What is the Lucifer effect?

Written by Alexander Burgemeester · 8 Comments

The Historical Context One of the most studied areas in social psychology is the
influence of groups on behaviour. Experiments on group influence go back 80 years, to
Jennes’ experiment on conformity to a group norm. He put beans in a jar and asked all
the participants to examine it and declare their estimate of the number to other
members of the group. Next, they were asked to re-estimate the number of beans in the
jar. In most cases, the participants’ estimates moved closer to the mean demonstrating
the pull of the group on beliefs. This relatively harmless little experiment demonstrated
conformity to a group.

Read more at: https://www.psychologized.org/what-is-the-lucifer-effect/

But then came the second world war and all the obscenities of evil acts worked out on a range
of minorities, but most of all the Jewish People. And when the reckoning came, the same
excuse was repeated many times, like an echo: “But I was only obeying orders”. The banality of
the response was not lost on political theorist Hanna Arendt who analysed the trial and
implications of the defence of war criminal Adolph Eichmann in Jerusalem. Arendt concluded
that he was not a fanatic or mentally unstable, but that he had done evil things in a business-like
manner and had done this all because he believed he was obeying orders.

Read more at: https://www.psychologized.org/what-is-the-lucifer-effect/

Stanley Milgram picked up the baton from Arendt’s thesis and tested whether he could
trick people to do evil through obedience to an authority figure. He set up a fake
scenario where participants believed they were delivering powerful electric shocks to
 others in obedience to a man in a grey technician’s coat and with a clip-board telling
them to “please continue”. Asked by Milgram to predict how many would go to a lethal
dose, most top professors of psychology and psychiatry said “not one in a thousand”
would be so evil. The actual percentage who gave a 450V shock was 65%. Milgram
went on to develop this experiment across cultures, sexes and in different
environments, the results did not vary much overall. Dying young from a heart attack in
1984, he missed the horrors of further genocides in the late 20th century and the
obscenity of child soldiers forced to kill. A new millennium dawned and yet mankind’s
inhumanity to man continued with the evils of Abu Ghraib and the “collateral damage” of
the Iraq war. But by this time yet another psychologist had picked up the baton and
claimed it for his own, Philip Zimbardo.
The Lucifer Effect
Lucifer was once an angel. He was the most exalted. His name means “bringer of light”
but he fell from grace because he refused to recognise that of God which was in His
creation Adam. He was banished to Hell and became the embodiment of evil, the devil.
The devil made it is aim to expose the evil in man through temptation to do bad
things. And according to Zimbardo, it is this metaphor which has inspired him to focus
his research on:
“Transformations of human character not as dramatic as this one, in which ordinary,
even good people begin to engage in bad deeds, for a short time or longer, that qualify
as “evil.”

The beginnings of Zimbardo’s work was in his work on “The Stamford Prison
Experiment”. A group of students were randomly assigned to the role of prisoners or
guards for a 2 week experiment on conforming to social roles. The guards took to their
role so well that quickly they began to bully and harass the prisoners and to
dehumanise them. In fact Zimbardo himself even lost his detachment and became
engrossed in his role as prison governor. The future Mrs Zimbardo, visiting the mock
Jail brought Dr Zimbardo to his senses and the experiment, now brutal and out of
control, was terminated after only 6 days. Yet is had achieved its aim, demonstrating
how good people can learn quickly to do bad things.
From this time Zimbardo has made it his life’s work to understand the process whereby
people succumb to the “Lucifer Effect” and what we can do to protect ourselves against
it.
Zimbardo identified that the main factor at work in treating a group less favourably was
the process of “Dehumanising” the group. The process involves taking away the
humanity of the victim and reducing them to a lesser, more animalistic status. This is
achieved through propaganda and can be done in several ways as the following
examples suggest:
Hitler and the Jews:
 Children at school were made to read stories which portrayed Jews in increasingly
negative light. Jews as “greedy”, looking different with their strange clothes.
 Racial stereotyping: using physical differences to suggest lower intelligence, cunning,
degenerate natures
 In camps taking away their clothes, hair, name and even possessing their thin bodies so
they no longer looked human.
Faces of the enemy (to inspire soldiers to fight)

What is the Lucifer effect?

Written by Alexander Burgemeester · 8 Comments

The Historical Context One of the most studied areas in social psychology is the
influence of groups on behaviour. Experiments on group influence go back 80 years, to
Jennes’ experiment on conformity to a group norm. He put beans in a jar and asked all
the participants to examine it and declare their estimate of the number to other
members of the group. Next, they were asked to re-estimate the number of beans in the
jar. In most cases, the participants’ estimates moved closer to the mean demonstrating
the pull of the group on beliefs. This relatively harmless little experiment demonstrated
conformity to a group.
But then came the second world war and all the obscenities of evil acts worked out on a
range of minorities, but most of all the Jewish People. And when the reckoning came,
the same excuse was repeated many times, like an echo: “But I was only obeying
orders”. The banality of the response was not lost on political theorist Hanna Arendt
who analysed the trial and implications of the defence of war criminal Adolph Eichmann
in Jerusalem. Arendt concluded that he was not a fanatic or mentally unstable, but that
he had done evil things in a business-like manner and had done this all because he
believed he was obeying orders.

