The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil

First let me disclaim that there was a section of the book I did not read because it was incorrectly bound -- it went from page 426 to page 375, but the new p. 375 was different from the one that had preceded it. [I'm guessing that the reason Amazon is out of stock while the book enjoys top 10 status is because they are trying to restock with "good" copies] Nonetheless, this book is so rich with the details of what can and does go wrong when authority is confered without systems or protocols which bound it to a higher-order,thought-out -- and ethical -- goal. Other reviews and media coverage will summarize that this book is about the Stanford Prison Experiment and that it shows how good people can turn evil. The book extrapolates these lessons to other grave situations, like Abu Ghraib, and finds this recurring theme popping up repeatedly. That is the flesh of this book. What I find fascinating, though, is a perhaps deeper current of thought. The book is essentially about the banality of evil -- how it can crop up in ordinarily unremarkable people. However, the truth is that this banality doesn't just apply to people (in extraordinary situations like prisons.) It applies to ordinarily unremarkable situations like schools and places of business. The Lucifer Effect is at work among middle school cliques and Enron-esque corporations. Pure evil, or what Zimbardo calls administrative evil, are not exclusively the results of chaos. The Nazis were pretty systematic. It's not so much the having a system as it is having a quality system. And that seems to be the hard part. The affects which breed toxic environments -- favoring social approval over personal responsibilty, rationalizing behavior in order to maintain group strength or personal position, diluting responsibility by creating democracies, to name a few -- are home base for most mere mortals. In other words, this is the norm rather than the exception. And when in groups, the effect can be like a tidal wave. Zimbardo does end the book with the notion that there are people who buck the tide or blow a whistle. He also has created a chart showing the kind of torment this trend-bucking person will go through depending on the setting. No wonder he categorizes this person as heroic. The take away from this book for me is not so much about prison reform or military oversight. Rather, there is ubiquity to evil-breeding tendencies and it takes the shoring up of more heroic measures in all of us to stave them off. As I said in this review's title, this is an important book of our time

The work of Philip Zimbardo does not need introduction, and yet, his contribution has incredibly wide implications for the most critical reforms our society is finally becoming ready for. This book provides the invaluable evident insights into the human mind and the extensive coverage of the study is both most fascinating as well as revealing of the human nature that is many cases is inclined to misuse the position of power. I applaud Prof. Zimbardo for his daring strive to explore this blind spot the majority of population harbors. Much more is necessary to be done to assure that this scientific data is implemented and IS FOLLOWED WITH COMPLIANCE. Of course, most of population would rather wish to see our governance institutions in the rosy color. But this sobering account informs those who are in charge of the instruments of power and who are in a position to raise the bar and to step up from the barbarism of the Dark Ages, that is still allowed to be present in the form of POLICE IMPUNITY, but most evidently should have no place in the court room. BLM somehow had omitted this key piece of the puzzle that must be achieved to liberate our society from the bluntly legalized justice. And, there is no single individual who does not deserve for this to manifest, since one day those who are poised to victimize can easily be turned into the victims of the same beast, if we allow for it to dwell among us. And this book shows the evidence and explains why and how.

