The Lucifer Effect
by Philip Zimbardo
Rider, HK$144
In 2004, when images swept television screens of American soldiers humiliating and torturing Abu Ghraib captives, Philip Zimbardo froze. He heard Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers assure the world that only a few 'bad apples' were behind the isolated incidents. But Zimbardo, a psychologist, didn't buy the explanation. Later, as an expert witness in the defence team of Staff Sergeant Chip Frederick, one of the prison guards implicated, he pointed to the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971 and argued that good people turn evil because of situational and systemic factors. The Stanford experiment, which he conducted - and cut short because of the disturbing behaviour of participants playing guards and prisoners - demonstrated how disposition (a person's character) gave way to those forces, causing seemingly normal students to turn sadistic. Zimbardo contends that 'ordinary people, even good ones' have - like God's favourite angel, Lucifer - the capacity for evil. The Lucifer Effect is an interesting, if discomforting, read. People should persist to the end: the last chapter includes a 10-step programme 'to resist unwanted influences'.