Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The definitive firsthand account of the groundbreaking research of Philip Zimbardo--the basis for the award-winning film The Stanford Prison Experiment

Renowned social psychologist and creator of the Stanford Prison Experiment Philip Zimbardo explores the mechanisms that make good people do bad things, how moral people can be seduced into acting immorally, and what this says about the line separating good from evil.

The Lucifer Effect explains how--and the myriad reasons why--we are all susceptible to the lure of "the dark side." Drawing on examples from history as well as his own trailblazing research, Zimbardo details how situational forces and group dynamics can work in concert to make monsters out of decent men and women.

Here, for the first time and in detail, Zimbardo tells the full story of the Stanford Prison Experiment, the landmark study in which a group of college-student volunteers was randomly divided into "guards" and "inmates" and then placed in a mock prison environment. Within a week the study was abandoned, as ordinary college students were transformed into either brutal, sadistic guards or emotionally broken prisoners.

By illuminating the psychological causes behind such disturbing metamorphoses, Zimbardo enables us to better understand a variety of harrowing phenomena, from corporate malfeasance to organized genocide to how once upstanding American soldiers came to abuse and torture Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib. He replaces the long-held notion of the "bad apple" with that of the "bad barrel"--the idea that the social setting and the system contaminate the individual, rather than the other way around.

This is a book that dares to hold a mirror up to mankind, showing us that we might not be who we think we are. While forcing us to reexamine what we are capable of doing when caught up in the crucible of behavioral dynamics, though, Zimbardo also offers hope. We are capable of resisting evil, he argues, and can even teach ourselves to act heroically. Like Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem and Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate, The Lucifer Effect is a shocking, engrossing study that will change the way we view human behavior.

Praise for The Lucifer Effect

" The Lucifer Effect will change forever the way you think about why we behave the way we do--and, in particular, about the human potential for evil. This is a disturbing book, but one that has never been more necessary." --Malcolm Gladwell

"An important book . . . All politicians and social commentators . . . should read this." -- The Times (London)

"Powerful . . . an extraordinarily valuable addition to the literature of the psychology of violence or 'evil.'" -- The American Prospect

"Penetrating . . . Combining a dense but readable and often engrossing exposition of social psychology research with an impassioned moral seriousness, Zimbardo challenges readers to look beyond glib denunciations of evil-doers and ponder our collective responsibility for the world's ills." -- Publishers Weekly

"A sprawling discussion . . . Zimbardo couples a thorough narrative of the Stanford Prison Experiment with an analysis of the social dynamics of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq." -- Booklist

"Zimbardo bottled evil in a laboratory. The lessons he learned show us our dark nature but also fill us with hope if we heed their counsel. The Lucifer Effect reads like a novel." --Anthony Pratkanis, Ph.D., professor emeritus of psychology, University of California


From the Hardcover edition.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface (p. ix)
• Acknowledgments (p. xv)
• List of Illustrations (p. xxi)
• 1 The Psychology of Evil: Situated Character Transformations (p. 3)
• 2 Sunday's Surprise Arrests (p. 23)
• 3 Let Sunday's Degradation Rituals Begin (p. 40)
• 4 Monday's Prisoner Rebellion (p. 57)
• 5 Tuesday's Double Trouble: Visitors and Rioters (p. 80)
• 6 Wednesday Is Spiraling Out of Control (p. 100)
• 7 The Power to Parole (p. 130)
• 8 Thursday's Reality Confrontations (p. 154)
• 9 Friday's Fade to Black (p. 174)
• 10 The SPE's Meaning and Messages: The Alchemy of Character Transformations (p. 195)
• 11 The SPE: Ethics and Extensions (p. 229)
• 12 Investigating Social Dynamics: Power, Conformity, and Obedience (p. 258)
• 13 Investigating Social Dynamics: Deindividuation, Dehumanization, and the Evil of Inaction (p. 297)
• 14 Abu Ghraib's Abuses and Tortures: Understanding and Personalizing Its Horrors (p. 324)
• 15 Putting the System on Trial: Command Complicity (p. 380)
• 16 Resisting Situational Influences and Celebrating Heroism (p. 444)
• Notes (p. 491)
• Index (p. 535)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Zimbardo (emer., Stanford Univ.) details how such psychological processes as deindividualization, in-group/out-group biases, and situational and systematic environmental variables lead normal people to commit heinous acts. Using his much-promoted Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971, Zimbardo argues that situational factors, not evil inner dispositional factors, cause people to commit evil. Yet people--notably, here, the Bush administration--repeatedly commit the "fundamental attribution error," making the erroneous claim that evil acts are caused by dispositional factors, by "evil people," and not by the evil situations normal people find themselves in. Examples include Nazi war crimes, massacres in Africa, and the Abu Ghraib crimes. This book could have been one of the most powerful books on psychology ever written, but it fails. Excessive unnecessary details of the Stanford Prison Experiment bore, as does Zimbardo's castigation of the Bush administration. Burdened by an overdose of self-promotion and unnecessary personal detail, the writing is a hodgepodge of styles, being cutesy, condescending, academic, friendly, and paternalistic at different points. The final chapter on heroism should be in a different book. This is an important book that few will actually read. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. S. R. Flora Youngstown State Universtiy