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A review by megatsunami
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip G. Zimbardo
3.0
Interesting read, but flawed. I recommend that you watch his excellent TED talk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsFEV35tWsg
and then if you are really interested in the topic and want lots of details, read the book. The TED talk is concise and hits the main points of this book.
In addition to examining theory and research on this topic, a large portion of the book consists of a blow-by-blow account of the Stanford Prison Experiment and detailed info on Abu Ghraib. I found the SPE stuff interesting but it might be too much information for some, and the Abu Ghraib part got a little tedious with lots of jargon from military memos etc.
On to the theory: Basic premise is that people's behavior is shaped primarily by situational forces rather than dispositional (i.e. individual temperament or nature) ones. He makes a strong case for this but ultimately he falls into the opposite trap of blaming everything on the situation. First of all, even in these scenarios people do not all react the same way, so individual differences clearly come into play (although he makes a great point that, at least in many studies, it wasn't possible to predict ahead of time how people would react).
But also, in real life, most situations will not exert as powerful an influence as the SPE or Abu Ghraib, in which people are totally separated from their normal web of relationships. My interest in the field of restorative justice is partly about how relationships form a primary basis for our moral sense, which Zimbardo doesn't really explore. (Like another book on this topic which I read recently, this one makes no mention of Carol Gilligan and her work on morality being based in the context of relationships.)
The final section on heroism was very short and didn't really give much to work with. (If I recall correctly, the TED talk actually had more substance on this topic.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsFEV35tWsg
and then if you are really interested in the topic and want lots of details, read the book. The TED talk is concise and hits the main points of this book.
In addition to examining theory and research on this topic, a large portion of the book consists of a blow-by-blow account of the Stanford Prison Experiment and detailed info on Abu Ghraib. I found the SPE stuff interesting but it might be too much information for some, and the Abu Ghraib part got a little tedious with lots of jargon from military memos etc.
On to the theory: Basic premise is that people's behavior is shaped primarily by situational forces rather than dispositional (i.e. individual temperament or nature) ones. He makes a strong case for this but ultimately he falls into the opposite trap of blaming everything on the situation. First of all, even in these scenarios people do not all react the same way, so individual differences clearly come into play (although he makes a great point that, at least in many studies, it wasn't possible to predict ahead of time how people would react).
But also, in real life, most situations will not exert as powerful an influence as the SPE or Abu Ghraib, in which people are totally separated from their normal web of relationships. My interest in the field of restorative justice is partly about how relationships form a primary basis for our moral sense, which Zimbardo doesn't really explore. (Like another book on this topic which I read recently, this one makes no mention of Carol Gilligan and her work on morality being based in the context of relationships.)
The final section on heroism was very short and didn't really give much to work with. (If I recall correctly, the TED talk actually had more substance on this topic.)