The Lucifer Effect Analysis

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Psychology is the scientific study of the mind. Social psychology examines how people affect the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of one another, and it looks at the power of the situation. In the assigned TED Talks Philip Zimbardo speaks about the Lucifer Effect through real life injustices; Tillett Wright speaks about the equality of homosexuality. Philip Zimbardo commences his presentation, by speaking of the good and bad in the world; after he speaks about the good and the evil in the world he explains the Lucifer Effect. The Lucifer Effect is “the exercise of power, to hurt people psychologically and physically.” Furthermore, at Abu Ghraib prison, military police guards secretly mistreated prisoners by humiliating them and causing severe mental and physical harm. The prison guards believed it was a social norm (is a group’s expectation of what is an appropriate and acceptable behavior) to humiliate and belittle the prisoners…show more content…
Chapter 12 explains how people will not speak out against an injustice due to the bystander effect (situations in which a witness or bystander does not volunteer to help a victim or a person in distress), which is the opposite of what the young private did in order to prevent the injustices happening in the prison. After the incident at Abu Ghraib prison, Defense Sec. Rumsfeld wanted to know who is responsible, but Zimbardo claimed that he should have asked what is responsible. In chapter 12, the chapter explains that people tend to fail to understand an individual’s behavior is not their trait, but their state, which I believe is what Philip Zimbardo was referring to when Rumsfeld wanted to know the individuals who were causing harm. Furthermore, Zimbardo explained the 3 stages of the Lucifer effect, which were dispositional (inside of individuals), situational (external), and systemic (broad influences: political, economic, and legal power). Zimbardo also spoke about the Stanford Prison
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