Philip Zimbardo: The Lucifer Effect

Evil comes in various shapes and sizes. While good is found all over, it is also masked by the evil that overpowers it. Controlled through physical, and verbal manipulation, people are easily tricked into thinking that what is right, is wrong and what is wrong, is right. Whether they are committed to being good, there will always be a moment where evil will darken the bright side of a person 's soul. In the novel The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt, the author portrays the good and evil side of human nature through the main characters to show how susceptible it is to manipulate a person’s mindset to be good or evil.

To begin the experiment Zimbardo interviewed over 70 applicants and done testing on each to eliminate candidates with psychological issues. Only 24 males were chosen to participate in the experiment. The participants were randomly selected by flipping a coin. They were either made a guard or an inmate; There were 10 inmates and 11 guards. Zimbardo wanted the “criminals” to feel like real criminals and treated like real criminals. He had the participants arrested at their own homes and taken to the police station to go through the whole process of

According to Haney, Banks and Zimbrado, (1973) “The Office of Naval Research sponsored the project as part of a larger project intended to develop a better understanding of the basic psychological mechanisms underlying human aggression.” (p. 1) Also according to Haney, Banks and Zimbrado, (1973) the study would hopefully help the Navy and others identify and isolate the processes which motivate aggressive submissive behavior within a total institution such as a prison. (p.

The human mind is a very complex organ which contains many psychological components that are infinite to comprehend. Social constructionism is a field that can be broken down into two different paths, socials and psychological behavior. The two films the Stanford Prison Experiment and The Hunting Ground are good examples of both of these processes.

This experiment fits into Kidder’s ethical dilemma paradigms of short-term vs long-term. In fact, Zimbardo choose the long term effects of his experiment over the short term effects of it. The Stanford prison experiment had a short-term effect on the university students that could not bear the prison life for long and the prison was ended after 6 days only. The long hours of imprisonment revealed that the students had become depressed while the guards had already become cruel at their maximum. The prisoners were humiliated and embarrassed by the guards. The guards were cruel and even made the prisoners do menial tasks. The prisoners also broke and could no longer control their emotions, some prisoners also went into depression. For example, one prisoner had to be released after 36 hours because of uncontrollable bursts of screaming, crying and anger. But, the experiment had long term effects that Zimbardo thought to be superior to the short-term effects, hence he decided to continue the experiment. Zimbardo chose to get the long-term effects instead of worrying about the short-term effects. The long-term effects of the Stanford Prison Guard experiment are that it has showed that social roles are a dominant strength in human nature. The guards and prisoners lived as though they were actually guards and prisoners.

There are too many contraventions to the code of ethics that are set up for present day experimentation. As mentioned earlier, upon reading this story, I was completely disgusted. I was specifically outraged at the man who conducted this experiment; How could he do this to those innocent people? How could he let this happen? So, I did some additional research, because this story had literally upset me to the point of tears. I came across his TED talk. I am not sure if you have watched Philip Zimbardo’s TED talk, but it was very insightful, and extremely disturbing. However, after viewing the video, I understood his purpose behind this experiment; can good people be transformed to evil? According to social psychologists, there are primarily three specific ways people can, essentially, “turn to the dark side”: dispositional, situational, and Zimbardo’s discovery, systemic. Through this experiment, Zimbardo observed how the system of the jail affected the participants: for the “guards” there really wasn’t a system. Their power was unlimited; they had no boundaries. Because of this, they started doing small, evil acts, which quickly escalated to larger-scale acts of near malice. For the “prisoners”, the system was unsteadily and randomly created and reliant upon the “guards”, creating a very unhealthy system

In explaining behavior these factors can either be combined as one explanation or used separately to determine the cause of one’s actions. For example, one study testing the situational role in affecting behavior was done by Philip Zimbardo (1971) in the Stanford Prison Experiment where 22 males were selected depending on their social skills and mental

