I just got done watching all 77 minutes of Dr. Zimbardo’s lecture about why good people do evil things — which he has written about in a book called, “The Lucifer Effect.” I haven’t read the book, so this brief review is only about the lecture.
Here’s a clip from the daily show:
Dr. Zimbardo, comparing the Stanford Prison Experiments from 35+ years ago to the prisoner abuses in Iraq, explains that even good people can do evil things if there is a harmonic convergence of contextual opportunity.
I’m no biostatistician, but it looked to me like Dr. Zimbardo had plenty of data to suggest that everyone– regardless of genetic or anatomical wiring — could become evil in a horrific social context.
I need to digest this — I’m biased toward thinking there was some sort of self-selection going on either at the outset, or self-selection among those who continue to place themselves in situations where they have the opportunity to be abusive. Are these people somehow organically prone to tolerate this? I didn’t see one whit of proof that there was any type of self selection going on, however. So, this could be the very normal human reaction to an abnormal situation.
It is a captivating lecture (the video shows the lecture given at Google HQ). Dr. Zimbardo’s final point — about engendering a “hero” culture by teaching how we can be contextual “heros” rather than evil do-ers, is just right.
Right now, in our culture, whistleblowers are punished by those in power for doing the “heroic” thing. Those who speak up against the group are smeared. This is why we have the first amendment, and the Supreme Court of the US to protect the “little guy” — the one branch of government where “majority rule” isn’t the rule. I’ll get off my red-white-and-blue soapbox now.
[...] so this brief review is only about the lecture. Here’sa clip from the daily show: Dr. … credit : [...]
The world is hats off to the work made by DR. PHILIP G. ZIMBARDO, a psychology guru whose experiment is one of the best ever done in these TWO CENTURIES in the field of PSYCHOLOGY. The TRUTH to his findings is verified by the media coverage on the brutalities committed by the AMERICAN SOLDIERS against IRAQ’S PRISONERS. Congratulations to you, DR. ZIMBARDO and to your wife, DR. CHRISTINA MASLACH, whose questionnaire on TEACHER BURNOUT I have used in my DISSERTATION. I got the chance, too, to exchange messages with your wife through E-mail while I was in the process of finishing my Ed.D in Management at University of the Philippines. It is widely said that if educational works are good, they must come from the MASLACH-ZIMBARDO. True, indeed.
DR. MARIA ELENA TAN-LLANOS
CHAIR, Education/Languages
St. Paul University, Quezon City
PHILIPPINES
dr.tan_llanos@yahoo.com.ph
Thanks Dr. T-L for the comment.
I’m glad that evil is being studied in academia. The Stanford experiments have been queried for accuracy, but nevertheless, altruism and punishment are hard wired at least to some extent.