The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil

by Philip G. Zimbardo

After less than three days into this bizarre situation, some of the students role-playing prison guards have moved far beyond mere playacting. They have internalized the hostility, negative affect, and mind-set characteristic of some real prison guards, as is evident from their shift reports, retrospective diaries, and personal reflections.

Varnish reveals his initial reluctance to get into the guard role, which was so apparent that I had to get the warden to set him straight. “It wasn’t till the second day that I decided I would have to force myself to really go about this thing in the right way. I had to intentionally shut off all feelings I had towards any of the prisoners, to lose sympathy and any respect for them. I began to treat them as coldly and harshly as possible verbally. I would not let show any feelings they might like to see, like anger or despair.”

He reports feeling increasingly bossy and forgetting that this is just an experiment.

The depersonalization of the prisoners and the spreading extent of dehumanization are beginning to affect him, too: “As I got angrier and angrier, I didn’t question this behavior as much.

Blaming the victims for their sorry condition—created by our failure to provide adequate shower and sanitation facilities—became common among the staff. We see this victim blame in operation as Vandy complains, “I got tired of seeing the prisoners in rags, smelling bad, and the prison stink.”4

First, put an informant into the prisoner mix to get better information about the impending riot. Then arrange to foil the rioters by pretending the study is over when they break in. We will disassemble the prison cells to make it look as though everyone has gone home, and I will tell them that we have decided to discontinue the research, so no heroics, just go back where you came from.

Most of the prisoners are in the process of deciding that it does not make sense to accept their prisoner role in its most contentious form by constantly opposing the guards. They are beginning to accept their fate and to cope day by day with whatever is done to them because “the prospect of two weeks of hassling over sleep, meals, beds, and blankets was too much.”

Dave reports “feeling guilty being sent to rat on these great guys, and was relieved when there was really nothing to tell.”7 But was there really no information to share?

We gradually realize that David has violated his verbal contract with us to enact the informer role in this emergency. Accordingly, when someone steals the keys to the police handcuffs later that day, David tells us that he has no idea where they are. He had lied, as we learned from his diary report at the end of the experiment: “I knew where the handcuff key was after a while, but didn’t tell,

sudden and amazing transformation into the prisoner mentality was even more evident in some of David’s other feedback. He felt that during his two days in our jail, he was no different from the others,

he took no notes and that they had failed to give him their penciled list for the record. What was most important to our System was to provide the semblance of democracy in this authoritarian setting.

However, citizen dissent demands changes in the system. If taken wisely, such change prevents open disobedience and rebellion. But when dissent is co-opted by the system, disobedience is curtailed and rebellion shelved. In fact, without getting any assurances of reasonable attempts to address any of their complaints, these elected officials had little likelihood of achieving any of their goals. The Stanford County Jail Prisoners’ Grievance Committee failed in its main mission to make a dent in the system armor. However, they left feeling good about having openly vented and having some authority, even a low-level one, listen to their complaints.

Then he adds a puzzling P.S.: “Be careful not to let the nitwits know you’re real . . .” Real?

We had also experienced “groupthink.” Once I, as leader, believed the rumor to be valid, everyone else accepted it as true. No one played devil’s advocate, a figure that every group needs to avoid foolish or even disastrous decisions like this.

The prisoner responds, “I’m 5486, sir,” or “I’m 7258, father.” Only a few respond with their names; the rest just give him their numbers instead of their names. Curiously, the priest does not flinch; I am very surprised. Socialization into the prisoner role is clearly taking effect.

Father McDermott himself has slipped deeply into the role of prison chaplain. Apparently, our mock prison has created a very realistic situation that has drawn the priest in, just as it has the prisoners and the guards and me.

priest tells me that the study is working like a real prison and specifically that he is seeing the typical “first-offender syndrome”—one filled with confusion, irritability, rage, depression, and overemotionalization.

