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Why good people do evil things
Published on Sunday, Oct 28, 2007
The auditorium at Simmons Hall on the University of Akron campus overflowed on Wednesday evening. Latecomers leaned against the wall, sat on the floor or in the aisles. The seating capacity wasn't exactly Q-like, or even comparable to the Civic Theatre. There was a distinct buzz.
Philip Zimbardo was here.
Who?
David Baker, a professor of psychology at the university and the director of the Archives of the History of American Psychology (housed at UA), advises that Zimbardo is no less than a rock star in the profession. He built his reputation early. In 1971, he conducted the classic Stanford Prison Experiment. Healthy, ordinary students played the roles of inmates and guards, the scene turning so ugly and brutal, guards engaging in sadism, that the projected two-week study ended after six days.
That hasn't been his only hit. Zimbardo gained a wider audience through Discovering Psychology, a public television series. He is the author of a popular college textbook, Psychology and Life (in its 18th edition).
His most recent book, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, was the subject of his talk, reflecting at age 74, the accumulated knowledge and insight, not to mention pushing in new directions, building further on what he discovered and learned at Stanford 36 years ago.
As a student, Zimbardo initially found psychology dull until he combined that world with the larger themes pursued in sociology and anthropology. He likes to ask big questions, and few have been bigger of late than those about American influence in the world, shaped by the debacle in Iraq, among the most searing images those from Abu Ghraib, of American soldiers brutalizing Iraqi prisoners.
How did our men and women end up engaging in torture?
Zimbardo reminded his audience about the story of Lucifer, God's favorite angel transformed into the devil. Practically all of us like to think that we wouldn't have been one of those soldiers. We would dodge the Lucifer Effect, good remaining good. We would hold to our principles, do the ethical thing, blow the whistle. Zimbardo emphasized that these weren't soldiers predisposed to such dark behavior. If anything, they were among the least likely to succumb to such ugliness.
Take Sgt. Chip Frederick. He was a model soldier, recipient of medals and awards, a regular correspondent with his family, ''an All-American kid from Pennsylvania.'' In the end, Frederick received eight years of hard time in a military prison for his actions at Abu Ghraib. He was dishonorably discharged. He forfeited his retirement savings. He and his wife divorced.
Zimbardo described Frederick as a broken man. The Pentagon called him one of the ''bad apples.''
The Zimbardo talk included images from the ''little shop of horrors,'' ones that I hadn't seen before, the human pyramids and sexual degradation of a more ghastly degree. All of this set the scene for what Zimbardo discovered serving as an expert witness for the Frederick defense team. These guards received virtually no supervision. They were inadequately trained for the job, Frederick having previously served as a guard at a small prison. They worked 12-hour shifts. Frederick went 40 days without a break.
The prisoners at Abu Ghraib represented the result of a massive sweep of Baghdad streets. The professional interrogators were frustrated about the lack of information. They pressed the guards to ''prep'' the prisoners for questions. They contended that confessions would save American lives.
Bad apples? Zimbardo pointed to the more telling ''bad barrel.''
The investigation of events at Abu Ghraib led by James Schlesinger, a former CIA chief and defense secretary, cited the lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment in its report, arguing, rightly, that lessons should have been learned. Here were the familiar circumstances, those involved lacking preparation, facing new circumstances, highly vulnerable to conformity, their identity and humanity at risk.
At one point, Zimbardo showed the image of one guard in facepaint resembling that worn by the band Insane Clown Posse. Zimbardo noted that our lives often amount to playing roles, one at work, another with family members, still something else with friends. These roles help us navigate.
They also reveal the immense pull of the situation. The bad barrel proved overwhelming at Abu Ghraib. That isn't to absolve the guards. It is to emphasize the higher responsibility of those who deployed them there, who created the situation, ''the heart and mind of darkness,'' and yet no high-ranking officer or civilian official has been held similarly accountable.
For Zimbardo, the first purpose wasn't to judge. He wanted to enlighten, to challenge his audience: How well do you know yourself? How sure are you about what you would do in a new situation? He introduced Joe Darby, the Army private who exposed the abuses at Abu Ghraib. He described him as a hero, not in a mythic way but as an ordinary man who took a different route, who proved a counter to the familiar concept of the ''banality of evil.''
Zimbardo talked about the ''banality of heroism.'' He wanted us to think of ourselves as ''heroes in waiting,'' willing to act on the daily stage when others are passive, or worse. On Thursday, he spoke to cadets at West Point, the audience even larger, and, the hope is, equally captivated by the star power.
For more about Philip Zimbardo and the Lucifer Effect, check the Web site: www.lucifereffect.org.
Douglas is the Beacon Journal editorial page editor. He can be reached at 330-996-3514, or emailed at mdouglas@thebeaconjournal.com.
The auditorium at Simmons Hall on the University of Akron campus overflowed on Wednesday evening. Latecomers leaned against the wall, sat on the floor or in the aisles. The seating capacity wasn't exactly Q-like, or even comparable to the Civic Theatre. There was a distinct buzz.
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