A Situationist Perspective on the Psychology of Evil: Understanding How Good People Are Transformed into Perpetrators.
Philip G. Zimbardo, Ph. D. (Psychology Department, Stanford University)1
Chapter in Arthur Miller (Ed.). The social psychology of good and evil: Understanding our capacity for kindness and cruelty. New York: Guilford. (Publication date: 2004).
{Revised July 25, 2003}
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Abstract
I endorse a situationist perspective on the ways in which anti-social behavior by individuals, and of violence sanctioned by nations, is best understood, treated and prevented. This view has both influenced and been informed by a body of social psychological research and theory. It contrasts with the traditional dispositional perspective to explaining the whys of evil behavior. The search for internal determinants of anti-social behavior locates evil within individual predispositions – genetic “bad seeds,” personality traits, pathological risk factors, and other organismic variables. The situationist approach is to the dispositional as public health models of disease are to medical models. It follows basic principles of Lewinian theory that propel situational determinants of behavior to a foreground well beyond being merely extenuating background circumstances. Unique to this situationist approach is using experimental laboratory and field research as demonstrations of vital phenomena that other approaches only analyze verbally or rely on archival or correlational data for answers. The basic paradigm to be presented illustrates the relative ease with which “ordinary,” good men and women are induced into behaving in evil ways by turning on or off one or another social situational variable.
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I will start with a series of “oldies, but goodies” — my laboratory and field studies on deindividuation, aggression, vandalism, and the Stanford Prison Experiment, along with a process analysis of Milgram‘s obedience studies, and Bandura’s analysis of “moral disengagement.” My analysis is extended to the evil of inaction by considering bystander failures of helping those in distress. This body of research demonstrates the under-recognized power of social situations to alter the mental representations and behavior of individuals, groups and nations. Finally, I explore extreme instances of “evil” behavior for their dispositional or situational foundations – torturers, death squad violence workers and terrorist suicide-bombers.
1 . The political views expressed in this chapter represent solely those of a private citizen-patriot, and in no way should be construed as being supported or endorsed by any of my professional-institutional affiliations.
Article complet situationist- Perpetrator
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