COURTESY OF DR. ZIMBARDO
they got to 450 volts. Danger! Potentially lethal!
Although the research participants, acting as Teachers punishing their Learners for their errors
— to ostensibly help improve their
memory — believed their learnervictim was being shocked from the
screams heard over the speakers,
the learner was actually a confederate with responses automated.
What is the lesson to be learned
here? Bad people will inflict pain
on innocent victims when given
permission to do so. No.
Most ordinary, even good,
people are vulnerable to subtle,
pervasive situational forces when
The best way to understand
evil was … to actually ‘create’
evil in order to understand its
dynamics from the inside out.”
they are in new circumstances
where usual, habitual ways of behaving are not relevant.
I took that message a step or two
further in my 1971 study, known
as the Stanford Prison Experiment. Could a situation be created
in which normal, healthy, intelligent college students inflict pain
on their peers in the absence of
any authority commanding their
obedience? My “subjects” were
two dozen students from all over
the country who had just finished
Dr. Zimbardo,
right, with
students
participating
in his 1971
Stanford
Prison
Experiment.