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nary lives. All regained their original baseline emotional states with no lasting trauma. Dr. Zimbardo has kept in touch with many of them and where possible followed their lives. And he has devoted his life to understanding how human nature works under situational stresses.
Within certain powerful social settings, human nature can be transformed in ways as dramatic as the chemical transformation in Robert Louis Stevenson's captivating fable of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The enduring interest in the SPE over many decades comes, I think, from the experiment's startling revelation of "transformation of character" - of good people suddenly becoming perpetrators of evil as guards or pathologically passive victims as prisoners in response to situational forces acting on them.
…We want to believe in the essential, unchanging goodness of people, in their power to resist external pressures, in their rational appraisal and then rejection of situational temptations. We invest human nature with God-like qualities, with moral and rational faculties that make us both just and wise. We simplify the complexity of human experience by erecting a seemingly impermeable boundary between Good and Evil. On one side are Us, Our Kin, and Our Kind; on the other side of that line we cast Them, Their Different Kin, and Other Kind. Paradoxically, by creating this myth of our invulnerability to situational forces, we set ourselves up for a fall by not being sufficiently vigilant to situational forces.
The next section of the book reviews studies that have been done to investigate social dynamics around power, conformity and obedience.
First, most studies show that because we are social creatures, we strongly tend toward conformity within groups. People will even change their answer to a question to the wrong answer when within a group where the majority of people give the wrong answer. Many studies have shown how powerful groupthink is in shaping the answers (and thoughts) for individuals within a group.
Another area that deeply affects humans is how we relate to authority. What is particularly surprising to many who have studied this subject is how much more susceptible to authority we humans are than we think we are. The original study that explored this subject was conducted by Stanley Milgram. He found that the nice sensible middle-class volunteers would apply lethal shocks to their test subjects if they were told to do so within an experiment. Subsequent studies have shown that this behavior was not an anomaly, but consistent for many situations where an order comes from someone the individual thinks is in charge. In fact, one study showed that 100% of the nurses participating followed the orders of the doctor, even when the doctor gave an order that would harm the patient. What this shows is that when the authority figure is seen as particularly legitimate, the compulsion to follow orders can be overwhelming.
The combination of our susceptibility to authority and desire for belonging can lead humans to some deeply immoral behavior, particularly when the individuals are in unfamiliar situations. Add in factors such as understaffing, danger and no outside independent controls with a little encouragement to "take the gloves off," and one can easily create an Abu Ghraib. Dr. Zimbardo was able to verify that this was so when he was asked to testify in the trial of Staff Sergeant Ivan "Chip" Frederick II who had been in charge of the night shift on Tiers 1A and 1B, where the infamous photos had been taken. In the third section of the book, Dr. Zimbardo explains what it was like in Abu Ghraib (and it was hellish) and how the situation created the pathology that was exhibited there. And he makes a powerful case that the people in charge who created the situation were far more culpable for the horrors than the individuals who were denounced as "bad apples."
Dr. Zimbardo's exploration of what can lead good humans to do evil concludes with some much-needed discussion about how we prevent being overtaken by the evil and help teach others how to resist the pressure of toxic systems. He provides a ten-step program to resist unwanted influences: admit your mistakes (avoid cognitive dissonance), be mindful (think before acting), take responsibility for your actions, value yourself for who you are (and don't let others de-individuate you), validate that an authority is just, value your independence, understand the frame you are operating in and who is framing the issues, balance your time perspective (don't forget your past commitments and future obligations to yourself and others in the heat of the moment), don't sacrifice your personal or civic freedom for the illusion of security and finally, oppose unjust systems. As he explains these steps can help us keep our heads grounded ethically and morally even when we are faced with toxic situations. Finally, he closes with some thoughts on how to instill and invoke civic heroism.
This is a powerful, insightful, and at times deeply disturbing book. If you have ever wondered how you might act when faced with being part of unthinkable evil, this book shows you how vulnerable we all are. Dr. Zimbardo wrote this book hoping that his studies and his conclusions can be help us gain the wisdom to prevent or resist this type of evil in the future.
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