The Lucifer Effect

Just watched this TED talk by Phillip Zimbardo who conducted the famous Stanford Prison Experiment on how people can become monsters given the right circumstances. We like to think that there is a clear line between good and evil but Phillip argues that certain conditions can result in perfectly upstanding people behaving like monsters. Common ways in which this could happen include the dehumanization of others (it's easier to conduct genocide when the targets are somehow 'subhuman') and dehumanization of self (removing personal sense of identify, which happens in the military through the use of uniforms, which encourage anonymity, as well as training). It may not be comforting to know that we all have the capacity to become monsters, but hopefully being aware of the conditions that facilitate the 'downfall' will make us more resistant to the 'Lucifer Effect'.