The Stanford Prison Experiment conducted by psychologist Philip Zimbardo in 1971 illustrated the direct relationship between power of situations and circumstances to shape an individual’s behavior. During this study 24 undergraduates were grouped into roles of either a Prisoner or a Guard, the study was located in a mock correctional facility in the basement of Stanford University. Researchers then observed the prisoners and guards using hidden cameras. The study was meant to last two weeks. However, the brutality of the Guards and the suffering of the Prisoners was so intense that it had to be terminated after only six days. During this period, Zimbardo observed the radical change in the personalities of the participants embodying the role of the prison guard, as they changed from ordinary young men to men with a vicious and sadistic character. Zimbardo stated that he was trying to portray what transpired when all of the individuality and dignity was stripped away from a human, and their life was completely controlled. He wanted to demonstrate the dehumanization and loosening of social and moral values that can happen to guards immersed in such a situation (“Stanford Prison Experiment”). This experiment has been used to exemplify the cognitive dissonance theory and the power of authority. In addition, the findings advocate the situational explanation of behavior rather than the dispositional one.

Authority gives a person the chance to feel superior, and as seen throughout this film, those within the position of authority will only then abuse this opportunity. Given the chance for people to gain authority or rather the sense of authority is enough to awaken the evil within. Within the movie, The Stanford Prison Experiment the guards were enabled to set a line of difference between the prisoners and themselves. They were able to make the prisoners feel weak or emasculated, forcing the students to strip and wear the assigned prison clothes that barely covered their genitals (Alvarez). Forcing the prisoners to wear these feminine articles of clothing and assigning them a number, gives the opportunity to strip away their personality and

In 1971, Philip Zimbardo set out to conduct an experiment to observe behavior as well as obedience. In Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiment, many dispute whether it was obedience or merely conforming to their predesigned social roles of guards and prisoners that transpired throughout the experiment. Initially, the experiment was meant to test the roles people play in prison environment; Zimbardo was interested in finding out whether the brutality reported among guards in American prisons was due to the sadistic personalities of the guards, disposition, or had more to do with the prison environment. This phenomenon has been arguably known to possibly influencing the catastrophic similarities which occurred at Abu Ghraib prison in 2003.The

In both Lord of the Flies and the stanford prison experiment, it is demonstrated that people’s more dark and savage side comes out when they are placed in a situation where they are isolated from civilization. In the stanford prison experiment, the college students’ dark sides came out only 36 hours into the experiment: “And finally, about were hostile, arbitrary, and intensive in their forms of prisoner humiliation. These guards appeared to thoroughly enjoy the power they wielded, yet none of our preliminary personality tests were able to predict this behavior,” (SPE 12). The experiment began with average middle class college students who were told to act like prison guards. For the time being, they were isolated to the prison and interacting with the “prisoners” all day.

In the Stanford Prison Experiment, a test is done upon the morality of human beings to see how the behavior of people are like when they are given complete power and authority and how people react when they are imprisoned and expected to abide by the demands of complete authority. Society has become accustomed to police enforcement. Being a form of authority, people perceive it just or as expected actions in response to criminal activities. Police officers are perceived as enforcers of the law and also the ones who protect society. When they carry out their line of duty, it is for the sake of the safety upon society, ensuring

In August of 1971, psychology professor Philip Zimbardo conducted the Stanford prison experiment, which was funded by the U.S military to investigate the causes of dissension between military guards and prisoners. As the experiment commenced, the participating college students adapted to their roles as guards and detainees in the prison far beyond the expectations of Zimbardo. Authoritarian measures were enforced harshly upon those who were the prisoners, with some even subjected to psychological torture. However, many of the prisoners accepted this treatment passively, allowing psychological abuse and harassment to be inflicted. The experiment concluded that situation, rather than an individual's personality, affected the participants' behavior.

The Stanford Prison Experiment was an experiment to see if normal people would change their behavior in a role-play as a prisoner or a prison guard. The experiment was conducted by Dr.Philip Zimbardo in 1973 at Stanford University that caused numerous amount of trauma to prisoners by prison guards in their role-playing position which forced Dr. Zimbardo to officially terminate the experiment six days after it was introduced. Due to the cruel aggressive behaviors from the guards, the experiment led to a question, "Do "normal" people have the capability of behaving badly?" The answer to that question is that most likely an individual who behave normally will have the capability of expressing evil behavior due to the environment that they are surrounded. The supreme power of authority and having no remorse feelings with the addition of having an influence environment are the

Accordingly, this study teaches us that when given a role of authority, such as that of a prison guard, it can often cause us to act in ways that do