What makes people become evil

[ari11]

For a class I'm taking, I've had to do some research on the Zimbardo experiment and found myself greatly disturbed--

An "experiment" involving 24 men, some "guards" some "prisoners" in a fake experimental prison. They took the roles they were given to an outrageous and even cruel level.

What are your opinions on this experiment?
What do you think was gained by it, if anything
Do you believe it was unethical, ethical, worth it?

Any thoughts or comments I appreciate.

[anaklio]

A wonderful new movie "The Reader" raised similar issues. It concerns what happens when you are ordered to do evil. The people who are ordered tend to say "but I was just doing my job" as a justification. Is that sufficient? At what point does it become insufficient?

[SWM]

For a class I'm taking, I've had to do some research on the Zimbardo experiment and found myself greatly disturbed--

An "experiment" involving 24 men, some "guards" some "prisoners" in a fake experimental prison. They took the roles they were given to an outrageous and even cruel level.

What are your opinions on this experiment?
What do you think was gained by it, if anything
Do you believe it was unethical, ethical, worth it?

Any thoughts or comments I appreciate.

this was also known as the stanford prison experiement.  i have a copy of this on my harddrive but i have not watched it yet. i googled youtube for zimbardo and there is a presentation on youtube it may help you with your assignment. when i get home i will add the video to this thread.

[SWM]

the following video is philip zimabrdo talking about his experiment.

its a bit long at a 1hour 17 mins

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUyDznt5V4I[/youtube]

[seekinghga]

What are your opinions on this experiment?

I think that the experiment proves the inherent sheepishness of human nature, of which we must learn, of our own accord, how to deal with or learn to transcend.

What do you think was gained by it, if anything?

We have learned from this that human nature is very fragile; that what we think of as "good" can be in actuality seen as "evil," and vice versa.  It also displays the spurious nature of a priori judgement.

Do you believe it was unethical, ethical, worth it?

It was totally worth it.  Do you NOT believe it was unethical, ethical, worth it?

[PsychVegas]

First, as a disclaimer I read the Wikipedia version of the experiment. Do I think the experiment has value, absolutely. Was it an ethical experiment, questionable.

What makes people become evil? I don't think Zimbardo's experiment is a good example of normal people transforming into "evil" people in a period of six days. I guess we can discuss what it means to be "evil", but what took place in the experiment appears to be similar to the general hazing that takes place routinely in institutions throughout the world.

There are several assumptions. If any of them are incorrect or there is disagreement let me know:
You have 12 guards and 12 prisoners. However, these are male students most likely around 18-22 years of age. They are fully aware they are participating in an experiment. They know it will be over in 2 weeks. They know no physical harm can come to them and at anytime they can opt out. From reading about the experiment it sounds like the prisoners attempted to riot on the second day. If I am a male prisoner going into the experiment, I'm mentally telling myself that I'm competing against the guard. Nothing the guard can do to me will break me. If I'm the guard and I have a prisoner act up I will punish the prisoner. If the punishment does not work I escalate.

Now, in the midst of all of this you might have 1-2 really strong headed guards and 1-2 really strong headed prisoners. All it takes is a couple of minor incidents followed by escalations on both sides and you have created a scenario for disaster. Hazing takes place throughout colleges and every year a few students die. In the military and other predominantly male institutions forms of hazing also take place. While we can certainly find cases of strong evil people picking on weak good people and hazing them to death, it is more often two strong willed groups fighting an escalating battle. Take the war on terror...how many people out there are willing to kill for their beliefs. Does it make them evil? Not making a statement, asking the question.

I find the explanation by Wiki actually fairly decent claiming situational attribution and the authoritarian principle. I don't think anyone was "evil".

[anaklio]

A big problem with this good-evil thing is that it's a false dichotomy and value driven. People fall somewhere on a spectrum from those who always do good to those who always do evil. (I'm not even sure the extremes exist.) Then we have the problem of defining "good". That would depend on your values. In general, I think it is good not to speed, but if my spouse is dying then I think it is good to speed.

[liza123]

A big problem with this good-evil thing is that it's a false dichotomy and value driven. People fall somewhere on a spectrum from those who always do good to those who always do evil. (I'm not even sure the extremes exist.) Then we have the problem of defining "good". That would depend on your values. In general, I think it is good not to speed, but if my spouse is dying then I think it is good to speed.

I agree with you. In truth, all of us are chidlren of GOD..the essence of divinity resides in all...

Sometimes, the so-called evil people could be the ones who help you and the so-called good ones are the ones who reject you...there is no black or white

[wasd44]

When discussing the idea of evil one first has to recognize that the very idea of being "evil" is a purely human trait.  For example, a human mother killing her child would be considered awful; yet a mother rat eating its own child rat is simply part of the food chain (source: http://www.ratbehavior.org/infanticide.htm).  So when studying the idea of evil, you first have to come up with a clear definition.

In regards to the Zimbardo experiment (and I strongly advise you to research the Milgram experiment as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment.)

