The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (Hardcover)

by Philip Zimbardo (Author)
Key Phrases: surprise arrests, physical risk heroism, silver reflecting sunglasses, The Lucifer Effect, Abu Ghraib, Investigating Social Dynamics (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Psychologist Zimbardo masterminded the famous Stanford Prison Experiment, in which college students randomly assigned to be guards or inmates found themselves enacting sadistic abuse or abject submissiveness. In this penetrating investigation, he revisits—at great length and with much hand-wringing—the SPE study and applies it to historical examples of injustice and atrocity, especially the Abu Ghraib outrages by the U.S. military. His troubling finding is that almost anyone, given the right "situational" influences, can be made to abandon moral scruples and cooperate in violence and oppression. (He tacks on a feel-good chapter about "the banality of heroism," with tips on how to resist malign situational pressures.) The author, who was an expert defense witness at the court-martial of an Abu Ghraib guard, argues against focusing on the dispositions of perpetrators of abuse; he insists that we blame the situation and the "system" that constructed it, and mounts an extended indictment of the architects of the Abu Ghraib system, including President Bush. Combining a dense but readable and often engrossing exposition of social psychology research with an impassioned moral seriousness, Zimbardo challenges readers to look beyond glib denunciations of evil-doers and ponder our collective responsibility for the world's ills. 23 photos. (Apr. 3)
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From Booklist
Social psychologist Zimbardo is best known as the father of the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, which used a simulated prison populated with student volunteers to illustrate the extent to which identity is situated within a social setting; student volunteers randomly chosen to play guards became cruel and authoritarian, while those playing inmates became rebellious and depressed. With this book, Zimbardo couples a thorough narrative of the Stanford Prison Experiment with an analysis of the social dynamics of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, arguing that the "experimental dehumanization" of the former is instructive in understanding the abusive conduct of guards at the latter. This comparison, which is the book's core insight, is embedded in a sprawling discussion about situational influences that cobbles together a discussion of the psychology of evil, a strong criticism of the Bush administration, and a chapter celebrating heroism and calling for greater social bravery. This account's Abu Ghraib focus will generate demand. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 576 pages
• Publisher: Random House (March 27, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400064112
• ISBN-13: 978-1400064113
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (75 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #227,108 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

258 of 277 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Captivating, April 1, 2007

By	The Spinozanator (Waco, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment from the early 70's used college students for a study, making half of them prisoners and the other half guards. With instructions meant to polarize, the worst in human nature quickly came out, and the experiment had to be discontinued prematurely. Unlike other important studies, this one could not be duplicated because of ethical concerns, but many similar studies have been done - most of them validating Zimbardo's result: that with few exceptions, the best of us can be coerced to perform evil acts under the right social circumstances. A book about Zimbardo's findings is long overdue. The incident at Abu Ghraib and his participation in the trial sparked his enthusiasm to share this story with us.

Chapter I - According to the story in the Bible, Lucifer, God's favorite angel, challenged God's authority - thus began the transformation of Lucifer into Satan. Zimbardo finds here an analogy to the situation in all wars, where men routinely justify being inhumane to other men, despite clear direction otherwise from the Geneva Convention.

Chapters II - IX - Zimbardo had 24-hour audio and video surveillance of the prison and kept meticulous written notes. He presents verbatim transcripts of tense conversation and photographs. A variety of situations from world history are presented showing disturbing descriptions of torture, rape, and general abuse of a captured, helpless enemy. He then draws analogies between real history and the Stanford prison experiment.

Chapters X - XI - Elaboration on the importance, ethical considerations, and notoriety of the Stanford prison experiment. If you Google "experiment," the first website listed is this one, out of a potential 300 million.

Chapters XII - XIII - How powerful social pressures can cause good people to do bad things - nuts and bolts of evolutionary psychology, social theory, and recent applicable research. Humans are essentially social. Creating semi-permanent networks and hierarchies of interaction is what people do and it is more than just a strategy for survival. The "us versus them" mentality evolved for and worked well for hunter-gatherers - nowadays we could and should do better.

Chapter XIV - Application of the findings of the Stanford prison experiment to Abu Ghraib. The author was an expert witness for previously highly-honored Sergeant Frederick, one of the defendants. He describes the situation that ended in abuse, from the permissive attitudes starting at the top (Rumsfeld advocating a "take the gloves off" approach to detainees) to 40 straight nights of 12-hour shifts.

Chapter XV - The military command and the Bush administration are portrayed as accomplices for their widespread reliance on torture-interrogation, well-documented by independent sources. In the new leadership at Abu Ghraib, the DVD of the Stanford prison experiment has been used to warn the new guards about the group-think hazards that are inherent in the prisoner-guard relationship.

Chapter XVI - Some people do not yield to the power of social influence. The author outlines a program intended to build resistance to mind-control strategies. Ordinary people may become heroes simply by doing the right thing.

For those willing to consider the bad as well as the good aspects of human nature, a must-read.

81 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Overall, an interesting read, April 20, 2007

By	J. L. Keats (CT) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The premise of this book is captivating, and I read it almost immediately after seeing Dr. Zimbardo on the Daily Show, where I learned of it. The first 2/3rds of this book are fascinating, particularly the account of the Stanford Prison Experiment and subsequent experiments regarding the human capacity for evil. I greatly admire Zimbardo, but the book is not what I expected.

The first 66% of the book is psychological, and it seems to me that the last 33% is more historical and political. I started to lose interest during the analysis of Abu Ghraib because it was just repeating the concepts we had learned earlier in the book, and was no longer new and intriguing. The book was just way too long, period, to cover the same themes - deindividuization, dehumanization, etc., etc. I wanted more from this book than it delivered, but it was still worth reading.

99 of 109 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A scholarly and disturbing look into the banality of evil, April 1, 2007

By	David Maxfield - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is the breathtaking culmination of more than 30 years of careful research into the causes of evil. Dr Zimbardo, Stanford professor, former president of the American Psychological Association, host of the PBS series Psychology, and author of the bestselling introductory psychology text of all time, has devoted nearly all of his academic career to careful studies of the path between good and evil.

His dozens of research papers have documented how environmental and social forces can push even the best of us toward bad behavior. Even more importantly, he has documented the steps we can take as individuals and as societies to become more humane. His findings are widely respected within the academic community. This is not "controversial" stuff; it's the right stuff.

Dr. Zimbardo's review of the field is lively and engaging. Then, he brings us new findings and shows how they apply in ways that can powerfully change lives. This is an exciting book that needs to be widely read.

David Maxfield
Vice President of Research
VitalSmarts LC