[MGSA-L] Zimbardo P. The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil -- Re: Δαυλοί, Wagner και Θερμοπύλες

Christos D. Katsetos cd_katsetos at yahoo.com
Thu Aug 30 19:05:40 PDT 2012



Contrary to the endless rationalizations about the rise of ultra-nationalist militancy
in Greece, widely offered by columnists, pundits, and scholars, even respected
academic political scientists, I have always maintained the view that the problem is
far more serious and dangerous insofar as it has deeper social psychological 
underpinnings, beyond the shortcomings of traditional Greek nationalism.

Last May, I called attention to the Ingo Hasselbach's case suggesting that
the shaping of a neo-Nazi identity recapitulates the development of politicized
(subordinate) group identities. 
http://maillists.uci.edu/mailman/public/mgsa-l/2012-May/014128.html

Another facet of the underlying problem relates to the concept of "situational 
attribution of behavior," which is traced back to Phillip Zimbardo’s seminal “Stanford Prison Experiment.” Zimbardo’s concept posits that “the power of social situational
forces has a negative impact on the behavior of otherwise normal, healthy 
participants who --under certain situations or circumstances- may begin to act
in pathological or evil ways within a matter of only a few days” (Zimbardo, et al, 1973,
Zimbardo, 2004). 
 
The Stanford Prison Experiment experiment illustrates the importance of the

power of authority and the susceptibility of otherwise psychologically stable 
and healthy/normal persons who can be easily influenced and even  
become blindly obedient when indoctrinated with an ideology -- that is, 
a set of beliefs, principles and dogmatic ideas-- supported by a structured 
social and institutional framework (Zimbardo, 1973, 2007). As such, Zimbardo’s 
conclusions lend support to the results derived from the time-honored "behavioral
obedience experiment" by Stanley Milgram (1963, 1974) (also, see Blass, 1999;
Zimbardo et al, 1999). 
  

Behavioral study of obedience (Milgram)

A groundbreaking social psychology experiment took place in the early 
1960s by Stanley Milgram, Professor of Psychology at Yale University 
(Milgram 1963, 1974). This innovative --for its time-- experiment measured
the degree of readiness and compliance exhibited by the study participants
to obey to the unreasonable instructions of an authority figure who asked 
them to perform potentially harmful acts that were both against common
sense and against their conscience. During this experiment, ordinary 
individuals carried out --almost by sheer blind obedience-- orders to 
administer potentially harmful electric shocks to fellow participants.  
In point of fact, no harmful electrical voltages were ever administered 
during the experiment, but this was not known to the persons who 
executed orders under the guidance of a professor (authority figure)
supposedly as part of a memory experiment.

REFERENCES

Blass, T. (Ed.). (1999). Obedience to authority: Current perspectives on
the Milgram Paradigm. (pp. 193–237). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Milgram S. (1963) Behavioral study of obedience. J Abnorm Psychol. 
67:371-8.

Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority. New York: Harper & Row.

Zimbardo PG. (1973) On the ethics of intervention in human psychological
research: with special reference to the Stanford Prison Experiment. 
Cognition 2:243-256.

Zimbardo, P. G. (1974). The detention and jailing of juveniles. (pp. 141–161)
[Hearings before U. S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee to
Investigate Juvenile Delinquency, September 10, 11, 17, 1973]. Washington,
DC: U.S. Government Printing Office [cited in Zimbardo PG. (2004) Does
psychology make a significant difference in our lives? Am Psychol. 59:339-351].

Zimbardo, PG, Maslach, C, Haney, C. (1999). Reflections on the Stanford
prison experiment: Genesis, transformations, consequences. In T. Blass (Ed.),
Obedience to authority: Current perspectives on the Milgram Paradigm 
(pp. 193–237). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Zimbardo PG. (2004) Does psychology make a significant difference in our lives?
Am Psychol. 59:339-351.

Zimbardo P. The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil  
(Random House, 2007) http://www.lucifereffect.com/

RELATED LINKS

Stanford Prison Experiment website 
http://www.prisonexp.org/


Christos D. Katsetos, MD, PhD, FRCPath
http://www.drexelmed.edu/Home/AboutOurFaculty/ChristosKatsetos.aspx
http://www.stchristophershospital.com/find-a-physician/120


________________________________
 From: George Baloglou <gbaloglou at gmail.com>
To: Christos D. Katsetos <cd_katsetos at yahoo.com> 
Cc: MGSA-L <mgsa-l at uci.edu> 
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2012 8:59 PM
Subject: Re: [MGSA-L] Δαυλοί, Wagner και Θερμοπύλες
 
2012/8/27 Christos D. Katsetos <cd_katsetos at yahoo.com>:

[snip]

> Η συνεχής ανοδική πορεία του εν λόγω εθνικιστικού κόμματος (και δη στις
> τάξεις της ελληνικής νεολαίας) υποδηλοί βαθύτερα αίτια κοινωνικοπολιτικής
> παθογένειας και κατάρρευσης. Ας μην εθελοτυφλούμε λοιπόν και να μην
> παραγκωνίζουμε επ' ουδενί το σοβαρό αυτό πρόβλημα το οποίο κινδυνεύει
> να καταστεί ανεξέλεγκτο και καταστροφικό.

Σχετικό άρθρο (και σχόλια αναγνωστών):
http://www.protothema.gr/blogs/blogger/post/?aid=219250

-- 

Γιώργος Μπαλόγλου -- Θεσσαλονίκη

http://www.oswego.edu/~baloglou (1988 - 2008)

http://crystallomath.wordpress.com (2009 - )
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