TEDtalk

I have chosen this TEDtalk on the psychology of evil by Phillip Zimbardo because I am already fascinated by the work of Zimbardo himself. Zimbardo is most famously known as the leader of the notorious 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment in which 24 clinically sane male volunteers were put into roles of ‘guards’ and ‘prisoners’ in a mock prison in the basement of Stanford University. The study that had been scheduled to run for two weeks had to be abandoned after just six days due to participants experiencing severe distress and trauma. Guards became incredibly sadistic and prisoners experienced severe deindividuation, and became passive and nervous.

In this talk, Zimbardo makes reference to his Stanford Prison Experiment and how he has since attempted to answer the question “what makes people go wrong?” He not only acknowledges his fascination with the way in which the behaviour of the guards and prisoners changed in this study, but also how personally consumed he became with the study itself. Ordinary people can be transformed in an alarmingly short space of time when the situational context is changed.

In his 2007 book ‘The Lucifer Effect’, Zimbardo focuses on all the negatives that people have the potential to become. He states that the line between good and evil is not, as many would think, fixed and impermeable, but that it is in fact permeable and moveable. The psychological definition of evil includes the conjecture that evil is born from the exercise of power, and this can clearly be witnessed in the behaviours of the guards in the Stanford Prison Experiment.

When photographs emerged of the horrific incidents at Abu Ghraib in 2004 Zimbardo felt as disturbed as anyone would have, but also felt a jolt of disturbing familiarity. Three decades before he had witnessed first-hand the way in which an individuals’ behaviour can be negatively altered with the introduction of power. In this talk, he states that “the landmark Stanford Prison study provides a cautionary tale for all military detention operations” and that giving any person power without oversight is simply providing a prescription for abuse.

The pictures of Abu Ghraib shown in this video are a clear visual illustration of evil. American soldiers are photographed torturing and humiliating prisoners in order to break the will of the enemy. Zimbardo, however, hypothesises that American soldiers are good people, and it is merely the power inflicted upon them that makes them bad.
 

“I knew that in the Stanford experiment, I began with good apples and that it was the place that corrupted them, so my hypothesis was that maybe these soldiers were good apples and it was the barrel at Abu Ghraib that corrupted them.”
 

Zimbardo appeared as an expert witness for a defendant in the Abu Ghraib trial; an individual who was put in charge of the night shifts at the interrogation hold at the prison and who was featured in a number of the horrifying pictures. Zimbardo argues that the question of WHO is responsible is not applicable to the case – the question needs to be altered to WHAT has caused this change in behaviour; in terms of dispositional (internal), situational (external), and systemic (political/legal) powers.

Zimbardo ends his talk with an introduction to how education needs to highlight heroism, and allow individuals to develop a heroic imagination. He discusses how we all have the ability to do heroic deeds, just as we are all capable of doing evil. Heroism, he implies, is the antidote to evil. In his most current research, Zimbardo intends to tackle the following research question:

 “What pushes some people to become perpetrators of evil, while others act heroically on behalf of those in need?"

Phillip Zimbardo’s words throughout this TEDtalk are incredibly thought provoking. His powerful speech is reinforced through the use of visual illustrations of the horrors of Abu Ghraib, and his open honesty about his most famous study; the Stanford Prison Experiment. The picture below seems to summarise the whole talk. Zimbardo makes reference to this picture during his presentation and it was created by a New York Cartooner called Mick Stevens. The picture depicts the conflict between good and evil in each and every one of us.