Katie's review of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip G. Zimbardo
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 culpability, 50 pages on factors for improvement, 25 pages on heroism, and 50 pages of footnotes. The author did not attempt to eliminate his personal biases (even embracing them, calling himself a "bleeding heart liberal" at one point), which really bothered me, since the book was presented as an unbiased view of social behavior as it relates to situational forces. The subject WAS very interesting, but I'd recommend it to a limited audience - those who are schooled in social psycholo...more
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Katie's recommendation of this book only to those who are in the fields of psychology or prison systems misses much of the point of publishing this analysis of the Stanford Study.
Zimbardo, openly declaring his bias, hopes to add a level of awareness to the general population that situations can have unforseen evil effects on good people. By understanding this potential systemic and situational corruption, people can make choices before they get sucked in. This is his most important point, and the one that the reader is hopefully most likely to hold on to.
This is more important for us lay-people, who can hopefully affect those creating corrupting systems and situations such as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo through protests and elections. Note that at least Rumsfeld is gone and new hope is building for the 2008 elections. Note also that the APA continues to make the bed for CIA and Military torture.
I am sad that Katie does not get this critical point.
