book data
286 ratings, 3.71 average rating, 97 reviews
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published
March 27th 2007
by Random House
binding
Hardcover, 576 pages
isbn
1400064112
(isbn13: 9781400064113)
description
What makes good people do bad things? How can moral people be seduced to act immorally? Where is the line separating good from evil, and who is in dan...more
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 831)
Read in January, 2007
recommends it for:
ehh, not sure
Well, interesting title and interesting subject, but I highly doubt his hypothesis. This book was borne out of Philip Zimbardo's work with a U.S. army soldier, who was one of the prison guards at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Zimbardo is also the one who ran the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment in the 1970s. Basically, his premise in this book is that circumstances shape the individual, and our actions can be molded by the circumstances that we are in. E.g., it was the duress and egregious circumst...more
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Read in October, 2007
I was excited to read this, since I have a psychology background and had heard that it was a good look at the Stanford Prison Experiment, which I studied in college. I wasn't too impressed with this book though. It is at least 100 pages too long and bogged down by excessive detail, making it read like a numbing textbook. The breakdown is as follows: 200 pages on Zimbardo's Prison Experiment, 100 pages of analysis of the experiment, 75 pages on Abu Ghraib, 75 pages about the Bush administration's...more
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recommends it for:
concerned about waterboarding?
I took a class with Dr. Zimbardo way back when, at a time when his newest research was on shyness. I mentioned this to a granddaughter because he was lecturing at her university last week. She attended and thought he would have been an exciting teacher - he was.
This is a clearly written, coherent summary of the famous research which demonstrated how easy it is to induce moral people to do immoral things. Mostly, the book seems to be Dr. Zimbardo's personal apology to the world for having...more
This is a clearly written, coherent summary of the famous research which demonstrated how easy it is to induce moral people to do immoral things. Mostly, the book seems to be Dr. Zimbardo's personal apology to the world for having...more
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Read in May, 2008
recommends it for:
psych majors, psych novices, those involved in shaping human systems
The first half of this book is devoted to the Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971. Zimbardo recruits normal young men to be randomly assigned as guards or prisoners in the basement of Jordan Hall (a simulated prison, for the purpose) and intends the experiment to last two weeks. It is cancelled after 6 days because of a nervous breakdown and observed abuses.
The second half of the book is about prison abuses at Abu Ghraib. Zimbardo was an expert witness on behalf of one of the seven low-ra...more
The second half of the book is about prison abuses at Abu Ghraib. Zimbardo was an expert witness on behalf of one of the seven low-ra...more
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Read in June, 2007
recommends it for:
Those who anticipate staying in the military or other large organization
First the Pro's: This book was written by the principle investigator of the "Stanford Prison Experiment" in the 1970's. This individual also was an expert witness at the trial of SFC Frederick, one of the MP's convicted for abusing prisoners at Abu Garhaib. It sheds light on how poor leadership and systemic dehumanization can lead normal people to commit acts of incredible cruelty. I think it is an important read for any of us who anticipate staying in the military long enough to b...more
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Read in August, 2007
recommends it for:
Psychologists, Philosophers, Nonconformists
I used to watch Zimbardo on PBS when I was home sick from school. This book is full of information and research about how a normal, "average" person can be turned towards cruelty and an instrument of an dehumanizing system when placed in the right role and with the right kind of social pressure. It is intense and I had to skim parts of it to avoid depression about the human condition. It connects the results Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment with the Abu Ghraib scandal, and expl...more
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Read in July, 2007
I would give this book 5 stars for subject matter and 3 stars for execution. While this Stanford Prison Experiment is a fascinating subject, and it's great to get all the details lo these many decades later, the book offers diminishing returns after the first half or so. It picks up a bit when Zimbardo gets into the parallels with Abu Ghraib, but that section dwindles in value after a while as well. Still, the fact that the experiment so clearly shows the impact of environment on behavior and ho...more
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Read in March, 2008
Zimbardo argues that human behavior is highly plastic and that evil behavior comes from situational rather than dispositional factors (outer vs inner determinants). He talks a lot about what happened and why in his fascinating and revealing Stanford Prison Experiment. The rest is about the what and why of US military personnel torturing people at the Abu Ghraib prison and sketches of numerous other experiments supporting his thesis. He argues that the experiments and evaluations of what happened...more
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Read in July, 2007
recommends it for:
those interested in psychology, and the effects of a situation on human behavior
If you've ever wondered how people get to "that" point when they can do something you consider heinous or evil, this is an interesting read. This book discusses the Stanford Prison Experiment and how the impact of a situation can have a greater impact on human behavior than we as an American society recognize. Although everyone has individual choice, we habitually underestimate the impact of the situation on the individual in both positive and negative cases. It is a fascinating and...more
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um, so i decided to stop reading this book because it's not suprising to me (in the LEAST!) that a bunch of college educated, middle-class white kids would act all brutish and prison-guardesque if they didn't have to be responsibile for any of their actions, and stuff. hello, blackwater? hello, um, the u.s. army? hello, fox news network? screw situational ethics when white boys have the whole world as their prison den!
also, i stopped reading this book because zimbardo (google his picture!...more
also, i stopped reading this book because zimbardo (google his picture!...more
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Pragmatic and important information for all of us struggling to remain ethical in complex systems and groups. As much as I'm not a fan of psychological studies, this speaks to intuition: it's often inhumanly hard to speak truth to power, partly because when we in relation to power, truth gets confused. Helps to remember that when trying to have compassion for folks working in systems of oppression and for ourselves. Also, don't try to be a hero alone. This book speaks to our very real limitation...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommends it for:
students (casual and formal) of human psychology/power abuse.
