The world is, was, will always be filled with good and evil, because good and evil is the yin and yang of the human condition.
Whether we consider Nazi Germany or Abu Ghraib prison, there were many people who observed what was happening and said nothing. At Abu Ghraib, one photo shows two soldiers smiling before a pyramid of naked prisoners while a dozen other soldiers stand around watching passively. If you observe such abuses and don't say, "This is wrong! Stop it!" you give tacit approval to continue. You are part of the silent majority that makes evil deeds more acceptable.
Sticks and stones can break your bones, but names can kill you.
Most of us fail to appreciate the extent to which our behavior is under situational control, because we prefer to believe that is all is internally generated. We wander around cloaked in an illusion of vulnerability, mis-armed with an arrogance of free will and rationality.
Most of us hide behind egocentric biases that generate the illusion that we are special. These self-serving protective shields allow us to believe that each of us is above average on any test of self-integrity. Too often we look to the stars through the thick lens of personal invulnerability when we should also look down to the slippery slope beneath our feet.
Ideas for my first experiments in human aggression came from discussions we had in a research seminar about William Golding's 'Lord of the Flies.'
We want to believe we are good, we are different, we are better, or we are superior. But this body of social-psychological research--and there are obviously many more experiments in addition to mine and Milgram's--shows that the majority of good, ordinary, normal people can be easily seduced, tempted, or initiated into behaving in ways that they say they never would. In 30 minutes we got them stepping across that line.
As we have come to understand the psychology of evil, we have realized that such transformations of human character are not as rare as we would like to believe. Historical inquiry and behavioral science have demonstrated the "banality of evil" -- that is, under certain conditions and social pressures, ordinary people can commit acts that would otherwise be unthinkable.
Time perspective is one of the most powerful influences on all of human behavior. We're trying to show how people become biased to being exclusively past-, present- or future-oriented.
We like to think there is this core of human nature – that good people can't do bad things, and that good people will dominate over bad situations. Infact, when we look at the Stanford prison studies, that we put good people in an evil place, and we saw who won. Well, the sad message in this, is in this case is the evil place won over the good people.
Situational variables can exert powerful influences over human behavior, more so that we recognize or acknowledge.
The line between good and evil is movable and it's permeable.
I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures. Why do good people sometimes act evil? Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things?
I've always been curious about the psychology of the person behind the mask. When someone is anonymous, it opens the door to all kinds of antisocial behavior, as seen by the Ku Klux Klan.
The Stanford prison experiment came out of class exercises in which I encouraged students to understand the dynamics of prison life.
What troubles me is the Internet and the electronic technology revolution. Shyness is fueled in part by so many people spending huge amounts of time alone, isolated on e-mail, in chat rooms, which reduces their face-to-face contact with other people.
Boys' brains are being digitally rewired for change, novelty, excitement and constant arousal. That means they're totally out of sync in traditional classes, which are analog, static, interactively passive.
Many cults start off with high ideals that get corrupted by leaders or their board of advisors who become power-hungry and dominate and control members lives. No group with high ideals starts off as a cult; they become one when their errant ways are exposed.
Time matters because we are finite, because time is the medium in which we live our lives.
That human behavior is more influenced by things outside of us than inside. The situation is the external environment. The inner environment is genes, moral history, religious training.
You are not the same person working alone as you are in a group; in a romantic setting versus an educational one; when you are with close friends or in an anonymous crowd; or when you are traveling abroad as when at home base.
Coming from New York, I know that if you go by a delicatessen, and you put a sweet cucumber in the vinegar barrel, the cucumber might say, "No, I want to retain my sweetness." But it's hopeless. The barrel will turn the sweet cucumber into a pickle. You can't be a sweet cucumber in a vinegar barrel.
Societal expectations matter little; personal expectations matter tremendously.
The level of shyness has gone up dramatically in the last decade. I think shyness is an index of social pathology rather than a pathology of the individual.
In one sense, the Stanford prison study is more like a Greek drama than a traditional experiment, in that we have humanity, represented by a bunch of good people, pitted against an evil-producing situation. The question is, does the goodness of the people overwhelm the bad situation, or does the bad situation overwhelm the good people?
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