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The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil
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Product Description
Sunday Times
An important book...all politicians and social commentators should read it
Mary Warnock, Times Higher Education Supplement
Detailed and absorbing...masterly and honest
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
57 of 60 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The Lucifer Effect is a thoroughly fascinating and scholarly account of the situational forces that compel individuals to act without due thought and regard for the feelings of their fellow human beings. It contains one of the most detailed treatments of the author's Stanford Prison Experiments I've ever read, complete with details unavailable elsewhere. That treatment alone justifies reading the book. The arguments are compelling and convincing, and illustrated with copious examples of real world situations in which perfectly normal people have gone 'to the dark side'.
The sole criticism I have of the book is that the lengthy section on the Abu Ghraib scandals contains too much editorialising, especially in the sections where the author goes through the chain of command apportioning blame. While the author is not especially detached throughout the text, in this particular instance it veers off into bias in a way that jars.
That's a fairly minor objection though, and I thoroughly recommend the book to anyone who wants to understand a bit more about how human nature is only part of the moral equation.
The sole criticism I have of the book is that the lengthy section on the Abu Ghraib scandals contains too much editorialising, especially in the sections where the author goes through the chain of command apportioning blame. While the author is not especially detached throughout the text, in this particular instance it veers off into bias in a way that jars.
That's a fairly minor objection though, and I thoroughly recommend the book to anyone who wants to understand a bit more about how human nature is only part of the moral equation.
25 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I was often mystified as to why people behave in such inhumane ways towards each other. Daily reports in the news range from bullying through torture to genocide. Things I think of as unimaginable cruelty are surely the behaviours of maniacs and madmen, right? WRONG!
The Lucifer Effect highlights the simple process by which completely healthy, rational people become evil.
Zimbardo's experiments show how what we think of as being indefensible becomes not only possible but completely normal. Zimbardo's research describes tendencies in human psychology and reveals the process of how cruelty takes place. If we think that 'We' would never do such things...we are Quite Wrong!
The Lucifer Effect describes the process as a gradient; a little inaction here; a little silence there. The process is simple and subtle; all we have to do is collude through silence - say nothing, do nothing, don't rock the boat, ignore our doubts etc.
The final chapter talks about Learning to recognise Influences and Resist them. An awareness of how this psychological process takes place is key. If things look, feel or sound bad - Pay Attention - this means things Are Bad. We can learn to pay attention; learn how to put the brakes on and learn how to maintain integrity.
The Lucifer Effect highlights the simple process by which completely healthy, rational people become evil.
Zimbardo's experiments show how what we think of as being indefensible becomes not only possible but completely normal. Zimbardo's research describes tendencies in human psychology and reveals the process of how cruelty takes place. If we think that 'We' would never do such things...we are Quite Wrong!
The Lucifer Effect describes the process as a gradient; a little inaction here; a little silence there. The process is simple and subtle; all we have to do is collude through silence - say nothing, do nothing, don't rock the boat, ignore our doubts etc.
The final chapter talks about Learning to recognise Influences and Resist them. An awareness of how this psychological process takes place is key. If things look, feel or sound bad - Pay Attention - this means things Are Bad. We can learn to pay attention; learn how to put the brakes on and learn how to maintain integrity.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I found this book just amazing. I learnt so much about how conditions with bad rules as well as no rules with no accountability will encourage a very large majority of people, sometimes as much as 90% of people, to commit acts of evil. This totally shocked me.
The reason why I bought this book is that I started to work in a very repressive environment. I had never worked in such an environment before, and I could not understand why, as in previous places I was able to pin such a negative vibe on an individual. At this place I could not. It seemed to me that the system was at play, but no-one was trying to challenge it.
This book answered that question - almost all people will comply or enforce negative behaviours. Very senior management, who set the tone and the rules, will also let the negative behaviour occur and do nothing. Very very few people will ever challenge it. And the reason for this : people want to belong and they fear rejection. If they challenge the norms there is a high emotional cost to pay : exactly what happened to me. In a matter of weeks I went from being a confident person to utter depression as I so detested the environment. The last chapter was the saving grace and has enabled me to know how we can work to make working environments better. Thank you Phil.
I have four criticisms having read this book:
1. Having read it I seem to trust psychologists less : they seem to create scientific experiments where by volunteers are duped into them, for example they provide adverts to come to an experiment. The advert does not set out what will happen in the experiment.
2. The psychological experiments are always evil. Phil in his last chapter comes up with a thought experiment of doing a good positive behaviour experiment, stating that such a one has not been done.
