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A review by shaunireads1
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip G. Zimbardo
4.0
In this first half of this book, Zimbardo describes his 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment in lengthy detail, and uses it to argue that situational factors are much stronger than disposition or personality in making good people do bad things. He also uses several other lab examples, including the Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures, and the Asch conformity experiments to build his case.
In the second half of the book, Zimbardo moves on to real-life cases, such as the Holocaust, as well as torture by American soldiers and the CIA at the Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo Bay, to show how psychologically normal people can turn into brutal monsters under the "right" circumstances. He closes the book by giving examples of heroism, and offers practical suggestions for resisting negative social influence.
In my opinion, this book could have been at least 100 pages shorter, but it's still very well written, and makes a very compelling (and humbling) case that all of us are susceptible to situational forces, and need tools to recognize and resist negative conformity and groupthink.
In the second half of the book, Zimbardo moves on to real-life cases, such as the Holocaust, as well as torture by American soldiers and the CIA at the Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo Bay, to show how psychologically normal people can turn into brutal monsters under the "right" circumstances. He closes the book by giving examples of heroism, and offers practical suggestions for resisting negative social influence.
In my opinion, this book could have been at least 100 pages shorter, but it's still very well written, and makes a very compelling (and humbling) case that all of us are susceptible to situational forces, and need tools to recognize and resist negative conformity and groupthink.