The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

This book has an excellent historical presentation, real world examples and analytical analysis as to how organizational structures can contribute to immoral behavior which may be contrary to the core morality of the grooup members.The book is a long read due to inclusion of actual interviews and analysis of case examples. These inclusions present the case that organizational authority and support systems can combine to corrupt an individual's core positive moral values or principles in favor of participation in anti-social acts, unethical acts or criminal behavior or silent acceptance of undesirable behavior. Individuals can coop themselves by actual participation in acts or as quiet and accepting by-standers mandated by pledges, loyalty oaths, the need to belong or in return for personal benefits and compensation.I suspect that if the book had been written later, examples of the Lucifer Effect would have included organizations such as Wall Street investment bankers/executives, mortgage brokers/agents, and stock brokers and traders who abuse their sales positions and client trust to sell high risk derivatives and investment products. Members of these Bad Barrel organizations who become "stand-by" acceptive observers of inappropriate behaver could be inflenced by either "following orders" from Higher Authority or contractual commitments such as membership oaths, pledges, loyalty oaths or employee contracts. Examples of such groups that abdicate member behavior to autority demands might include fraternities/sororities, street gangs, military units,or political groups such as Tea Party members committed to "No Tax Pledges". Certainly the book provides a strong case for Bad Barrel organization executive being accountable and liable when their subordinates commit unethical or criminal acts in spite of loop holes that provide executive "plausible deniable" of knowing or facilitating. Most importantly to me was that the characteristics of the Bad Barrel organization implied and suggested what changes should be made in organization leadership and support systerms to neutralize potential Lucifer Effect or to create Good Barrels (Angel Effect)in organization design, administration and turn-arounds.Encouraging individuals to be "heroes" who challenge autority and organizational behavior may be a difficult solution to the Lucifer Effect when the individual feels obligated to go along or participate in anti-social activities based on pledges, employment contracts, or compensation arrangements. Since the requirments to "be a hero" may also be perceived as "being a rat" or "disloyal group member', it may be more effective to use organizational design principles that combine hierachical organization with fluid Program /Project Team structures to reduce the susceptibility of the organization to the situational influences of the Lucifer Effect rather than trying to motivate individuals to become heores who may not be able to work against their own self interest in order to expose,stop or curtail group behavior perceived to be unethical, immoral and/or criminal.

This book, and another by Gabor Mate (In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts) should be mandatory reading for any and all with decision-making authority in the judicial system - particularly judges and prosecutors in the juvenile court system! For any person in a position of authority really, not just those in the legal system.So many lives are derailed or ruined because those with the power to surveil, label, control, and incarcerate are so fully under the spell of dispositional explanations of behavior, because they cannot fathom how situational pressures they themselves are not immune to can overwhelm and undue character, and because they stubbornly insist on remaining ignorant of their own vulnerability to, and complicity in creating and maintaining, a system that conceives of and legitimizes situations that lead ordinarily good people down the path to evil.Because I am convinced of the dangers inherent in relying on exclusively dispositional explanations for human behavior, because I am convinced that a great deal of unnecessary suffering can be attributed to this fallacious reasoning about causes, and because Dr. Zimbardo's book is such a compelling and captivating read, I teach The Lucifer Effect in my Introduction to Ethics course as a foil for traditional views of evil acts as arising strictly from a defective character (a failure to cultivate virtues of character or the abscence of a good will, for instance).It is not, as Zimbardo insists, that character does not matter, but rather that situations do. And dramatically so. Acknowledging this does not make ethics irrelevant and it does not doom human beings to a kind of situational determinism. Instead, accepting the role situations play in our conduct, for better and worse, is the necessary first step in the process of building characters that, while never immune to situational evil, are highly resistant to it. It is also the precursor to redesigning social institutions (systems) that construct situations which nurture and promote kindness, helpfulness, courage, and empathy to replace those which currently foster their opposites.I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is troubled by the amount of misery and violence in societies worldwide, to those whose lives touch and shape the lives of children, prisoners, soldiers - oh, heck, for anyone who is not living in complete isolation from systems, situations, and other people. Basically, everyone should read this book!

just like the photo and good conditions:)the scratches are my fault:((((

Excellence of research, extensive scope, depth of anaylsis, wealth of information

O livro é aparentemente novo mas apresenta algum desgaste na capa (roçado) como se pode ver na foto. Para mim pessoalmente não é muito importante mas seria sempre melhor a capa vir em estado novo.

Libro davvero stupendo che ripercorre l'esperimento, nonchè la ricerca, del Dottor Zimbardo.Anche se è in inglese risulta comunque di facile comprensione.

Livro formidável, com fulcro em um experimento social revolucionário que desnuda o comportamento humano sob determinadas circunstâncias, possuindo caráter revelador para entender comportamentos cruéis no homem médio.Como praxe, a entrega foi super rápida e o livro chegou em perfeitas condições. Super recomendo!!!