The Psychology of Evil

I watched this TED Talk and thought you would find it interesting.

Philip Zimbardo: The psychology of evil
http://go.ted.com/dHkiVA

Note: This talk contains graphic images.

https://youtu.be/OsFEV35tWsg

The evil of passive inaction is a fascinating concept. Something to be wary of perpetrating ourselves, the same thing I find most discussed below most videos of shocking actions or between those discussing horrible events. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

Zimbardo is a very interesting person and has a few talks and stuff around the internet.

It's worth saying that there are criticisms of Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Study with regards to how it was carried out, especially as Zimbardo will not release some information about it.

There was a study that was not a replication (doubt it would ever get past university ethics committees now) but a similar study that was done, I believe for the BBC. If anyone is interested I believe I have a copy of the paper written as a result of it ("Rethinking the Psychology of Tyrrany"). It's worth noting though that their results differed from Zimbardo's in that the prisoners ended up overcoming the guards. There are criticisms too of this study, but it is a good example of why we should never take any result in scientific study for granted or as the absolute truth. Zimbardo's study results may be skewed, the similar study results may be skewed, or both. It is worth reading about both.

Edan,


Could you link that?

Edan wrote: It's worth saying that there are criticisms of Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Study with regards to how it was carried out, especially as Zimbardo will not release some information about it.

I have heard a lot of those as well. At one point, I heard that he was directing the people.

Edan wrote: ... it is a good example of why we should never take any result in scientific study for granted or as the absolute truth. Zimbardo's study results may be skewed, the similar study results may be skewed, or both.

And that's why science has replication. No one study tells us that is the absolute truth. There are plenty of things that can be refuted and changed. Especially in social sciences, nothing is ever 100%. That being said, there has been other studies showing human behaviour in certain situations as not being the best, but even then it is not 100%.

I haven't the time at the moment to review this entire video, but am familiar with Dr. Zimbardo's prison study at Stanford. He did another study long ago reviewing our tendency to comply with authority, in which most people were found to be willing to kill a stranger (not actually, but in the contrived experiement they'd believed the death was real) as long as an authority figure would verbally claim to accept responsibility.

It's shocking stuff. The replication of Zimbardo's research in the lab may be limited, but we see plenty of real-world parallels to his research - from the polite, considerate citizens of various lands who support national brutality to children in the schoolyard who, by being passive or by providing active support, encourage the roughneck to harrass the awkward kid with a bit of lunch money.

There are perhaps some historical justifications for our tendency to comply without question. Our ancient ancestors, making a tool or grinding a bit of grain in a clearing, were prudent to start running without question if the rest of their tribe burst forth from the surrounding trees, screaming and running in the same direction; odds were high that danger was on their heels. We've perhaps inherited their genetic memory.

We may not be able to escape it, but we can be aware of our compliant tendencies and do our best to respond accordingly to the world we live in now. Just as characters in the fictional Star Wars universe learned to control their tendencies toward anger and fear rather than shed them, we perhaps must do the same with our tendency to sometimes let others think for us.

Rosalyn J wrote: Edan,


Could you link that?