The two-line tattoo discovered across the back of Pfc. Stoner says it all. In Gothic type, beneath a grinning red skull flanked by two grim reapers, it read: "What if I'm not the hero/What if I'm the bad guy". Stoner was undergoing a physical examination after his beating by fellow soldiers for ratting them out in the still-unfolding American Kill Team civilian murders in Afghanistan. The murders could have been an example right out of The Lucifer Effect: the anonymity that comes with the uniform; the dehumanization of the object; the passive tolerance afforded by the fellow soldiers and the higher-ups. Morality then disengages. There had been talk about throwing candy from the back of a Stryker vehicle and shooting the children as they tried to gather it up. Lucifer Effect: (every) man has infinite capacity for good/evil; the barrier between the two states is permeable; character transformation is situational. Episodes like this usually evoke the same response: it's the work of a few bad apples in the barrel. Maybe the issue is neither the apples nor the barrel but rather the barrel-maker. That is author Zimbardo's hypothesis. Look to the system itself, with its unchecked power, to understand the transformation. Chapters two through nine detail the so-called Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE). Ordinary college students, randomly assigned to the role of prisoner or guard, are transformed into - become - the real thing. It's an extraordinary phenomenon to behold. "Guards" drunk with power quickly morph into over-reaching, sadistic, abusive personalities. Squint and you can see Abu Graib. There is some sweet, sweet irony in this. Zimbardo was called to account. A woman (later his wife) took all this in and pointed out the obvious: hey, Zimbardo, these aren't guards and prisoners you're dealing with, they're college kids, and what you are doing through this experiment is itself nothing less than abuse in the exercise of power. Whoa. Zimbardo halted the experiment prematurely the next day. Those who feel no need to pour over the details of the experiment in order to be convinced of its authenticity (trust me, it's compelling) can skip directly to Chapters 12-13. There described is the social dynamic underlying this transformation into our lesser angels. A child's vulnerability, particularly heart-wrenching, was also on dramatic display in the documentary study "A Class Divided." How quickly these American grade-school children, separated into the blue- and brown-eyed specimen groups, hardened their view of themselves versus the "others" through arbitrary teacher input (google: Frontline/A Class Divided). They could have been budding Hutus and Tutsis in another time and place. Those inclined to short-cut the entire book are invited to capture the essence of Zimbardo's message by watching his excellent half-hour TED presentation (google: TED/The Lucifer Effect). There is, however, no short-cutting the companion discussion book, On Hitler's Mountain. This book is not about guards, prisoners, or even the Holocaust per se. This is the memoir of a woman who, through accident of history and geography, was raised in the literal shadows of what may be regarded as the biggest national transformation in modern Western history. Irmgard Hunt was raised in Berchtesgaden, site of Hitler's alpine retreat, during the time of his rise and fall. What comes through in Ms. Hunt's extraordinary account is her open, honest, unflinching dedication to truth as she recalls her upbringing. The details are there: what she saw; what she knew; how she felt; what she and others did or didn't do. Detail matters. It transports the reader to a different time and place. We've all read in the history books about the post-Versailles humiliation, the crushing Weimar hyper-inflation, the desperate search for order that lead to a regime which ultimately ended with the parade of horribles. Ms. Hunt's up-close-and-personal memoir invites the reader to the uncomfortable question: what would you have done in the same circumstances? Honestly. Zimbardo dedicates a chapter (12) to the power of conformity, invoking the words of C.S. Lewis, "the terror of being left outside." I'm not certain I would have had the courage displayed by nine-year-old Irmgard when she was faced with the prospect of turning in her anti-Hitler grandfather. So the question is not whether we are good or bad. We're both. It's situational. Again, Pfc. Stoner: "What if I'm not the hero. What if I'm the bad guy."

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!

I don't know of many things more important than understanding how regular people like you and me can be manipulated by systems and situations into doing terrible things. The Holocaust, the killing fields of Cambodia, ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, the Mai Lai massacre, Abu Ghraib, and the horrors currently being perpetrated in Darfur, in Guantanamo, and in torture centers run by governments around the world cannot be understood, and certainly cannot be prevented, without such understanding. That is what Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo, creator of the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment 30 years ago, does in this detailed, sobering, and profoundly insightful book. I will not try to summarize what Zimbardo says, because I think that every person concerned about the state of the world should read the book from the preface to the last page of the notes. What I can say is that Zimbardo's analysis is not based on ancient religious or philosophical ideas about good and evil; it most emphatically does not accept that the great and small terrors that we humans continue to inflict on each other are caused by "a few bad apples;" and it refuses to let those of us who are sure that, unlike so many others, we could never be moved to do terrible things, remain secure in that delusion. Instead, _The Lucifer Effect_ is based on fact, on decades of hard-won experimental evidence, and on careful and insightful reasoning. To his credit, Zimbardo also discusses the heroism of those equally ordinary people who successfully resist the powers of a cruel system or situation to corrupt and destroy. I hope that if enough people read this book, it will inspire more of us to that level of empathy, humanity, independence, and courage. Robert Adler, author of _Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation_; and _Medical Firsts: From Hippocrates to the Human Genome_.