Stanley Milgram picked up the baton from Arendt’s thesis and tested whether he could
trick people to do evil through obedience to an authority figure. He set up a fake
scenario where participants believed they were delivering powerful electric shocks to
others in obedience to a man in a grey technician’s coat and with a clip-board telling
them to “please continue”. Asked by Milgram to predict how many would go to a lethal
dose, most top professors of psychology and psychiatry said “not one in a thousand”
would be so evil. The actual percentage who gave a 450V shock was 65%. Milgram
went on to develop this experiment across cultures, sexes and in different
environments, the results did not vary much overall. Dying young from a heart attack in
 1984, he missed the horrors of further genocides in the late 20 th century and the
obscenity of child soldiers forced to kill. A new millennium dawned and yet mankind’s
inhumanity to man continued with the evils of Abu Ghraib and the “collateral damage” of
the Iraq war. But by this time yet another psychologist had picked up the baton and
claimed it for his own, Philip Zimbardo.
The Lucifer Effect
Lucifer was once an angel. He was the most exalted. His name means “bringer of light”
but he fell from grace because he refused to recognise that of God which was in His
creation Adam. He was banished to Hell and became the embodiment of evil, the devil.
The devil made it is aim to expose the evil in man through temptation to do bad
things. And according to Zimbardo, it is this metaphor which has inspired him to focus
his research on:
“Transformations of human character not as dramatic as this one, in which ordinary,
even good people begin to engage in bad deeds, for a short time or longer, that qualify
as “evil.”
The beginnings of Zimbardo’s work was in his work on “The Stamford Prison
Experiment”. A group of students were randomly assigned to the role of prisoners or
guards for a 2 week experiment on conforming to social roles. The guards took to their
role so well that quickly they began to bully and harass the prisoners and to
dehumanise them. In fact Zimbardo himself even lost his detachment and became
engrossed in his role as prison governor. The future Mrs Zimbardo, visiting the mock
Jail brought Dr Zimbardo to his senses and the experiment, now brutal and out of
control, was terminated after only 6 days. Yet is had achieved its aim, demonstrating
how good people can learn quickly to do bad things.
From this time Zimbardo has made it his life’s work to understand the process whereby
people succumb to the “Lucifer Effect” and what we can do to protect ourselves against
it.
Zimbardo identified that the main factor at work in treating a group less favourably was
the process of “Dehumanising” the group. The process involves taking away the
humanity of the victim and reducing them to a lesser, more animalistic status. This is
achieved through propaganda and can be done in several ways as the following
examples suggest:
Hitler and the Jews:
 Children at school were made to read stories which portrayed Jews in increasingly negative
light. Jews as “greedy”, looking different with their strange clothes.
 Racial stereotyping: using physical differences to suggest lower intelligence, cunning,
degenerate natures
 In camps taking away their clothes, hair, name and even possessing their thin bodies so they no
longer looked human.
Faces of the enemy (to inspire soldiers to fight)
 Using stereotypes of faces, uniform and other characteristics to inspire hatred
 Images of them as rapists, child molesters
 Images of them as powerful, cold and alien
“Strange Fruit”
Abel Meeropol wrote the words to the Billie Holliday song based on the lynching of
young black men in the southern states of the USA in the early part of the
20th century. The strange fruit referred to dead bodies left hanging from trees.
 Trophy photographs taken by the people at lynchings were like those taken by big game
hunters, serving to turn dead young black men into dead game.
 Trophy photographs taken by Lindy England et al at Abu Ghraib showing naked Iraq prisoners
in pyramids and being led around naked on leads and forced to commit acts which were
sacrilegious to their religious beliefs

Soldier making a trophy picture in the prison of Abu Graib Irak

Dehumanising language
Language can be used in such a way to remove the inhumanity of an act. The murder
of six million Jews was called “the final solution”. Killing civilians in any recent conflict
has been called “collateral damage” and killing people from one’s own side is called
“friendly fire”.
Can we beat the Lucifer Effect?
Zimbardo is convinced we can by most of all being mindful of our own context, feelings
and circumstances following a few simple steps:
1.
Admit mistakes, don’t waste time justifying yourself, move on.
2. Be mindful and critical of the language and actions of others.
3. Take personal responsibility for your own actions.
4. Be clear about your own individuality and identity and enjoy it.
5. Respect just authority but resist unjust authority (just authority has wisdom).
6. Balance your desire for acceptance by a group with your need for individual identity.
7. Be frame vigilant: be aware of how ideas are expressed.
8. Think about the time context – decisions now have longer term consequences.
9. Don’t sacrifice freedom for illusion of security (e.g. the war on terror has led to our
freedoms being curtailed)
10. Oppose unjust systems (e.g. whistle-blowers can make a difference)
 There you have it a long way from the innocence of beans in a jar lies the abhorrence of
Abu Ghraib. But if Zimbardo is right we all have a responsibility in preventing our own
Lucifer from taking over.

Reference:
1. Philip Zimbardo: The Lucifer Effect How Good People Turn Evil; Random House 2007

Read more at: https://www.psychologized.org/what-is-the-lucifer-effect/