The irony of the Lucifer Effect

A light-hearted look at the psychology of evil

Philip Zimbardo wrote a book entitled The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. The premise of this book is that certain kinds of social situations have the power to turn otherwise good people into evil-doers. He calls this phenomenon "the Lucifer effect", a name which I consider rather ironic for reasons that will become clear. 

Zimbardo has long been an outspoken critic of "dispositionalist" explanations for behavior, which attribute a person’s actions and even their station in life to internal factors, such as their character traits, otherwise known as personality dispositions. In this naïve version of dispositionalism, good people do good things and bad people do bad things. Zimbardo disagrees with this view, and argues that situational factors external to the person are quite often much more important in explaining behavior than their personality. He argues that when it comes to evil-doing, most people want to blame the person without understanding the situational forces that have shaped their actions. He asserts that under certain circumstances:

People become transformed, just as the good angel, Lucifer, was transformed into the devil. Situations matter much more than most people realize or acknowledge.

William Blake's depiction of Satan tormenting Job - one hell of a situation for Job. 

He likes to uphold the (in)famous Stanford Prison Experiment as a demonstration of the power of an evil situation to corrupt otherwise nice, normal people into doing terrible things they otherwise would not do. He has also applied situational analyses to prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, arguing that contrary to what the Pentagon and the military said, the guards who tortured and abused prisoners were not a few “bad apples” but were actually good people corrupted by an “evil barrel”, that is, a horrible situation in which systemic factors helped to create a culture in which people had little choice but to become abusers.

It’s not the bad apples, it’s the bad barrels that corrupt good people. Understanding the abuses at this Iraqi prison starts with an analysis of both the situational and systematic forces operating on those soldiers working the night shift in that ‘little shop of horrors.’

'Little shop of horrors' indeed. Zimbardo might argue this woman was a good person turned evil by a corrupt situation. But what about her personal responsibility for her actions? 

I have written elsewhere about why I think that Zimbardo has created a false dichotomy between dispositional and situational explanations and I believe that he greatly overstates his case. (See this post for an alternative explanation of the Stanford Prison Experiment, and a further critique of situationism here and here.) But what I want to briefly highlight here is the irony of using the mythological Lucifer as an exemplar of the power of situations to turn good people evil as an alternative to a dispositional account.

Zimbardo briefly recaps the story of Lucifer in Chapter One of his book:

... the ultimate transformation of good into evil, the metamorphosis of Lucifer into Satan. Lucifer, the “light bearer,” was God’s favorite angel until he challenged God’s authority and was cast into Hell along with his band of fallen angels.

(He also provides a more detailed account of the traditional story of Lucifer on his web site.) Let’s consider the nature of this transformation. Why did Lucifer turn from good into evil? Was it because of external situational factors that put him under horrendous stress? Systematic forces over which he had no control that created a culture of abuse? No. According to the legend, Lucifer dwelt in Heaven with God. That is, he was in the purest, most perfect situation that can be conceived of, wanting for nothing in an eternally blissful place. His fall from grace is traditionally attributed to the sin of pride, of wanting to usurp the authority of God. A personality psychologist might describe him as narcissistic in the extreme. Therefore, his transformation was not due to external situational factors at all – unless one wants to accuse God of running a “little shop of horrors” – but due to his internal disposition towards pride. Therefore, the Lucifer Effect is ironically named after the most purely dispositional and non-situational account of evil that mythology can provide. For a situationist like Zimbardo, Lucifer is probably the worst example he could come up with of the effect that he is trying to illustrate. Perhaps a better name for the phenomenon of good people being turned into evil monsters by forces outside their control might be the "lycanthropy effect". There are popular legends of unfortunate people unlucky enough to be bitten or scratched by a werewolf who end up becoming werewolves themselves. Lucifer's transformation into Satan was self-willed, but in this version of the werewolf legend people who become werewolves are victims of circumstance rather than "bad apples" who make poor choices. 

 Perhaps the sequel could be called An American Werewolf in Abu Ghraib?

So a better explanation of the situationist view of evil might be explained thus:

People become transformed, just as innocent people bitten by a werewolf are turned into terrifying undead monsters, a process which has nothing to do with their personality dispositions or their personal choices.  

