The Lucifer Effect

Understanding How Good People Turn Evil

By: Philip Zimbardo

Narrated by: Kevin Foley

What makes good people do bad things? How can moral people be seduced to act immorally? Where is the line separating good from evil, and who is in danger of crossing it? Renowned social psychologist Philip Zimbardo has the answers, and in The Lucifer Effect

Drawing on examples from history as well as his own trailblazing research, Zimbardo details how situational forces and group dynamics can work in concert to make monsters out of decent men and women. Zimbardo is perhaps best known as the creator of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Here, for the first time and in detail, he tells the full story of this landmark study, in which a group of college-student volunteers was randomly divided into guards and inmates and then placed in a mock prison environment. Within a week, the study was abandoned, as ordinary college students were transformed into either brutal, sadistic guards or emotionally broken prisoners. By illuminating the psychological causes behind such disturbing metamorphoses, Zimbardo enables us to better understand a variety of harrowing phenomena, from corporate malfeasance to organized genocide to how once upstanding American soldiers came to abuse and torture Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib. He replaces the long-held notion of the "bad apple" with the "bad barrel" - the idea that the social setting and the system contaminate the individual, rather than the other way around.

This is a book that dares to hold a mirror up to mankind, showing us that we might not be who we think we are. While forcing us to reexamine what we are capable of doing when caught up in the crucible of behavioral dynamics, though, Zimbardo also offers hope. We are capable of resisting evil, he argues, and can even teach ourselves to act heroically.

©2007 Philip G. Zimbardo, Inc. (P)2011 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Zimbardo challenges readers] to look beyond glib denunciations of evil-doers and ponder our collective responsibility for the world's ills." ( Publishers Weekly)

Paradigm shifted!

Incredibly decisive proof that sadistic torture, murder, and holocausts are the result of social conditioning—not bad apples but bad systems. While some people are born psychopaths, most of us can become so with the right social script to play our role like good soldiers. From the Stanford prison experiment which he ran, to the atrocities at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, to the many other sadistic murders and genocides in modern history, Phillip Zimbardo shows us how humans shift from good guy to bad guy quite automatically when prompted and not stopped by authorities.

Everyone should listen to this at some point!

This book explains how good people end up doing bad things. It showes with great depth what happend at famous Standford prison experiment and then moves past this and broadens the picture!
I think everyone should listen to this at somepoint. It will help to make you into a bettet person that understands yourself better!

His apologetic for self and attack of the Bush Adm

I regret that this may be a review that seems to wander over many areas and not be very focused.
The first part of the book is a summary of the Stanford Prison Experiment. In this experiment the author admits to not having kept clear control of the people in the experiment. In fact, I would say that there were incidents that he describes where he encouraged the decadent behavior, by having the leader tell "guards" (students acting as guards) to be more guard-like.
One of my questions from this experiment is how much the preconceived ideas of the students and the professor fed in to the results. There is validity to the results, as can be seen from Andersonville and the Northern prison referenced make.

In the later half of the book he moves on to Abu Grab. I must say, if I knew that this was the real focus of this book I probably would not have bought it. I did find some of the insights helpful, however this was marred by his ignorance of the military and his desire to use this as an attack against the Bush administration.
Because it is an audible book, I cannot remember all of the inaccuracies -- but here are some that I remember:
Firstly the rendition program was created by President Clinton. It was used by Bush.
Secondly his understanding of the NCOIC and his evaluations is inaccurate. the author was highly impressed with the list of medals of this soldier. As I listened to the list, it was a "normal" list for anyone who had been enlisted for 12 years (give or take) The National Defense Service Ribbon is given simply for being part of the military during a time of war, others are regular parts of the service. That is why military people call them "candy". The NCO in question had evaluations that were not impressive. If the author would have read any of the manuals on writing NCOERs he would have been less impressed.
Thirdly, he places the lack of training on the Bush administration. I see another fault. During VietNam it was decided that all PW (prisoner of War) units would be from the reserves, as a way to keep us from being part of a war that did not have public support. The unforeseen consequences of that is a less trained...less disciplined force in those positions.

I should note that I have had some exposure to a few prisons (not major, but some exposure), having worked at the US Army Retraining Brigade, the USDB (Leavenworth), and various county jails (I am a pastor). These are places of disproportionate power, but the best of them set up systems of checks and balances. Obviously there were major problems in Abu Grab -- what I would refer to as command and control issues, as well as staffing, cleanliness, etc. I would also wonder about the wisdom of using one of the worst prisons from Sadaam.

The author's interest in using this as a forum to attack the Bush administration is easily seen from his admission that the rest of the book he would be acting as prosecutor. This was the last 1/4 of the book. Again, this is not what I bought this book for.

I wonder if he would like to turn this kind of analysis to the inhumanity of taking away the dignity of work, the slavery of the welfare system, the inhumanity of bureaucracy in government, and the results of other liberal "ideals".


Again, not the book that I thought I was getting, but I did appreciate the exposure to social psychology.

One of the most important books ever written.

Dr. Z does a phenomenal job dissecting the anatomy of surprisingly simple, and every-day scenarios that set the stage for "common" people to find themselves commiting uncommon, even horrific, acts on other people. The book opens with cautionary statements, warning the reader not to judge the people involved in the case-studies as evil, or even different from you. After countless examples, with backed statistics, I'm both terrified of how predictively precarious our civilized society is, yet glad that researchers like Z devote lifetimes to articulating this precarity to others. I feel like insightful exposure to the painful truths of human crowd-instincts, may be our best preparation to identifying and resisting these scenarios as they arise. The book is pretty emotionally heavy, but Dr Z finishes on a positive topic addressing that heroism can be fostered by circumstantial settings and awareness. I feel that this work is required reading for all responsible humans.

Get to the Point

What did you like best about The Lucifer Effect? What did you like least?

I liked the title, it pulled me in.

What was most disappointing about Philip Zimbardo’s story?

It was to clinical for me it was a long way to the point.

What aspect of Kevin Foley’s performance would you have changed?

It was OK

Absolutely Mind-blowing!

The Lucifer Effect is a must read.

It is an amazing look into social/peer pressure to conform, destructive changes that can come from anonymity, and how some people can act like monsters and still go home at night if it’s just a role in their head.

I have no idea how this isn’t taught in high school more.

A mildly entertaining forever

It should have been split into two books. It dragged at the end. Fudge.

Useful insight, Great narration

The study and reflection on the SPE and it's application was good. The narrators performance and use of voice to distinguish characters was even better.

Some missing parts of tape

My main complaint isn’t really content related but about the quality of the tape. The first paragraph of each chapter is cut off. Thankfully I was listening while looking at the physical book so I was able to stop, read the cut-off paragraph and then resume the tape

Overstuffed and Indulgent Retelling of the SPA

Dr Zombardo takes too much time in telling the intricacies of the Stanford Prison Expiment (SPA) instead of delving into what makes good people go bad. Not entirely a waste of time but I wouldn’t want to read this book again.