The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil

Explain why Zimbardo is responsible for the systemic effects in the Stanford Prison Experiment. How did the system create the situation? How did the situation influence individual actors?

During the Stanford Prison Experiment, Zimbardo and his team repeatedly interfered with the experiment by prodding the guards to treat prisoners harshly and creating the impression that prisoners were not free to leave. How do you think this impacted the experiment? Do these actions challenge the validity of Zimbardo’s conclusions?

Make the dispositional argument for blame in the Abu Ghraib prison abuses and rebut Zimbardo’s conclusion that situational and systemic conditions influenced the actions of the military police.