The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
by Philip Zimbardo
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Book Summary Information
Author: Philip ZimbardoEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-01-22
ISBN: 0812974441
Number of pages: 576
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Book Reviews of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
Book Review: A deeply flawed argument: Emerging evidence behind the Stanford Prison Study
Summary: 2 Stars
There is no problem in making the argument that it is possible for "good people" to commit evil actions. There is much research evidence, particular from the study of the psychology of genocide, to support this argument. There is a huge problem, however, with using the Stanford Prison Study as evidence to support this argument.
As a brief illustration, while Zimbardo claims that "the power of the situation was stronger than that of the individual" in the prison study, there is much evidence to suggest that the manner in which people behaved can be traced directly to their personalities. For example, it takes a certain kind of person to sign up for a 2 week simulation study of "prison life" in the first place. We even have experimental evidence to back up this logical assumption (see Carnahan & McFarland, 2007 in Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin). People who sign up for a prison study are likely higher in aggressiveness, authoritarianism, machiavellianism, narcicissm, and social dominance, and lower on empathy and altruism. The 24 who were invited to participate in the study were not randomly selected from the 75 who signed up. The 12 invited to be prisoners did not last the full 6 days either - what is more, those who stayed in scored more than 4 times as high on authoritarianism as those who dropped out (correlation of .90!!!).
Ultimately though, with heaps of methodological problems (including experimenter interference, no clear hypotheses, no control group - hence not the Stanford Prison "Experiment" but the Stanford Prison Study) the SPS does not tell us about the power of the situation. It tells us much more about the power of personality. Remember Zimbardo describing the participants: "there were 3 kinds of guards (sadistic, obedient, lenient) and 3 kinds of prisoners (those who resisted or fought back, obedient ones, and those who broke down)." More evidence of different personalities reacting differently in the same situation.
Zimbardo has done some good research, but this is not it. Sadly this is what he chooses to keep talking about. Very sad that a leading figure in social psychology continues to write and talk about a very, very faulty conclusion. One really has to suspend all critical thinking to accept his conclusions.
Other references that might help include Reicher & Haslam's BBC prison study, as well as Zimbardo's own 1972 publication (which lists that correlation of .90).
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