Lucifer Effect.

What makes humans capable of evil acts?

When that question is debated by psychologists, the Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted

by Philip Zimbardo, always features in the discussion.

Zimbardo was interested in finding out what happened when “you put good people in an

evil place.” His investigation of the psychology of imprisonment looked at whether the behaviour

of prisoners and guards was ‘dispositional’ – dependent on their personalities – or

‘situational,’ the product of a time and place.

Zimbardo randomly divided two groups of student volunteers into prisoners and guards – placed

them in a prison environment built in a Stanford basement – and then observed the results

over several days.

He found that the students assigned to play guards rapidly turned abusive and controlling,

whereas the ‘prisoners’ became submissive and accepting of punishment. He concluded

that people typically conform to the social roles they are expected to play.

Zimbardo’s thesis was expanded in his book, The Lucifer Effect. He proposed that evil

does not necessarily rise from some wickedness of character. Rather, ordinary people do evil

things when placed in certain situations.

To explain, let’s imagine two groups of people. Some wear blue shirts and some wear

red ones.

One blue shirted person decides to create a social club – for blue shirts only.

It’s dedicated to talking about blue culture and preserving blue language.

This particular blue shirt becomes the leader of the club and decides that, in order for

other blue shirts to join, they must steal money from the red-shirted people.

‘Red shirts deserve to be stolen from,’ he says. ‘They’re stupid enough to buy

red shirts instead of blue ones, so we must be superior – and more deserving of their

money”.

Applicants queue to be accepted into the blue club. They rationalise that if everyone is

stealing to gain entry, they won’t be judged.

So red-shirted people become victims of thievery, because of the situation the blue-shirted

people have been put into.

Zimbardo’s mechanisms – the seeds from which evil can sprout – are all present

in this scenario. Responsibility for evil acts is diffused among many, not pinned on

one person, The blue-shirted applicants found it easy to go along with the crowd.

They were also ordered to commit crimes by someone in authority – the blue club leader

– who dehumanised the red shirts by implying they were inferior. What’s more, fear of

being rejected from the club would influence them too.

Zimbardo’s experiments have helped to define our understanding of evil.

A more detailed examination of his ideas can be found in the Macat Analysis.