the devil. 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.

For the first time, Zimbardo tells the full story of the landmark study in which a group of college-student volunteers was randomly divided into guards and inmates and placed in a mock prison environment. Ordinary college students were transformed into either brutal, sadistic guards or emotionally broken prisoners within a week of the study being abandoned.

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. The idea that the social setting and the system affect the individual rather than the other way around is called the bad barrel.

This book shows us that we might not be who we think we are by showing us a mirror. While forcing us to reexamine what we are capable of doing when caught up in behavioral dynamics, Zimbardo also offers hope. He argues that we can teach ourselves to act heroically because we are capable of resisting evil. Like Hannah Arendt. The man is in Jerusalem. Steven Pinker’s. The blank slate. It’s not like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it’s like it The effect of the devil. The study will change the way we view human behavior.

Praise for it. The effect of the devil.

That’s right. The effect of the devil. The way you think about why we behave the way we do will forever change. This is a book that needs to be read. Gladwell

An important book. All politicians and social commentators should read this. That’s right. The paper of record. The city of London.

An addition to the literature of the psychology of violence or evil is powerful. That’s right. The American idea.

Penetrating is what I mean. Combining a dense but readable exposition of social psychology research with a moral seriousness, Zimbardo challenges readers to look beyond glib denunciations of evil-doers and ponder our collective responsibility for the world’s ills. That’s right. Publishers Weekly.

A lengthy discussion. An analysis of the social dynamics of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is included in the narrative of the Stanford Prison Experiment. That’s right. There is a booklist.

The evil was bottled in a laboratory. If we heed their counsel, the lessons he learned show us our dark nature but also fill us with hope. The effect of the devil. It reads like a novel. Anthony Pratkanis is a professor at the University of Californi.