3. Phil regularly states that the individuals who committed crimes cannot be excused for their crimes. But he never elaborates on this. On the one hand he spends 98% of the book explaining that the conditions caused the bad behaviour, and then 2% (or less) stating that they were responsible for the bad behaviour. For me I want to know why at the end of day do human beings commit evil acts in such bad conditions. Is Phil saying that at the end of the day we are puppets, 100% manipulated by our environment? Or is he saying we are manipulated by say 99% of our environment and that there is 1% within each individual person to choose good or evil? In my heart I believe we are able to choose, and we must learn to choose to find that 1% to do good, and perhaps we can start growing that 1% to 2% to 10% and so on, the maximum I do not know though. Would groups of nuns do the same? Would Jesus and the 12 disciples have done the same?
4. I worry if the social construct of psychology research is to fund evil experiments. I shall keep detached from the research. At one point I was considering studying psychology, but would be concerned that after a while I would end up being manipulated into their social construct.
I have now bought Phil's next book : The Time Paradox, and look forward to writing my next review of it
The reason why I bought this book is that I started to work in a very repressive environment. I had never worked in such an environment before, and I could not understand why, as in previous places I was able to pin such a negative vibe on an individual. At this place I could not. It seemed to me that the system was at play, but no-one was trying to challenge it.
This book answered that question - almost all people will comply or enforce negative behaviours. Very senior management, who set the tone and the rules, will also let the negative behaviour occur and do nothing. Very very few people will ever challenge it. And the reason for this : people want to belong and they fear rejection. If they challenge the norms there is a high emotional cost to pay : exactly what happened to me. In a matter of weeks I went from being a confident person to utter depression as I so detested the environment. The last chapter was the saving grace and has enabled me to know how we can work to make working environments better. Thank you Phil.
I have four criticisms having read this book:
1. Having read it I seem to trust psychologists less : they seem to create scientific experiments where by volunteers are duped into them, for example they provide adverts to come to an experiment. The advert does not set out what will happen in the experiment.
2. The psychological experiments are always evil. Phil in his last chapter comes up with a thought experiment of doing a good positive behaviour experiment, stating that such a one has not been done.
3. Phil regularly states that the individuals who committed crimes cannot be excused for their crimes. But he never elaborates on this. On the one hand he spends 98% of the book explaining that the conditions caused the bad behaviour, and then 2% (or less) stating that they were responsible for the bad behaviour. For me I want to know why at the end of day do human beings commit evil acts in such bad conditions. Is Phil saying that at the end of the day we are puppets, 100% manipulated by our environment? Or is he saying we are manipulated by say 99% of our environment and that there is 1% within each individual person to choose good or evil? In my heart I believe we are able to choose, and we must learn to choose to find that 1% to do good, and perhaps we can start growing that 1% to 2% to 10% and so on, the maximum I do not know though. Would groups of nuns do the same? Would Jesus and the 12 disciples have done the same?
4. I worry if the social construct of psychology research is to fund evil experiments. I shall keep detached from the research. At one point I was considering studying psychology, but would be concerned that after a while I would end up being manipulated into their social construct.
I have now bought Phil's next book : The Time Paradox, and look forward to writing my next review of it
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
small print
First impression of the book is that the print is so small. Wish I had ordered the kindle version and then could enlarge the print.
Published 1 month ago by Susan Fleming
Very interesting and thought provoking.
I went to an adult education class to study psychology and this book was recommended and I found it very interesting. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Jan
Disappointing
In my opinion, the subtitle should be: The Stanford Prison Experiment, Abu Ghraib and its relationship to the SPE. Read more
Published 7 months ago by bb107
An excellent book, but not a light read
This is an important book, as many of the official reviews and comments have said, and the content and relevance are both excellent. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Pete
The Lucifer Effect Paperback
I did a college course last year which involved psychology. I was advised to get a copy of this book to read if I wanted to understand the study better and research it in more... Read more
Published 10 months ago by D. H. Doughty
Rhetorical power but failed message
Philip Zimbardo, professor emeritus of psychology became better know by the general public for his bestseller on the emergence of evil behavior by people in certain particular... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Kristo Ivanov (Umeå university)
A sobering read...
This is an absolutely fascinating book, about how and why otherwise good people can come to commit horrific acts, acts that they themselves would have said they were not capable... Read more
Published 15 months ago by C. Ball
Lucifer Effect
This book really makes you think. It's not always the most pleasant book to read, however the insights that you gain from reading it really make it worth the effort. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Ms. M. C. Jones
Fantastic book
This is an excellent book. Font is a bit small but apart from that I really recommend it. It is on the recommended reading list for my psychology course but had had it... Read more
Published 18 months ago by Pauline Horner
Thought provoking stuff.
This is a rare book, one that might change how you view the world, not in a huge way but it certainly changed how I would view the soldiers running Abu Ghraib and it is scary to... Read more
Published 20 months ago by plot hound
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