Assuming we can all agree upon a relative definition of evil, there still remains the question: what makes people evil and why do they remain evil?  As most questions in psychology must be addressed, there are a large myriad of answers.  For example, a child may grow up witnessing extreme domestic abuse, which he may model later in his life, leading him to beat his wife.  In this situation, his evilness seems to be a direct result of bad parenting.  A lack of critical thinking skills and empathy also would seem to play a part here.

But, as the experiments show, people can be evil for many other reasons, and some will be evil simply when they have an excuse to.  It is a broad topic and you could pick one of hundreds of viewpoints to discuss it from.  Anyways, here are my answers to your questions:

1.What are your opinions on this experiment?

It is interesting because it examines how people behave when given certain roles that naturally encourage submission, dominance, retaliation and violence.  I am glad it was conducted as it also raises hundreds of prevelant questions.  It is fortunate it occured in the 1970s, during still early, experimental phases of psychology, as this sort of experiment would be considered grandly unethical today.

What do you think was gained by it, if anything?

Since it was halted early, and no strict scientific evidence seems to have been gathered, the greatest contribution of said experiment is the questions it raised about morality, values, ethic and the roles we fall into.

Do you believe it was unethical, ethical, worth it?

It turned out to be unethical, which no one at the time could have precisely predicted.  From an ethical stand point, it is good that it was halted early, though who knows what we would have found out about human nature had the experiment continued over its intended course.  And yes the questions it raised is worth 6 days of unhappiness from many of its participants.

[anaklio]

It is interesting because it examines how people behave when given certain roles that naturally encourage submission, dominance, retaliation and violence.  I am glad it was conducted as it also raises hundreds of prevelant questions.  It is fortunate it occured in the 1970s, during still early, experimental phases of psychology, as this sort of experiment would be considered grandly unethical today.

The history of experimental psychology dates to at least 1879. I understand what you mean, though. It seems like our ethics continue to evolve. It will be interesting to see what we are doing RIGHT NOW which will be look back on as unethical.

BTW, here's a link about the history of experimental psychology.
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/Mind/EpistemologyoM.html

[Farsight]

What are your opinions on this experiment?

I think it gives a valuable insight into rationality, or the lack thereof.

What do you think was gained by it, if anything

It demonstrates that people who do not consider themselves to be evil can be readily induced to do evil things.

Do you believe it was unethical, ethical, worth it?

I believe it was ethical and was worth it. I'd like to see more experiments like it, exploring the self-justification that can be almost mindless. I think this could provide valuable information because I'd say that many of the people in history who are considered to be evil, were utterly convinced that they were not.

[Karaten]

Absolution is quite desired in humans, but also quite absent.




This chart assumes a rationally sound mind. In a rationally sound mind, advantage, or improvement, of some aspect is always desired. The type of aspect may come into account. Really, I see morality, or good, as a limit upon one self. To give up a goal because of a conviction, of some harm.

People simply deny the existence of evil because they look at it in the wrong sense; they look at the end result, instead of what good and morality actually implies. In the end, evil is prevalent, because it is not limited by these restrictions, which is why the greedy dominate, the violent destroy. Good has a huge advantage, however, the advantage of appealing popularity, in which people will agree to good as an objectively desirable stance, thus, giving it authority by means of police and laws to protect.
_________________________________________________ ______________________

The relevance of this information is in the fact that people are a majority neutral, as this experiment shows. Good, then, perhaps is followed by a need to be good. Perhaps that a conscious is only existent as a need within society to survive; another example of the emotional leash on the animal. The reason I still say most people are neutral is, quite simply, a person in that position would not sacrifice his desire for the goal, but would rather revolve the goal around his desire. Thus, neutral.

[voodoo scientist]

I like how this chart implies that morality is inherently illogical, or that goals are inherently opposed to happiness.

The Zimbardo experiment is stupid and unscientific. Aside from the fact that it was never published for peer review, the conditions were uncontrolled and no predictions were made, researcher was actively involved in the experiment and not a neutral observer, and the incredibly small sample size was later proven to be subject to selection bias because of a thoughtless ad (turns out an advertisement for prison experiments will attract abusive types!).

I fail to see a meaningful conclusion from the experiment.

[S. Earl Martin]

I agree that morality is inherently logical and I believe this relates to self preservation, but what if your goal is happiness?

[voodoo scientist]

I agree that morality is inherently logical and I believe this relates to self preservation, but what if your goal is happiness?

You become me.

[Karaten]

I agree that morality is inherently logical

Explain.

and I believe this relates to self preservation, but what if your goal is happiness?

That's too simplistic. It would depend on how you define it, what context it implies, and how dedicated you are.

[S. Earl Martin]

When Humans approach a situation using Logic instead of reacting from emotion. They in most cases would chose the course they believe would be most advantageous. Morality as a whole is trying to do what the society believes is "right". Providing the person agrees with this they would follow the standard set by the society. However human nature being what it is this is rarely the case. We have rules and laws, but they are broken by members of society repeatedly. We have speed limits and even the most law abiding will still speed occasionally.
You are correct this is a hypothetical situation and it would be impossible to take into account all variables. This is meant as a general statement and not as an absolute.