Even though he is clearly distressed, he is willing to go back into that prison to prove that he is not really a bad guy. “Listen carefully to me, now, you’re not 819. You are Stewart, and my name is Dr. Zimbardo. I am a psychologist, not a prison superintendent, and this is not a real prison. This is just an experiment, and those guys in there are just students, like you. So it’s time to go home, Stewart. Come with me now. Let’s go.”

“819’s apparent indifference to the troubles of his fellow inmates upsets them.”

Vandy reports a different reaction: “I continued to become more involved than on the preceding day. I enjoyed harassing the prisoners at 2:30 A.M. It pleased my sadistic senses to cause bitterness between us.” That is a rather remarkable statement, one that I am sure he would never have made four days earlier.

Stew-819 later told me. “I simply can’t stand being abused by other people. I developed a strong resentment of the fascist guards and a strong liking for the compassionate ones.

David, who took over 8612’s uniform, was brought into the prison as our spy. Unfortunately, for us, he was not providing any useful information because he had become sympathetic to the prisoners’ cause and had transferred his allegiance to them in almost a heartbeat.

He hated this “chicken-shit” hazing. He also told us of the time distortion that expanded and contracted events and had confused him when he was awakened several times during the night for interminable counts. He reported a mental dullness like a fog surrounding everything.

David did not give us “actionable intelligence,” such as about escape plans or where the keys to the handcuffs were hidden. His personal reflections did, however, make evident that a powerful force was operating on the minds of the prisoners to suppress group action against their oppression. They had begun to focus inward to selfishly consider what they had to do singly to survive and maybe score an early parole.

Hellmann: “Hey guys, we got nice hot sausages for your dinner tonight.” 416 (glibly): “Not for me, sir, I refuse to eat any food you give me.” Hellmann: “That is a rule violation, for which you will be punished accordingly.” 416: “It does not matter, I will not eat your sausages.” As punishment, Hellmann puts 416 into the Hole,

In a barely audible voice, 416 continues to make a Gandhi nonviolent protest statement. Burdan never heard of Mahatma Gandhi and insists on a better reason. “You tell me the connection between those two things, I don’t see it.” Then 416 breaks the illusion, reminding those within earshot that the guards are violating the contract he signed when he volunteered for this experiment. (I am stunned that this reminder is ignored by them all. The guards are now totally absorbed in their illusory prison.)

“Tell him that he is a ‘pussy.’” A few of them obey, but not Sarge. As a matter of principle, Sarge refuses to use any obscenity. Now, with two of them defying Hellmann at the same time, Hellman turns his wrath against Sarge,

Burdan succeeds in ending this game, which he has found distasteful from the beginning, “I’m tired of this game, this is ridiculous.” They revert to their more traditional game, the count.

416’s stubborn resistance against eating his sausages is of greater immediate consequence to these guards.

Sarge’s account of this confrontation is framed in a curiously impersonal style: The guard ordered me to call another prisoner a ‘bastard,’ and call myself the same. The former I would never do, the latter of which would produce a logical paradox denying the validity of the former. He began as he always does before “punishments,” alluding to the hint in his vocal intonation that the others would be punished for my actions. In order to avoid their punishment and avoid obeying that command, I produced a reaction that would solve both by saying, “I will not use the word bastard in any meaningful way”—giving both he and myself a way out.10

416, the sausages represent challenging an evil system by doing something that he can control and cannot be forced to do otherwise. In so doing, he foils the guards’ dominance. For the guards, 416’s refusal to eat the sausages represents a major violation of the rule that prisoners must eat at mealtimes and only at mealtimes. That rule was instituted so that prisoners would not be asking for or getting food at any time other than the three scheduled mealtimes. However, this rule has now been extended to cover the guards’ power to force prisoners to eat food whenever it is served. Refusal to eat has become an act of disobedience

escalating abusive treatment by the guards. The strategic problem is that 416 did not first share his plan with the others to get them on his side by understanding the significance of his dissent. His decision to go on a hunger strike was private and thus did not engage his peers.

Hellmann rarely uses physical aggression. He prefers instead to dominate verbally, sarcastically, and with inventively sadistic games. He is always aware of the exact freedom allowed him by the margin of his role as guard—he may improvise but must not lose control of himself.

