The Lucifer Effect or why we can commit evil acts

The Lucifer effect can occur in any of our most everyday contexts. It refers to a transformation process. Thanks to him, a seemingly normal, good and integrated person is capable of committing atrocious acts. These are cases where, far from there being a disorder or a traumatic past, what there is in reality is the powerful influence of a situational factor capable of dehumanizing us.

Every good criminologist, with knowledge of sociology, will tell us that evil is not a kind of “entelechy” or universal truth that exists as a mere antagonism of “goodness.” Evil starts from a context, a social situation and a series of psychological mechanisms related to the specific moment. that we are living. Thus, an example that is usually given in many bibliographies on the subject is that related to the Salem trials, with the famous witch hunt.

It was a historical moment delimited in time and reduced to a specific community that lived in the grip of religious fanaticism, puritanism, collective hysteria, etc. We have another good example of the Lucifer effect in the now classic television character Walter White, from the series “Breaking Bad.”

In this case, anthropologists Alan Page Fiske and Tage Shakti point out that we have someone who initiates a series of violent acts based on a perception of what is correct, that is, that what he is doing, no matter how atrocious it may be, is more than justified by his complex personal situation and social context. However, We must keep in mind that no violence is “virtuous.”
It may be that at a given moment, and due to certain social and structural circumstances, someone feels the need or obligation to cross the line into vileness or cruelty., which is what explains the Lucifer Effect to us. However, above all this must be morality. That incorruptible dimension that acts as a lure for memory: Beyond environmental pressure or desperation, there is logic and integrity.

The Lucifer effect and the study of Philip Zimbardo

We are on the night of April 28, 2004. The American population finishes dinner and sits down in front of the television to watch the program “60 Minutes.” Something changed that day. The television network invited them to discover something that many were not prepared for. Images began to be broadcast from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where a group of American soldiers (men and women) sodomize, torture and violate Iraqi prisoners in the most execrable and humiliating ways.

One of the people who saw those scenes, with immense terror, was the well-known psychologist Philip Zimbardo. However, it must be said that For him those acts were not new, nor inexplicable nor even strange.. American society, for its part, saw a classic scheme violated in its mentality. Suddenly, those who were considered the “good guys and the saviors” were transformed, almost without knowing how, into the bad guys and torturers. Perhaps, his personal characteristics had been greatly overestimated and that was the proof.

The Zimbardo experiment of 1971

After the publication of the photographs, those 7 American guards were charged and later put on trial. Nevertheless, Dr. Philip Zimbardo considered that it was necessary to attend the process as an expert witness to give an explanation to all that.

One of the reasons why he felt obliged to collaborate in the trial was because He himself had already experienced a situation very similar to that of the Abu Ghraib prison.. In 1971 he conducted an experiment at Stanford University in California, where he divided two groups of undergraduate students into “guards” and “prisoners.”

After a few weeks, Zimbardo witnessed levels of cruelty unforeseen and even less imagined. Liberal college students, known for their altruism, kindness, and sociability, became sadists as they assumed their role as “guards.” It got to such an extent that Zimbardo was forced to stop the experiment.

The Lucifer effect and its psychological processes

What happened at Stanford University with that experiment undoubtedly seemed like a premonition of what was going to happen years later in the Abu Ghraib prison. Dr. Zimbardo It did not seek to exonerate or justify the accused soldiers, nor did it seek to transform them into victims, but rather to offer a scientific explanation. about how specific circumstances can completely transform our actions.

These would be the psychological processes associated with what Zimbardo called the Lucifer Effect:

Conformity to the group. This theory stated at the time by Solomon Asch shows us that the The pressure of a certain environment with the members that make it up, sometimes drives us to carry out behaviors that may go against our values. in order to achieve only one thing: to be accepted.Obedience to Authority, by Stanley Milgram. This phenomenon is common, for example, in those groups of military or police hierarchy where a good part of their members are capable of committing violent acts if they are justified or ordered by people in higher positions.The moral disconnection of Albert Bandura. People have our own moral codes and value systems. However, Sometimes we carry out a whole series of mental “pirouettes” to integrate behaviors that are totally opposite to our principles, to the point of seeing what is morally “unacceptable” as “correct.”Environmental factors. Dr. Zimbardo was able to know that these soldiers They worked 12-hour shifts 7 days a week and for 40 days without breaks. At bedtime, they did so in their own cells. Furthermore, the facilities were in poor condition, with mold, blood stains and human remains on the walls, and they also suffered up to 20 mortar attacks a week.

Zimbardo explains, in his book “The Lucifer Effect”, that the process of dehumanization was inevitable. Situational factors, the social dynamics of a specific context and psychological pressure can cause evil to germinate in us. A seed that, whether we want it or not, we always carry inside us.

Nevertheless, That perverse side can be counteracted with the strength of determination and that integrity capable of setting limits. and to encourage us to leave certain oppressive contexts so as not to forget who we are, and to pass each of our actions through the sieve of our values.

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