The Lucifer Effect
Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
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The Lucifer Effect
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Narrated by:
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Kevin Foley
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By:
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Philip Zimbardo
About this listen
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 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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What listeners say about The Lucifer Effect
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- kain
- 02-08-16
Interesting
Social studies are always fascinating but this is extraordinary and to be able to link new research to history is a talent
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 05-12-24
Good story but can get a bit boring halfway
The story starts strong, but the middle drags as the plot lingers too long on repetitive events. Combined with the narrator's monotone delivery, it loses some of its initial appeal. While the ending is satisfying
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Leon
- 25-11-16
PROFOUND IDEAS spoilt by too much tedious detail
If you could sum up The Lucifer Effect in three words, what would they be?
Insightful facts/perspectives
Would you be willing to try another book from Philip Zimbardo? Why or why not?
No.I would rather read a science journalist or other scientist quoting him. He burdens the non-academic reader with huge volumes of tedious detail.
What about Kevin Foley’s performance did you like?
Well read. He understands the content which makes his reading clear, promoting a quick grasp of the text.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Julie
- 02-12-13
Interesting!
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes, if that friend is interested in psychology and/or theories about good and evil.
Zimbardo's theory is, in short, that there is no such thing as bad apples, only bad barrels. He explains this through the controversial Stanford Prison Experiment, and looks at other events (such as the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse) in this light. The Stanford Prison Experiment shows, as the Milgram experiment, that perfectly normal people are capable of doing very bad things under the right circumstances.
This is really something that should interest everyone, because most of us walk around with the idea of ourselves as someone who would never do anything evil - that we are fundamentally different from evil people. According to Zimbardo, we are all at risk of doing bad things, and he offers some insight on how to avoid it here.
What did you like best about this story?
Quite a lot of it is dedicated to the Stanford Prison Experiment, and everything else is based on this. It is a rather long book, slightly dry at times, but good overall. I found the descriptions of what went on in the "prison" interesting, but some people might be put off by the amount of detail put into this part. Other than that, it was thought-provoking to listen to the comparison between his experiment and real events, such as Abu Ghraib.
If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
There have been made several documentaries about the Stanford Prison Experiment. My tag-line would probably be something about bad barrels. Or something... This is a weird question...
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10 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 02-03-21
Insightfully Educational
Kevin Foley excellently narrates Zimbardo's book. This is a book I had attempted to read a number of times but always failed. I turned to audible and was able to get thoroughly stuck into it and enjoyed being taken through the different case studies and the in-depth analysis.
This isn't a book for the faint of heart both in terms of the content and the length of time it takes to complete but I would highly recommend it!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 30-08-21
very heavy to listen for an empathic person
It caused anxiety on time to time for me, rhinking that people actually went through those experiments.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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- Ahmed Lagha
- 28-10-20
“Transforming experimental research into advocacy for social change”
Zimbardo’s incredible book provides a really elaborate analysis of how any individual could turn “evil” or “bad”, given the context that they’re in. An underlying theme that is found throughout the book is that; personality dispositions rarely account for what individuals do in certain contexts, and namely - when there is no top down scrutiny in place. While Zimbardo goes through behaviors that are disdained, such as blind conformity, he also celebrates and encourages heroic behaviors such as whistleblowing and resistance against bad authority. On a side note; I’ve read comments that said that the book was too long/boring. While the book certainly goes into great detail when describing the SPE for example, it was definitely most enjoyable and intriguing... no part in the book came across as redundant at all, rather it was this elaborate analysis that allowed for the understanding of such complex topics discussed.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Paul c
- 09-07-17
Great book
Rather long but worth the time. Interesting outcome to the main experiment he conducts. The human psychology that is highlighted in the experiment was far worse than I was expecting and would reflect well on how and why people do outrageous things to each other.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Private
- 23-10-24
Audible preventing play
This book is a riveting 'read' but audible have slapped a banner over it, preventing me from completing it, whilst telling me I have 24 hours in which to finish it.
A terrible experience
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Treehugger
- 10-08-19
I lost the will to live in chapter 1
OMG... The lengthy foreword... and then the wordy preface.... And then even chapter 1...all felt endlessly, tediously, verbosely interminable. I actually started shouting at the narrator "FFS get on with it!!!! Can we just cut to the chase? Can something interesting happen?!! It was like an endless introduction talking about what was going to be discussed, and I was just longing to hear the actual meaty bit, the Stamford prison experiment, the genocide, but it seemed we would never actually get there. It was an endless dull, dry recitation of tedious psychological facts and research. I lost the will to live halfway through chapter 1 and can't actually bear to continue forcing myself to read the rest of the book.... Not when there are proper, interesting authors like Jodi Picoult and Diane Chamberlain out there beckoning me to read actual interesting stories instead.
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8 people found this helpful