The author, Philip Zimbardo, is a well-known academic psychologist who was the author of the 1971 "Stanford Prison Experiment", where he hired some students on summer break and used them as guards and prisoners in an experimental prison simulation. Some of the students became sadistic guards and some of the prisoners suffered mental breakdowns within days. The situation became so abusive (freely admitted by Zimbardo) that the simulation was stopped after only a few days. This book is Zimbardo's latest on prison psychology and evil. It starts with a brief overview, includes a chapter on famously evil situations like the recent slaughter in Rwanda and then includes an in-depth review of the original Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE). Next come a few chapters of interpretation and commentary interspersed with accounts of the more famous experiments (not done by Zimbardo) where subjects delivered increasing amounts of voltage to paid actors who pretended to suffer pain. These are more famous experiments because the subjects didn't know that this was all fake; Zimbardo's subjects knew they were all part of an artificial experiment. The last part of the book is a review of the Abu Ghraib prison. Zimbardo acted as a defense witness and has inside knowledge about this situation, concluding that it was the system and not the individual guards that were at fault. I must warn you that the disturbing Abu Ghraib photos are included in this book, so it is not appropriate for youngsters. The book closes with a chapter on how to avoid being influenced by situational factors into becoming evil. The SPE chapters and the shock experiment chapters were excellent, the Abu Ghraib chapters were less compelling and the commentary and conclusions were highly suspect, so I gave the book an overall rating of 3 stars. Criticisms: In spite of the author's claims, the SPE is not as earth-shattering as he would have us believe. The experiment had an unscientific design and was filled with unscientific procedures so that this experiment is given little emphasis in main-stream psychology. The author's biases are quickly evident as he labels the giant American force controlling the country as "military-corporate-religious" rather than the more familiar "military-industrial complex". That religion should be part of this evil combination is absurd. First of all there are so many religions that are completely different that it makes no sense to combine them into an evil force. And even if you believe that the "Christian Right" is a malevolent powerful force in American culture, the fact that they have lost every fight they ever got involved in from school prayer to abortion demonstrates the silliness of that position. Mostly though, the problems lie in the SPE itself. The participants were a bunch of college students on summer break who responded to an ad offering to pay them to be part of a simulation. In 1971, colleges were filled with draft-dodgers and these subjects were drawn from 2 of the most liberal schools - Stanford and Berkeley. Within days, some of the guards turned sadistic, egged on by trying to please the "Warden" who was none other than Zimbardo himself in dark glasses and a mustache. (Quite impossible to be a neutral observer in such a situation.) The guards were given dark glasses and uniforms and quickly instituted harassment of the prisoners as their duty. The scruffy looking, long-haired (1971, remember?) prisoners were even worse. Even more quickly, several of them had mental breakdowns and had to be removed from the experiment for their health. A second-string of replacements were added gradually until they too began to break down as the guards decided that sadistic, latently homosexual "games" amongst the prisoners were their reason for living. I honestly didn't know whether to burst out laughing or to be horrified at these idiots from 2 "elite" universities (and I'm not just using the term "idiot" to refer to only the students). Zimbardo even had them parade before a "parole board" headed by a snarling violent convict Zimbardo had found in prison who verbally (and nearly physically) abused each prisoner. The whole mess was shut down after only a short time lest permanent damage ensue. The whole situation was so artificial that it would make a better black comedy than an academic study. To make the story even more howlingly funny, the whole thing was funded by the Navy who were paying Zimbardo and his circus to learn about prison psychology. I wonder who has the movie rights? The Abu Ghraib parts were lacking because the author has no military background. To me (a veteran), the poor guards who were stuck in incredibly bad situations were not victims of a system but of typical military SNAFU's and neglect. The strengths of this book were the in-depth review of the SPE and the chapters on Rwanda and the shock experiments. These two parts were extremely sobering and scary. So overall, good and bad, but with parts that deserve reading and thinking about.

Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment started as an investigation of how being confined to a mock prison would affect normal, well adjusted college students. Zimbardo and his assistants pre-screened 20+ students from the SF Bay area, and randomly assigned half as guards (working three eight hour shifts) and half as prisoners (confined 24/7). He advised the "guards" that they could not use force, but anything else was fair game to control the "prisoners." The "prisoners" were picked up by the palo Alto police, taken to the local police station, printed, blindfolded, and taken to the basement of the Stanford psych building--which had been converted into a mock prison. The "prisoners were stripped, deloused, and put into locked "cells"--converted offices. After less than a day, it became apparent that the transformation of the "guards" was at least as interesting as the transformation of the prisoners. The "guards" quickly became sadistic in their verbal and psychological abuse of the "prisoners." The "prisoners" quickly became both submissive, and resistant to authority in self destructive ways. Many others who came through the prison (parents of the "prisoners," a public defender, and a priest) all bought into the situation, and played their roles according to Zimbardo's rules. No one stepped outside of the situation and said--"These are college kids; they shouldn't be abused." No student quit. No guard told the other guards to cool their abuse. After less than a week, Zimbardo's fiancé (also a psychologist, but not directly involved in the study) brought Zimbardo back to reality, and the experiment was terminated. What happened to turn college students into abusive guards/passive prisoners? Zimbardo has spent his life--and all 500+ pages of this book, explaining that what the Stanford Prison Experiment proved has less to do with prisons (it was a very poor simulation of a prison--everyone knew the experiment would only last 2 weeks, none of the "prisoners" had actually committed any crimes; none was dangerous; no force was allowed); and everything to do with the way institutions impact the behavior of those who work in them. This applies to prisons, but also to many aspects of everyday life--corporate corruption, for example. After detailing the Stanford Experiment day-by-day, Zimbardo makes a brief detour into general psychology. He quickly returns to prisons--this time Abu Ghraib. Zimbardo testified as an expert for Ivan Frederick, and devotes the last third of the book to an analysis of how the systemic factors established by the military--and the civilians from Rumsfield to Bush--inevitably lead to the abuse which is now known to the world through photographs. While Zimbardo's approach is no longer considered revolutionary in psychology, almost everyone reflexively still blames bad behavior on bad people. Thus, most people concurred in Bush's statement that the soldiers involved were a few bad apples...and searched for explanations personal to those involved--former work as a correctional officer, mental illness, etc. Zimbardo spends a good part of the book telling us why that is simply wrong. We should look to the situation, and the system in general for an explanation of evil; not to personal disposition to do wrong. Fine analysis of a fascinating experiment.

