ABSTRACT
What are the psychological conditions of possibility for ordinary, decent people to engage in deeply morally troubling actions? Zimbardo created a prison simulation using “normal average” male college students playing either “guards” or “prisoners” in a mock prison he built in the basement of the psychology department at Stanford University. The results were surprisingly disturbing. A few of the guards became sadistic while most of the prisoners became mentally unhinged. Moral feelings like guilt or shame, moral thinking like ethically animated strategic reasoning and moral behavior like not doing harm to innocent people, gave way to powerful situational forces that produced “demonic” guard behavior. Psychoanalysis explained these findings in terms of characterologically based sadism and masochism that was not easily discernible via the kind of psychological testing Zimbardo did. While Zimbardo emphasizes the danger of social roles and external pressures in influencing sadistic and masochistic actions, to become less prone to engaging in dehumanizing and cruel behavior like the majority of the guards, and to be more willing and able to maintain autonomy, integration and humanity, unlike most of the prisoners, an existential orientation of “empathy-induced altruism,” is recommended.
