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Loading... The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evilby Philip G. ZimbardoLibraryThing recommendationsMember recommendationsLoading...
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. This is the book everyone who has ever studied even first year psychology or sociology has been waiting for since the sixties. The Stamford Prison experiment needs no real explanation from me and those who don't know about it could do a lot worse than read this book by the man who conceived and carried it out. Although the main part of the book relates the experiment itself, there is also some interesting speculation about episodes in Rwanda, the Balkans and WW2 Germany as the author investigates just what it is about being in a position of power that can make basically decent human beings act atrociously. This isn't the most entertaining book I've ever read but it is an important one with vital lessons for all of us. (  )Booksloth | Oct 1, 2008 |   The first part of this book is fascinating. When he gets into the second part and starts quoting all of the official documents, it gets reeeeeeeal boring. I never hear of him before I read this book. Now, every time I turn around I'm hearing the Stanford Prison Experiment referred to. nepejwster | Sep 17, 2008 | The description of the Stanford Prison Experiment (first half of the book) was difficult to read- not because it was poorly written, but because it was emotionally hard to swallow. I talked to the characters like I was yelling at a football game, trying to get them to stop what they were doing. I have such respect for the author’s honesty regarding the responsibility he bore for the experiment, especially a description of how he manipulated the mother of one of the prisoners as she expressed her reservations, and how easy it was for him to slip into doing so. My world was a little shaken as I read real-life descriptions of dehumanizing cruelty, and the culpability of those who don’t participate but commit the sin of inaction. It’s not enough to be the “good guy” by being a little nicer. One must act against brutality. I appreciate having my eyes opened, and this book gave me a passionate hunger to lay the foundation of a solid character now, to grow in fearlessness and integrity in preparation for ever meeting such situational evil face to face. Zimbardo helped me understand that under the “right” circumstances I could find that face in my mirror. That is a gift of wisdom beyond measure. The photographs and descriptions of everything from ethnic cleansing in Bosnia to the abuses at Abu Ghraib were a bit hard to see and read; this book is not for the faint of heart. I highly recommend it for the lessons it teaches. I couldn't put it down and read it in 2 days- even when I did put it aside to take a cleansing breath a few times, I found myself picking it up again a few minutes later, unable to stop thinking about it. bdopkins | Jul 14, 2008 | 1  I gave up half way through the seemingly endless description of the prison experiment. Shame as the book started well. euan.semple | Jun 21, 2008 | Philip Zimbardo discusses his Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) in a first person account of the day-to-day events that occurred during the infamous 6 day experiment. He includes actual exchanges transcribed from video and audio recordings of the events. He accepts absolute responsibility for ethical boundaries that were crossed during the planned 2 week experiment that was cut short because of fears that prisoners and/or guards were going to hurt themselves or others. The chapters covering the SPE appear to be Zimbardo’s way of assuaging the guilt he has felt for not stopping the SPE earlier. I felt quite knowledgeable about the study, which along with Milgram’s famous obedience study, is standard fare for introductory psychology classes as ‘what not to do’ when doing research with human participants. As I was reading the book I realized that there was much more for me to learn about the study and it was well worth my time. The second part of the book details the atrocities at Abu Ghraib and Zimbardo’s role as an expert witness for the defense of one of the accused soldiers. Zimbardo takes a look at how systems (e.g., government) can influence individuals to act in ‘evil’ ways. Lest we walk away from the book being too pessimistic about human nature, Zimbardo uses the last chapter as a tool for teaching us how to avoid the influence of others who may not have our best interests at heart. This book is a great read for psychology professionals and students and for anyone interested in how situations can bring out the best and worst in all of us. (  )lhager | Apr 4, 2008 | 0.070 seconds to build listing  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0812974441, Paperback)What makes good people do bad things? How can moral people be seduced to act immorally? Where is the line separating good from evil, and who is in danger of crossing it?Renowned social psychologist Philip Zimbardo has the answers, and in The Lucifer Effect he explains how–and the myriad reasons why–we are all susceptible to the lure of “the dark side.” Drawing on examples from history as well as his own trailblazing research, Zimbardo details how situational forces and group dynamics can work in concert to make monsters out of decent men and women. Zimbardo is perhaps best known as the creator of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Here, for the first time and in detail, he tells the full story of this landmark study, in which a group of college-student volunteers was randomly divided into “guards” and “inmates” and then placed in a mock prison environment. Within a week the study was abandoned, as ordinary college students were transformed into either brutal, sadistic guards or emotionally broken prisoners. By illuminating the psychological causes behind such disturbing metamorphoses, Zimbardo enables us to better understand a variety of harrowing phenomena, from corporate malfeasance to organized genocide to how once upstanding American soldiers came to abuse and torture Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib. He replaces the long-held notion of the “bad apple” with that of the “bad barrel”–the idea that the social setting and the system contaminate the individual, rather than the other way around. This is a book that dares to hold a mirror up to mankind, showing us that we might not be who we think we are. While forcing us to reexamine what we are capable of doing when caught up in the crucible of behavioral dynamics, though, Zimbardo also offers hope. We are capable of resisting evil, he argues, and can even teach ourselves to act heroically. Like Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem and Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate, The Lucifer Effect is a shocking, engrossing study that will change the way we view human behavior. From the Hardcover edition. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:01 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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