This is one of the most important books I have ever read. I have long been fascinated by what makes people behave in cruel or harmful ways. Having grown up around heavily malignant forces, I suppose this was only natural.
Philip Zimbardo was the leader of the Stanford Prison Experiment in the 70s, a psychological experiment that cast carefully screened college students into roles of jailers and prisoners. The experiment was only supposed to last two weeks - but was forced to a frightening hal...more
Philip Zimbardo was the leader of the Stanford Prison Experiment in the 70s, a psychological experiment that cast carefully screened college students into roles of jailers and prisoners. The experiment was only supposed to last two weeks - but was forced to a frightening hal...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
This book helps answer a question that has been puzzling and troubling me for decades: how do ordinary people become monsters, willing to commit violence against others? Zimbardo's argument, backed up with research, is that we are much more influenced by context than we would like to admit. Under circumstances that dehumanize other people, and reduce our sense of individual responsibility, we are all capable of terrible things. His purpose is not to excuse individuals from their personal resp...more
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Read in April, 2008
recommended to Jennn by:
The Daily Showrecommends it for: people interested in pyschology and the study of evil
I saw Dr. Zimbardo on the Daily Show about two years ago promoting his book. He's got a lot of character and energy to him, not to mention vast intelligence.
I picked up the book not long after that, but since it was new and a slow read, I had to give it back to the library half finished.
So, while browsing the library, I rediscovered it and gave it a second chance because what I had read so far was interesting.
The book is about the frailty of man, how quickly and easily the fall into ...more
I picked up the book not long after that, but since it was new and a slow read, I had to give it back to the library half finished.
So, while browsing the library, I rediscovered it and gave it a second chance because what I had read so far was interesting.
The book is about the frailty of man, how quickly and easily the fall into ...more
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Read in September, 2008
Philip Zimbardo’s The Lucifer Effect is a difficult read, not because its premise is particularly startling, but because its dissection of the psychology of evil shows it to be disturbingly simple. By positioning each act of breathtaking cruelty beside a description of its perpetrator--invariably an ordinary, psychologically normal person--the author makes clear that we are just animals socialized into one behavior, and easily socialized into another. And though Zimbardo never outright asks it...more
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Read in May, 2008
recommended to Elizabeth by:
radio Fresh Air from WHYY, May 1, 2007 http://www.npr.org/templarecommends it for: anyone interested in Abu Ghraib prison debacle
This is the story of the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE).
http://www.prisonexp.org/index...
Zimbardo wrote it because of his dismay over the handling of the American problem in Iraqi prison at Abu Ghraib. He ties together the institutional complicity of the US military/intelligence community/Bush administration to the flaws of the SPE. I feel for him and his frustration but not much. The flaws of the SPE are so serious that a...more
http://www.prisonexp.org/index...
Zimbardo wrote it because of his dismay over the handling of the American problem in Iraqi prison at Abu Ghraib. He ties together the institutional complicity of the US military/intelligence community/Bush administration to the flaws of the SPE. I feel for him and his frustration but not much. The flaws of the SPE are so serious that a...more
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Read in May, 2008
I, after a couple of weeks, have finally finished “The Lucifer Effect.” I normally don’t dog ear books because, well, that’s almost sacrilegious, but there were points that I knew I wanted to come back to. Like this one which really came out there unexpectedly, and had me laughing so hard.
After asking what his parents do, his religious background, and whether he goes to church regularly, Prescott is angered by the prisoner’s statement this his religion is “nondenominational. He retorts, “You haven’t even decided about something as important as that either.” ...more
After asking what his parents do, his religious background, and whether he goes to church regularly, Prescott is angered by the prisoner’s statement this his religion is “nondenominational. He retorts, “You haven’t even decided about something as important as that either.” ...more
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Read in March, 2008
This is a weighty sandwich that I munched through over two months of bus riding. The upper bread is the start of the book, where Zimbardo, not quite friend of my girlfriend, bangs on about the Stanford Prison Experiment for almost a whole half loaf of bread. Its definetly interesting, but theres more detail than needed and it takes a mighty push to get through.
The middles a remarkably tasty yet incredibly thin slice of ham, all about simialr research.
The end bread is about the size of the ot...more
The middles a remarkably tasty yet incredibly thin slice of ham, all about simialr research.
The end bread is about the size of the ot...more
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Read in July, 2008
"Dehumanization is one of the central processes in the transformation of ordinary, normal people into indifferent or even wanton perpetrators of evil."
"The terrible paradox of the Inquisition is that the ardent and often sincere desire to combat evil generated evil on a grander scale than the world had ever seen before."
"...but only by examining and understanding the causes of such evil might we be able to change it, to contain it, to tranform it through wise dec...more
"The terrible paradox of the Inquisition is that the ardent and often sincere desire to combat evil generated evil on a grander scale than the world had ever seen before."
"...but only by examining and understanding the causes of such evil might we be able to change it, to contain it, to tranform it through wise dec...more
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Read in February, 2008
On the surface, this looks to be an extremely interesting book. A social psychologist recounts his famous Stanford Prison Experiment (2 groups of college student volunteers are randomly assigned to be guards and inmates for 2 weeks in a mock prison environment--guards become sadistic, prisoners break down emotionally). Then the author visits Abu Ghraib, scene of the infamous tortures of Iraqi detainees. Comparisons are made, insight is given.
But, in the end, this book was overly long, whi...more
But, in the end, this book was overly long, whi...more
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