There is a physical problem with this book. It is printed in such tiny type, with so many words to a line, that it is very hard to read, and all but impossible to annotate.From what I have just about managed to read so far, it could have been a lot shorter and therefore printed in readable type. If I can get hold of the book in any other format, I will be glad to read it.

Let me start by saying that this was one of the best reads in a very long time. I gave 4/5 due to the excessive self promotion, repetitiveness and shameless bias of Zimbardo. I say BIAS due to excessive focus on one atrocity which in turn explained some uneducated classifications Zimbardo made. Still would very much recommend reading.

Ich habe dieses Buch als Geschenk gekauft und selbst nicht gelesen, aber die Rückmeldungen waren durchweg positiv. Das Thema ist sehr spannend und regt zum Nachdenken an, vor allem darüber, wie Situationen und Umstände das Verhalten von Menschen beeinflussen können. Das Buch wirkt gut geschrieben und inhaltlich tiefgehend, ohne oberflächlich zu sein. Als Geschenk kam es sehr gut an und wurde als interessant und eindrucksvoll beschrieben. Ich würde es weiterempfehlen, besonders für Menschen, die sich für Psychologie und menschliches Verhalten interessieren.

This is an important book, as many of the official reviews and comments have said, and the content and relevance are both excellent. However, it's worth saying from the outset that it is no light read. This is true in terms of the subject matter, but also in terms of the small font and exhaustive writing style. This is a thorough book that covers its message to absolute completion, and makes no attempt to skip over the detail of that. Roughly, the book is split into 3+1 sections. I say 3+1 instead of 4, as the 4th is almost an appendage rather than a dedicated section in its own right. After a brief introduction, the book dives directly into its main subject matter: an exhaustive and minute-by-minute account of the Stanford Prison Experiment. It is by far the most detailed account I have read on the subject, perhaps not surprisingly so when you consider that Zimbardo was the principle orchestrator of the study. I won't go into detail of the accounts, as that would spoil the book, but there are detailed descriptions of every nuance and situation encountered. Having consider the experiment from start to finish (or strictly speaking, to abortion), the second part of the book then reflects on the social psychology lessons learned from it. Alongside other famous contemporary experiments, such as the work by Stanley Milgram on obedience to authority, a picture is drawn of how situational forces are much stronger at influencing our behaviours than we care to admit. This is, of course, the core point of the book. With the account given and the social and behavioural analysis complete, the book then moves to Zimbardo's own experiences as an expert witness in the trials of guards involved in the Abu Ghraib scandal. As would be expected, Zimbardo's core point is that the terrible acts committed are not--as the official explanation states--the work of a few bad apples, but instead were the result of systemic and situational failures throughout many areas. He draws on his research through the Stanford experiments to conclude that anyone in that situation may have acted in the same way. This is not an excuse, but rather an explanation. Lastly, the book considers the reverse, whether situations can also generate heroes, and what that might say about them. Personally, I found the first and second sections the most enlightening and interesting. The implications for Abu Ghraib, whilst damning, are somewhat academic since the sentences have already been passed and the blame apportioned. In fact, Zimbardo himself admits on a few occasions that he feels his expert testimony wasn't really taken seriously. As such, the third section turns into something of an exercise in creating a water-tight soap box for his now incarcerated clients. Whilst his conclusions are compelling, he is somewhat preaching to the choir, and the sheer quantity of his "evidence" can be overwhelming. I found that I didn't need to read and dissect tens of testimonies and statements to agree with his core point, and I have to confess that I eventually skipped much of this section. Similarly, with the final section, whilst an interesting muse, I did not feel that there was anything of a revelation in nature. Because of the length of the book (deceptively so because of its small font size and tightly packed paragraphs), I think that it could arguably be split into two books, and for me is the account of the Stanford Prison experiment and the subsequent psychology analysis which is important, less so the political agenda. Buy this book if you are fascinated in the equality of people, and how the saint can become the sinner, the freedom fighter the dictator. It shows how we are all capable of incredible good and incredible evil, and the route we take is less of our own intrinsic nature and more a product of our circumstances.

It is the gateway and a journey into the darkest parts of our own evils. I already had a copy of this book. I just bought 2 copies for my senior officers. I hope they can reflect on their acts and see how its possible for them to turn evil.