Final Video!

Abuse in Abu Ghraib Prison

“As the story goes, Dr. Jekyll uses a chemical to turn into his evil alter ego Dr. Hyde. In real life, however, no chemical may be needed: Instead, just the right dose of certain social situations can transform ordinarily good people into evildoers, as was the case with Iraqi prisoner abusers at Abu Ghraib,” argues Phillip Zimbardo. In this article Zimbardo is announced to be the expert witness in the trial for those U.S. soldiers. He believes that it doesn’t matter who you are, that anyone can become evil. The evil line is ‘permeable’ to anyone put in certain circumstances. In fact, the classic electric shock experiment by social psychologist Stanley Milgram, PhD, proves just that. When someone of authority to you says to do anything, any person could easily fall over that evil line forgetting their beliefs and standing up for what they believe in.

I believe what Zimbardo has says about the line between good and evil is ‘permeable’ to anyone. He gives good evidence by stating the fact that even though the authority of the soldiers involved in the abuse at Abu Ghraib Prison knew they were ‘rogue soldiers’ and they could most likely not handle that much responsibility. So in my opinion the officers over them knew they would do such things so they turned their back to it. They also took pictures to have proof, and all the soldiers thought it was just fun and games and did not feel bad about anything they did. This can be evidence to show that people put in certain circumstances can do horrific things, such as this.

Dittmann, Melissa. "What Makes Good People Do Bad Things?" American Psychological Association (APA). 2010. Web. 22 Apr. 2010. .

Why Bad People Do Good Things

Pastor Mark is a journalist for the Washington Post. His latest column for the Washington Post's On Faith poses quite a few questions. The main question posed was "Is there good without God?" This article looks at the opposite side of things asking the question "Why Do Bad People Do Good Things" so Pastor Mark goes on to say that people can be good without believing in a God or higher being. He claims that bad people can't even erase the deep imprint of right and wrong because God stamped it on their very nature so that, despite being destroyed by sinful rebellion, it cannot be denied or ignored. So, therefore all people know the difference of right and wrong.

Love, Death By. "Why Bad People Do Good Things – Pastor Mark in the Washington Post | TheResurgence." Home | TheResurgence. Web. 25 Apr. 2010. .

The Lucifer Effect

The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo is definitely the perfect way to see how a “normal” person can, in a short matter of time, become one of the meanest people you have ever met in your life. To begin the book he takes a look back to some of the most painful pieces of history in the 20th century. The worst examples of man’s inhumanity to man: the butchery of up to 350,000 Chinese civilians at the hands of the Japanese at Nanking in 1937; the ‘banality of evil’ as personified by Adolf Eichmann; the massacre of some 800,000 Rwandans in the 1994 genocide. According to Zimbardo morality is like ‘ a gearshift that at times gets pushed into neutral’. The focus of the book is on the story of Abu Ghraib. This story is told unashamedly and with great precision. The prison had previously been where Saddam Hussein had arranged for the torture and murder of 'dissidents' in twice-weekly public executions. When the Americans occupied it after their overthrow of the Iraqi regime in March 2003, and began to fill it with Iraqi prisoners, it remained a hellish place. It was attacked as many as 20 times a week by mortar shelling. Such an environment, Zimbardo writes, 'was as extreme a setting for creating deindividuation as I can imagine'. Cruelty became sexualised: one guard sodomised a male prisoner with a chemical light; another raped a female detainee.

The way this was demonstrated was through the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE), one of the most important psychology experiments in American history. This experiment started on August 14, 1971, when the Palto Alto, California police swept through arresting nine people. These people were read their rights and taken to the Stanford County Prison (SCP). The SCP was actually just a mock prison set-up in the basement of the Stanford’s psychology building. For realism bars were put on windows, the cells were made of steel bars; there was a “yard” and “chow hall” area, and a windowless “hole.” Surveillance cameras allowed Professor Zimbardo and his assistants to monitor the SCP 24 hours a day. The SPE was supposed to be carried out for two weeks. There were twenty-four young men were selected to participate from the many candidates subjected to diagnostic interviews and psychological tests designed to weed out abnormal people. Twelve men were randomly assigned to be a guard or a prisoner. The amazement of Professor Zimbardo and his assistants, within 24 hours an incredible transformation occurred: the “mock” prisoners became prisoners and the “mock” guards became guards. Some prisoners became passive while others became rebellious, and the guards that wanted to put in their time on a shift and go hone did nothing to stop the guards that reveled in exercising their power over the prisoners. One guard was nicknamed “John Wayne” by the prisoners because he was so ruthless, yet he was the “nicest” guard on the street, and he only make his transformation form the gentle Dr. Jekyll to the monstrous Mr. Hyde when he put on his guard’s uniform. The stress of the prison also made some of the prisoners crack. Within 36 hours one of the prisoners had to be released after he exhibited signs of a nervous breakdown. After six days, Zimbardo called a halt to the experiment. Although the 'guards' knew the 'prisoners had done nothing criminally wrong to deserve their lowly status', he writes in his book, 'some ... were transformed into perpetrators of evil'. The experiment taught him that 'most of us can undergo significant character transformations when we are caught up in the crucible of social forces'.

Zimbardo wrote this book to answer the question ‘how good people turn evil’. This piece of, once thought to be simple research, turns into a horrific realization that no matter who you are, everyone can do monstrous acts things given the right circumstances. He agrees: 'The seeds for the flowers of evil that blossomed in that dark dungeon of Abu Ghraib were planted by the Bush administration in its triangular framing of national security threats, citizen fear and vulnerability, and interrogation/torture to win the war on terror.' The line between good and evel is in the centre of every human heart.


Zimbardo, Philip G. The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. New York: Random House, 2007. Print.

Interview with Ryan Whitley

When it came time to do my interview I decided to talk to Ryan Whitley, the pastor at Crosspoint Church in Argo, AL. My interview was awesome from my aspect. I really enjoyed talking to him, I really learned a lot. I began to ask him what his beliefs are on the issue of 'good' people doing 'bad' things. I aspected him a series of questions trying to find out one last view of this question. He believes that 'good' people can do 'bad' things. He made me realize that to properly answer that question I needed to define 'good' and 'bad'. So for part of my time with him we discussed how I could define the two things. We at first decided that like most we would consider ourselves 'good' and that only the ones in prisons and such are 'bad' people. So we came to the conclusion that a 'good' person is one who is looking out for someone else and if they need help they will gladly do so. Now on the other side of the spectrum a 'bad' person could be as simple as saying a cuss word or as awful as murdering another human being. For this purpose I am going to say that a 'bad' person is one who is doing something to hurt another person, whether it be emotionally or physically. So after defining the two he told me he believes completely that all good people can do bad things. I continued even further to ask what he believes makes good people do bad things. Three things can influence your choice, circumstances, character, and past. When it comes to if doing 'bad' things is 'contagious' he says yes with two examples; Adam and Eve made one choice and it influenced the rest of man kind introducing sin into the world, the other is the 'group effect' meaning one person can have 'bad' thoughts and when you are in a group it can easily spread to everyone else.

Davidson, Katie C. Personal interview. 04 May 2010.