Psychology of Evil

• NCJ Number: 82102
• Journal: Angolite Volume: 7 Issue: 1 Dated: (January/February 1982) Pages: 47-58
• Author(s): P G Zimbardo
• Date Published: 1982
• Length: 11 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Reprinted from 'Advances in the Study of Communications and Affect Aggression, Dominance, and Individual Spacing, Volume 4,' 1978, L Krames et al.

Annotation

This essay looks at the empirical research on evil and argues in favor of a conception of evil as a behavioral act that is best understood in terms of the prevailing social conditions that elicit it and the situational forces that instigate and encourage it.

Abstract

Evil is often located in the person. It is in the soul, spirit, and heart of the evildoer. However, social psychology presents the message that people overestimate the extent to which behavior is dispositionally controlled, while at the same time we systematically underestimate the degree to which it is situationally controlled. Data on the motives for 131 homicides in San Francisco (the principal motive was 'a trivial argument') point to the banality of evil, a phrase which Hannah Arendt coined from her observations of the war crimes' trial of Adolph Eichmann. Stanley Milgram contrived a situation in which subjects believed they were shocking a stranger as part of a study of the effects of punishment on learning. Whenever the learner made an error, the teacher-subject was instructed to press a lever that would deliver an electric shock to the middle-aged learner. The subjects were Yale students, as well as businessmen and ordinary citizens. The special feature of the study was that the level of punishment escalated by 15 volts for each successive error. Most subjects dissented when ordered to administer more volts, but they did not disobey. The results demonstrate that evil could be reproduced in most ordinary citizens under specifiable social conditions. Anonymity tends to increase aggression, and obedience to authority can lead to acts considered evil. There is also a form of evil when people refuse to speak out on what they know or to help a victim. The prison setting often produces a situation in which people behave in pathological ways. Corporate illegal activities are tolerated by much of the public and ignored or justified by the corporate world. The situations, environments, and experiences that give rise to the perversion of human perfections can be changed. People can help prevent evil by promoting neighborhood and community values. No references are cited.