Hellmann must achieve in his battle against belligerents is to crush any sympathy that may be developing among the prisoners for the sad case of 416. “It is unfortunate that we all have to suffer because some people just don’t have their minds right.

(It’s difficult to determine the extent to which the other prisoners are angry with 416 for causing them all this unnecessary grief, or are just following orders, or are indirectly working off some of their frustrations and rage against the guards’ abuses.)

He lays out his terms for the release of 416 from solitary. It is not up to him to decide to keep the troublemaker in the Hole all night; rather, he is inviting all of them, the fellow prisoners, to make that decision: Should 416 be released now, or should he rot in the Hole all night?

(The prisoner is submitting to higher authority; his initial assertiveness is receding in the wake of Carlo’s dominating demeanor.)

Prisoner 4325 has appeared quite composed and generally in control of himself—he has been one of our ‘model prisoners’ so far. He seems confused by Prescott’s aggressive interrogation about the crime for which he was arrested, and is easily pushed into admitting that he’s probably guilty, despite the fact that his crime is completely fictional.

Prisoner 3401 is more complex than he appears initially. He reveals an interesting mix of traits. He is usually quite serious and polite when he is dealing with the guards in the prison, but in this instance, he has written a sarcastic, humorous letter requesting parole,

Prescott notices a black-and-blue bruise on the inmate’s arm and asks how he got that big bruise. Although it came from one or more of the scuffles between him and the guards, prisoner 1037 denies the guard’s part in restraining him or dragging him into solitary, saying that the guards had been as gentle as they could.

three of these four young men want to be released so badly that they are willing to give up the hard-earned salary they have earned in their twenty-four-hour-a-day job as prisoners. What is remarkable to me is the power of the rhetorical frame in which this question is put. Recall that the primary motivation of virtually all the volunteers was financial,

Perhaps even more remarkable is the fact that after saying that money was less important than their freedom, each prisoner passively submitted to the system, holding out his hands to be handcuffed,

Why did none of them say, “Since I do not want your money, I am free to quit this experiment and demand to be released now.” We would have had to obey their request and terminate them at that moment.

They felt trapped in a prison being run by psychologists, not by the State, as 416 had told us. What they had agreed to do was forfeit money they had earned as prisoners—if we chose to parole them.

It was apparent that a mental switch had been thrown in their minds, from “now I am a paid experimental volunteer with full civil rights” to “now I am a helpless prisoner at the mercy of an unjust authoritarian system.”

Three general themes emerge from the first Parole Board hearings: the boundaries between simulation and reality have been blurred; the prisoners’ subservience and seriousness has steadily increased in response to the guards’ ever-greater domination, and there has been a dramatic character transformation in the performance of the Parole Board head, Carlo Prescott.

Role playing has become role internalization; the actors have assumed the characters and identities of their fictional roles.

Most of the prisoners seem to have completely accepted the premises of the situation. They no longer object to or rebel against anything they are told or commanded to do. They are like Method actors who continue to play their roles when offstage and off camera, and their role has come to consume their identity.

Admire power, detest weakness. Dominate, don’t negotiate. Hit first when they turn the other cheek. The golden rule is for them, not for us. Authority rules, rules are authority. These are also some of the lessons learned by boys of abusive fathers, half of whom are transformed into abusive fathers themselves, abusing their children, spouses, and parents. Perhaps half of them identify with the aggressor and perpetuate his violence, while the others learn to identify with the abused and reject aggression for compassion.

classic demonstration by an elementary school teacher, Jane Elliott, who taught her students the nature of prejudice and discrimination by arbitrarily relating the eye color of children in her classroom to high or low status. When those with blue eyes were associated with privilege, they readily assumed a dominant role over their brown-eyed peers, even abusing them verbally and physically. Moreover, their newly acquired status spilled over to enhance their cognitive functioning. When they were on top, the blue-eyes improved their daily math and spelling performances (statistically significant, as I documented with Elliott’s original class data). Just as dramatically, test performance of the “inferior” brown-eyed children deteriorated.