How Ordinary People Become Monsters ... or Heroes ...

Here is a link to a talk by Phillip Zimbardo.  If you have 24 minutes to explore the nature of evil in everyman, this is a great talk!  The title is How Ordinary People Become Monsters … or Heroes  You may remember Zimbardo from the Sanford Prison Study where average college students did some really interesting things when given power or having it taken away…

Zimbardo has also come out with a super book delving into Social Psychology, the nature of evil, and how putting good apples into a bad barrel is a recipe for rottenness! In "The Lucifer Effect" Zimbardo walks us through the Stanford Prison Study day by day and hour by hour. We see the compliance with corruption of both the "Guards" and the "Prisoners." He also takes us inside other experiments done by social psychologists and startles us with the results. He brings it together by reviewing the deplorable conditions for detainees and our soldiers in Abu Grahib. 

The short message: Humans are often pushed passed their ethical boundaries by conditions and social situations. The moral: We can learn from those who resist the pressure and behave heroically.