Customer Reviews

The Social Psychology of Good and Evil

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I'll keep my comments brief because the editorial reviews on this book describe its basic essence. What I want to bring to the reader's attention is this: today there is much debate concerning the role that religion plays in developing moral behavior. This book shows how limited that role may actually be by demonstrating the biological and social forces that shape many of our ethical beliefs.

This book is so rich in information (many of the chapters can be easily read by the general public, but a few require some background in academic research)that I used it as the standard reference when writing a chapter on morality for the books Why We Believe What We Believe: Uncovering Our Biological Need for Meaning, Spirituality, and Truthand Born to Believe: God, Science, and the Origin of Ordinary and Extraordinary Beliefs, which I coauthored with Andrew Newberg.

This book demonstrates that human nature is equally driven to be both selfish and altruistic, hostile yet compassionate, and I came away from it with a very disturbing sense that we are far more amoral than we'd like to believe.

This book, however, is optimistic, and many chapters show how we can overcome personal and social biases and thus function more compassionately in the world. For example, several chapters refer to techniques that can be used in elementary school to teach children how to recognize and change discriminatory behavior.

Personally, the most disturbing chapter was written by Zimbardo, who conducted the Stanford "prison" experiment in the 1970s. In less than 24 hours, students automatically started to mistreat their student "inmates" in ways that hauntingly reflect the atrocities commited in Iraqi prisons by American soldiers. To some degree, we all little criminals, and once we acknowledge this unpleasant human trait, we can become better citizens, which is one of the goals that religious groups endeavor to achieve.

I came to this book as a general reader with a few undergraduate courses in psychology and readings in psychodynamic theory and psychopathy/sociopathy under my belt. So arriving from an individual-centric perspective to this book which argues for dominant situational determinants of behavior, it is probably not surprising that I experience some "culture shock". I think it is also unsurprising to experience social psychology as generally and inherently political. Even so, I was unprepared for the tenor of some of the chapters. Indeed, Philip G. Zimbardo's chapter includes the following disclaimer: "The political views expressed in this chapter represent solely those of a private citizen/patriot, and in no way should be construed as being supported or endorsed by any of my professional or institutional affiliations." OK. Consider that fair warning, gentle readers: subtle and not-so-subtle promotion of a collectivist world view ahead. Still, the politics of this book should not discourage anyone from reading it. If you tend toward a conservative, individualistic political perspective as I do, you just need to be ready to grin and bear with the slogans and distortions that seem to be main stream these days. If, on the other hand, you are of the collectivist-progressive persuasion, it will all seem like common sense and be soothingly reassuring.

Doob and Robinson (see below) observe, ". . . the 'truth' implied in education and 'falsity' usually ascribed to propaganda are really the narrow judgments of the earnest classifier. It is easy to notice the propaganda which is not in accord with one's own point of view, and to give a more respectable label to the efforts of those who represent what one thinks or believes one thinks."

Before you read "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil", I suggest that you read the short article "Psychology and Propaganda" by Leonard W. Doob and Edward S. Robinson, published in 1935 in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 1935;179;88 and online at [...]. It will make this book a far more enriching and satisfyingly ironic experience. Read them together. As Doob and Robinson observed, ". . . the value of any psychological influence is to be identified with the amount of reflective thought which it arouses." This is a good and useful book but one that should be read critically.

I find Miller guilty of the sin of Omission: There is no mention of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. There is no mention of the torture of prisoners. There is no mention of the Shah of Iran, or of his secret torture group. There is no mention of the Latin-American Death Squads who were trained at Ft Benning, Ga. In sum: There is no mention of any of the Evil that has been done, and is being done, by the USA. There is no mention of `Total Depravity', or of the complicity of the ordinary citizen in the Evil that the USA does. I recall when they were talking about closing Cannon Air Base in Clovis, there was such a hue and cry from the public, you would have thought that they were talking about executing a tenth of the citizens of Clovis. Of course, as a Liberal, I was in favor of closing all Military Bases.