The Lucifer Effect Summary

The system, according to Dr, Z, makes people yearn for more power which in turn makes them transition from good to evil. He asserts, “his version of the “Lucifer Effect” is a celebration of the mind’s infinite capacity to make us behave kind or cruel, caring or indifferent, creative or destructive, and make us villains; or heroes. Zimbardo starts by showing a series of gruesome pictures that were taking in the Abu Gharib Prison on the night shift in Tier 1A. There was a study that Stanley Milgram did with a shock box; he tested 1,000 non-college males between the ages of 20 and 50 (500 from New Haven and 500 from Bridgeport). A wrong answer meant that the learner received a shock and a correct answer meant that the learner received a reward. The learner could be the middle-aged person or as young as 20. The shock box starts at 15 volts and works its way up to 450 volts in increments of 15. When it gets to 375, it says danger, severe shock. When the learner starts to scream in reaction to the volts, the teacher starts to get worried.
Z says that triple X stands for the “pornography of power.” This relates to Less than Human because how can someone do something so inhumane to some else that is living their lives in content just as you