Dr. Zimbardo s The Lucifer Effect - 1491 Words

For centuries we have found means of humiliating, demeaning, killing and torturing each other, and cited various reasons for the same: country, religion, law, war, race, superiority, superstition and various other reasons. Our history is overflowing with blood poured out sometimes for heroic deeds but often for a means to gain power. I have often speculated on the reason behind these violations of human dignity and killing, when every religion and social culture promotes good will and condemns evil. So what makes ‘good people’ turn the corner between good and evil? We often see evil as an outside force interrupting our lives! We consider evil an entity or quality that is inherent in some people, that turn people into monsters!†¦show more content†¦In 1971, Dr. Zimbardo as a young psychologist at Stanford University, CA conducted an experiment on prison behavior where normal, run of the mill liberal undergraduate students volunteers were divided into two group s, ‘prisoners’ and ‘guards’. Even though students knew, that it was an artificial situation, the guards, assumed a sense of power and tormented, tortured and sexually humiliated their prisoners regardless of the fact that they knew that the prisoners had done no wrong. The prisoners were brainwashed into a role of helplessness, dejection and acceptance of their faith. Zimbardo and his colleagues got so carried away with how well the experiment was turning out, that he did nothing to stop it! They had all lost their moral compass in this situation! It was probably dà ©jà   vu for Dr. Zimbardo when in April 2004, a news channel, 60 Minutes II, broke the story on Abu Ghraib and telecast shocking photographs as evidence of human cruelty and human rights violations carried out by American soldiers on Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison. The pictures included naked Iraqi captives piled in a human pyramid, prisoner’s lead around on a leash by guards , prisoners forced to engage in sexual acts, dogs intimidating prisoners, a hooded inmate balanced on a cardboard box and electric wires attached to his fingers to mention a few. In some photographs, the guards are seen posing,