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The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil [Paperback]

Philip Zimbardo (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (81 customer reviews)
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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)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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 --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 576 pages
  • Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks (January 22, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0812974441
  • ISBN-13: 978-0812974447
  • Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (81 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #8,383 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
    #5 in  Books > Health, Mind & Body > Psychology & Counseling > Movements

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More About the Author

Philip G. Zimbardo
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:
Inside This Book (learn more)
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
surprise arrests, physical risk heroism, silver reflecting sunglasses, civil heroism, celebrating heroism, night shift guards, situational forces, prisoner role, prison experiment, mock prisoners, situational power, detainee abuse, male detainees, hard site, prison superintendent
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
The Lucifer Effect, Abu Ghraib, Investigating Social Dynamics, Putting the System, United States, Parole Board, Stanford Prison Experiment, Chip Frederick, Guard Arnett, Geoff Landry, Palo Alto, Wednesday Is Spiraling Out of Control, Curt Banks, Reality Confrontations, Double Trouble, Geneva Conventions, John Landry, Stanford County Jail, Guard Ceros, San Francisco, The Psychology of Evil, Degradation Rituals Begin, Craig Haney, New York, General Sanchez
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!
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4.3 out of 5 stars (81 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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279 of 298 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Captivating, April 1, 2007
This review is from: The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (Hardcover)

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.


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88 of 93 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Overall, an interesting read, April 20, 2007
This review is from: The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (Hardcover)
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.
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105 of 115 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
This review is from: The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (Hardcover)
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
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Cheap and quick
Quick shipping, received it in just a few days. Just as described, recommend seller and will do business with him again.
Published 2 months ago by J. Davis

5.0 out of 5 stars A riveting account of how good people can go bad
It's a safe bet the first few sentences of Professor Zimbardo's obituary will define him in terms of the (infamous) "Stanford Prison study". Read more
Published 2 months ago by David M. Giltinan

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, But You Have to Get Into It
This is a great read in the studies of human psychology. What an interesting look at the situational circumstances that can turn good, average people into such terrible... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Hot Sax w/ Cold Feet

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Insight Into Human Nature
"The Lucifer Effect" delves into the nature of good vs. evil and how under the right set of circumstances, normal, everyday, people can be turned into tormentors of their fellow... Read more
Published 5 months ago by S. A. Costa

3.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Insights Dreadfully Presented
Zimbardo begins each chapter by telling the reader what he intends to say. Then he says it, mixing in frequent reminders of things he said in earlier chapters. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Victor A. Gallis

4.0 out of 5 stars The good, the bad and we are all ugly
1971, University of Stanford: Professor Philip Zimbardo divided the
participants of his experiment into two groups according to the random
principle: prisoners and... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Roman Nies

4.0 out of 5 stars A thought-inducing book
This book really made me think. I was familiar with the Stanford Prison Experiment from high school and college classes. Read more
Published 7 months ago by another believer

5.0 out of 5 stars Understanding People Better
This author is a genius. The book has very difficult aspects to read because we are, after all, discussing evil. Read more
Published 8 months ago by J. Alexander

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book for Non Professionals or Non Scholars
I enjoyed this book very much. The Stanford Prison Experiment takes about half of the book. Since I had only seen a short documentary about it, I found it very interesting to see... Read more
Published 12 months ago by D. Sauer

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Excellent. A punch in the face to anyone who thinks of him or herself as a good person.
Published 15 months ago by Christopher Haynes

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