Psychiarty Kills!

Stanford Prison Experiment DVD cover

I first heard about the Stanford Prison Experiment and Dr. Philip Zimbardo during the whole Abu Ghraib prison scandal a couple years ago. I don't know how I feel about this really. On one hand I completely agree with Dr. Zimbardo that environmental/physical conditions & situational/systemic conditions affect behavior--good or bad. And put in certain circumstances, we may all be capable of all kinds of unspeakable acts. I take issue however with the selective use and politicizing of such "science" when justifying sadistic/abusive acts carried out in the so-called "war on terror." Our friends on the Right, harp endlessly about personal responsibility and knowing right from wrong on everything from affirmative action to AIDS to abortion to street gangs and criminal behavior, almost always reject any attempt to explain such behavior using similar arguments. Ironic no? Dr. Zimbardo was even part of the defense team for one of the top AG prison guard during his trial. Below are two clips from the film.

Quite Rage: The Stanford Prison Experiment

"When you put that set of horrendous work conditions and external factors together, it creates an evil barrel," writes the eminent situationist psychologist Philip Zimbardo, known for his famous Stanford Prison Experiment in the early Seventies.

"You could put virtually anybody in it and you're going to get this kind of evil behavior," he continued. "The Pentagon and the military say that the Abu Ghraib scandal is the result of a few bad apples in an otherwise good barrel. That's the dispositional analysis. The social psychologist in me, and the consensus among many of my colleagues in experimental social psychology, says that's the wrong analysis. 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."

Friday's (3/30/07) Democracy Now! had an extensive interview with Dr. Zimbardo and featured several clips from Quiet Rage. Worth checking out. His new book is entitled The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil.

And finally, How Psychology can explain the Iraqi Prisoner Abuse from the American Psychological Association.

Makes the good vs. evil arguments quaint no?