Admittedly, a more gruesome metaphor than the story of Lucifer, but hopefully one that is a better fit to an ideology of victimisation in which people are not to blame for their actions because the real causes lie outside themselves. 

For a more serious and scholarly review of Zimbardo's book, I would recommend Lucifer's Last Laugh: The Devil is in the Details by Joachim Krueger. 

Please consider following me on Twitter.

Extreme views on what is "extremism"

According to some commentators, the recent riot in Libya in which an embassy was burned and four Americans killed  may be viewed as an extreme response to "extremism". Huffington Post blogger Ahmed Shihab-Eldin argues that:

Were it not for YouTube, perhaps Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, would still be alive.

He was of course referring to this video by Sam Bacile in which the prophet Muhammad is insulted. He then goes on to say that, "extremism begets extremism." 

This sentiment was echoed by social psychologist Ravi Iyer, who goes on to state that, "Killing begets killing. Violence  begets violence." He then goes on to compare Bacile to other "extremists":

Indeed, there is clear evidence that Sam Bacile, Terry Jones, Osama Bin Laden, Charles Manson, and other extremists understand this implicitly and commit their extremist acts with the idea of inciting a wider war.

The implicit assumption here is that making and posting a film intended to insult a religious group is an act of "extremism" and that this is somehow in the same class of actions as violently mobbing an embassy or carrying out acts of terror. Note that Terry Jones is classed as one of these "extremists". His terrifying act of extremism was to burn a book deemed sacred by certain people. Offensive as this might be to Muslims, I hardly think this is in any way comparable to the actions of people like Charles Manson or Osama bin Laden who were responsible for the actual killing of human beings. 

Posting an offensive video is not an act of "violence" in any sensible use of the word, and certainly not a  form of killing as no-one actually died in the making of the film as far as I know. I have only watched part of the video, but to the best of my knowledge it does not advocate that anyone be killed. So how is it a form of extremism? 

Ravi Iyer argues that incivility is provocative and regularly leads to violence. Sure, I would agree that violence often is preceded by provocation of some sort, such as deliberately insulting words. But does this mean that the video is to blame for the actions of people who chose to go into the streets with torches with the intention of burning a building while people were inside? Where is the responsibility here? If a man comes up to me and says, "You're mother is a whore!" am I not responsible for how I choose to react? Even if the man is deliberately trying to incite me to fight, I would still be held legally responsible in a court of law if I chose to react with violence. As a human being I have a choice about how I react to provocation. In such a situation I have many choices, such as telling the man he is a stupid idiot and walking away. 

Violence does not simply follow on from provocation in the way that night follows day. There is  a choice involved. Iyer cites a number of research studies on how people typically react to various kinds of threats to show that group reactions to incivility are fairly predictable. I think he does make a point that incivility is not the best way to deal with inter-group tensions. However, there has also been research finding that when people choose to react with violence to provocation, it is because they believe that violence is an acceptable, or even expected, response. For example, if someone is raised in a "culture of honor" they may believe that failure to respond to a provocation with aggression will be seen as a sign of being weak. Similarly, if someone believes that an insult to their religion or holy book is equivalent to a shocking crime that must be avenged, violence is the predictable result. 

This image is authentic: sign held by a Muslim protester in London. Image source.

Consider what the world might be like if people generally believed that violence was never an acceptable response to a mere insult. Would not the world be a more peaceful place? Is this too much to ask for? Ahmed Shihab-Eldin argued that it is intolerance, not Islam, that is the real cancer. But does tolerance mean that critics of religion must shut up so that some people will not be offended? What happened to tolerance of differing opinions? Any religion, or interpretation of religion if you prefer, that preaches that violence is an acceptable response to non-violent provocation is preaching intolerance. People have the right to be upset when they feel insulted. No-one has the right to go out and kill people and spread terror just because they are upset. 

Incivility may be unwise, but it is hardly morally equivalent to extremism. Blaming rudeness for resulting acts of violence seems like an abrogation of moral responsibility on the part of those who choose to engage in violent acts. It is time for people to realise that not being offended is a preference and not a human right. Being offended is never an excuse for violence. Ever.  

Further reading
Innocence of Muslims? Richard Dawkins responds to the "liberal apologia towards Islamic violence."

An expanded version of this article appears on my blog at Psychology Today.