An edition of The Lucifer Effect (2007)

The Lucifer Effect

Understanding How Good People Turn Evil

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  • 4.8 (5 ratings) ·
  • 123 Want to read
  • 2 Currently reading
  • 7 Have read

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Last edited by Tom Morris
March 28, 2023 | History
An edition of The Lucifer Effect (2007)

The Lucifer Effect

Understanding How Good People Turn Evil

  • 4.8 (5 ratings) ·
  • 123 Want to read
  • 2 Currently reading
  • 7 Have read

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 danger of crossing it?Renowned social psychologist Philip Zimbardo has the answers, and in The Lucifer Effect he 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. Zimbardo is perhaps best known as the creator of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Here, for the first time and in detail, he tells the full story of this 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.From the Hardcover edition.

Publish Date
Language
English
Pages
576

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: The Lucifer Effect
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
January 15, 2008, Random House Trade Paperbacks
Paperback in English
Cover of: The Lucifer Effect
The Lucifer Effect
2007, Random House Publishing Group
Electronic resource in English
Cover of: The Lucifer Effect
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
March 27, 2007, Random House
Hardcover in English

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Book Details


Classifications

Library of Congress

The Physical Object

Format
Paperback
Number of pages
576

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL9770409M
Internet Archive
lucifereffectund00zimb_206
ISBN 10
0812974441
ISBN 13
9780812974447
Library Thing
2467148
Goodreads
980070

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History

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON / OPDS | Wikipedia citation
March 28, 2023 Edited by Tom Morris merge authors
October 12, 2020 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
August 14, 2020 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
July 29, 2014 Edited by ImportBot import new book
April 30, 2008 Created by an anonymous user Imported from amazon.com record