FROM TOP: AP PHOTO/PAUL SAKUMA; COURTESY OF DR. ZOMBARDO
Voices
reveal the extent to which human
behavior can be situationally influenced, even dominated, in ways
that we are reluctant to acknowledge. We all want to believe in
the dignity of individual character
and free will. That dignity is best
served by recognizing our vulnerabilities and learning how to develop our “situational awareness,” as
a kind of ghetto “Street Smarts,”
in every context we enter. We can
resist such powerful forces only by
becoming savvy to the operation
of myriad social-situational forces
in our lives, on the “dark side” (as
our former VP Dick Cheney reminded us, this was the way we
would deal with terrorists).
This allusion leads us to year
2004 and the horrific images of
American soldiers, military prison
guards, men and women, seen in
their own photos torturing and
degrading their Iraqi captives in
Abu Ghraib Prison. Doing so all
while smiling, with high fives
all around. Who were these bad
apples, disgracing not only the
military, but America’s war effort
to bring democracy, freedom and
dignity to a people long dominated by a cruel dictator?
For me, I was as shocked as
anyone, but I was also hardly sur-
DR. PHILIP
ZIMBARDO
prised, because the visual parallels with my prison study seemed
direct. I contended in many media
interviews that I believed our soldiers were good apples that someone had put into a very bad barrel
in that prison dungeon. I became
an expert defense witness for one
of those guards, in part to better understand how he and all the
other MPs on his night shift on
Tier 1-A could have perpetrated
such terrible deeds. In that capacity, I had access to all the existing
investigative reports and the full
HUFFINGTON
03.17.13
Above:
Zimbardo
gives a
lecture on
Abu Ghraib
prison at
Stanford
University in
2007. Below:
Students
assume the
roles of guard
and prisoner
in Zimbardo’s
prison
experiment.