The book the effects of Lucifer is an extraordinary book which was a film acted by college students to investigate the reasons behind people wrong actions. The author uses eight people were some act as prisoners while others act like correctional officers. The two groups exhibit inhuman nature which attracts Zimbardo to investigate deeply some of the psychological motives behind evil actions done by people in the society (Zimbardo, 2008). In this book, the author explains how people behave in an evil way to others because of the lack of humanity, pressure, or because of circumstances surrounding them. The question of why people do evil things is still hard to answer. One can ask, is it because others pressure the victims? Or because they think it is the right thing to do? Or because they needed to be paid? To answer these questions, Zimbardo conducted an experiment known as “Stanford prison experiment” he performs the study through a film where he gives students characters as prisoners and prison guards.
Zimbardo aimed to study the character of the prisoners when they are detained. However, during the study, most characters wanted to be guards as opposed to being prisoners. Those who wanted to be correctional officers enjoyed the part given because they wanted to exercise power and authority among the helpless prisoners. They acted in such a way that resembled the scenes in prison (Zimbardo, 2008). That prompted Zimbardo to invite a priest who interrogated the prisoners to state why they committed the crimes and what they confessed seemed real as though they were real prisoners. Zimbardo realized that the responses from the prisoners were precisely the same as those responses from the real prisoners. In addition, the prison guards were also asked to give account of why they behaved so cruel to the prisoners, they stated that they were revenging, they also indicated that they were doing so to be paid, some said that they did so because they were used to killing and harassing people since they are soldiers (Zimbardo, 2008).
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This experiment has taught me a lot about life. The results from the study implied that we behave differently depending on how some problematic situations confront us. As human beings, we cannot tell exactly what we can be when given power and position just as seen the way the prison guards behaved. This is presented by the author in the situation where Abu Gharib became a prisoner after being suspected for terrorism in the United States he was not so clear what made him become a murder, but he stated that he had been forced by circumstances (Zimbardo, 2008). Besides, the way the corrections officers treated prisoners violently was so questionable. For example, they used leashes to punish them, they also told them to strip naked, and others went to an extent of killing them without any serious offense.
The guards cannot be forgiven for acting that inhuman to the prisoners but there was nothing they could do to reverse the situation, when they were asked why they acted that way they gave different answers, for example, some said that they were forced by circumstances, others said that were always reminded of the combat killing their friends. Also, others confessed that they did so because they were surrounded by violence. Therefore, they got used to the killing as a norm. The guards also said that they felt they would not get in trouble because they were soldiers and referred to as killing machines whose work was to watch a bunch (Zimbardo, 2008).
According to this book, I believe that external pressure and situations are what makes people do bad things. The author describes dehumanizing actions that people go through which haunt them later in life and they transfer to innocent people. Some ways make evil things appear, and they do it under pressure that ends up pushing them on the wrong side of behavior. The three boys lost in paradise are victims of deindividuation. They are always seen together and are referred to devil worshipers who changed their character became inhuman and started killing innocent people as a way of sacrificing. The people in town use the Evangelical Christian faith as a way to create the sense that the boys are enemies of good people in America (Zimbardo, 2008).
There are a lot of things that make us do or get involved in bad things. For instance, some may have hidden traits that are brought out later in life based on the situation. Others do evils because of being scared to stand up against the victims because they fear to face the consequences. Others get involved in evil actions because they want to be rewarded by their leader. Some of us say they will do it because others are doing it. These are some of the reasons that victims who do evil give to escape taking responsibility for their action (Zimbardo, 2008).
I think the justice system is not acting right, but it is concentrating on our attention instead of developing a functional justice system by reforming causation factors. For example, the system should look at the causal factors leading to the woman who committed armed robbery and possessing drugs. The system should focus on tracing the cause of the vises and uproot factors driving to that such as neglect from parents as well as social problems that may have caused the woman to do such actions. When they deal with the causal factors, then the punishment by the justice will not be frequent (Zimbardo, 2008).
The other reason why people get involved in evil actions is that they react with the crowd which is guided by pressure from other people and not our actual beliefs. People lack individuality and humanity, and we are affected by our status factors and not our belief in doing the right thing. Our knowledge of freedom is not real since everybody has been told about that since the time of birth. We are defined by what we own, that is the wealth and property instead of being determined by our personality and beliefs.
In life when we want to succeed; it depends on how smart were are and how willing we work towards positive behavior. The code of honor changes in our thoughts based on the current situation. We always do what we believe pleases us and is morally acceptable based on the situation surrounding us. For instance, our academic successes are determined by how we achieve our grades but not who was or what we have. My parent always cautioned me about choosing a good company that is surrounded with positive habits. She said that an evil mind corrupts good manners. She told me to be cautious about the groups that can put me in problems by pushing me to do what is wrong. No one can say that one time one can quickly change because of the company or do something wrong because of being influenced by the situation or people. I can now learn from this experiment that the warnings were real. The murderers, rapists, molesters as well as thieves among others do such actions because of the past situations or due to influence by others. Some steal to be paid; some kill to cover up some pain in the past. Therefore, before blaming someone for doing the wrong action, the cause should be established and uprooted.
References
Zimbardo, P. G. (2008). The Lucifer effect: Understanding how good people turn evil . New York: Random House.
