The Lucifer Effect by Zimbardo,
2007, Excerpts
Most people adopt moral standards undergoing normal
socialization processes during their upbringing. Those standards act as guides
for pro-social behavior and deterrents of antisocial behavior as defined by
their family and social community. Over time, these external moral standards
imposed by parents, teachers, and other authorities become internalized as
codes of personal conduct. People develop personal controls over their thoughts
and actions. They learn to sanction themselves to prevent acting inhumanely and
to foster human actions.
Individuals and groups can maintain their sense of moral
standards by simply disengaging their usual moral functioning at certain times,
in certain situations, for certain purposes by:
· Redefining our harmful behavior as
honorable, creating moral justification for the action by adopting moral
imperatives that sanctify violence.
· Minimizing our sense of a direct
link between our actions and its harmful outcomes by diffusing or displacing
personal responsibility.
· Changing the way we think about the
actual harm done by our actions.
· Reconstructing our perception of
victims as deserving their punishment, by blaming them for the consequences.
· Dehumanizing them, perceiving them
to be beneath the righteous concerns we reserve for fellow human beings.
· Ignoring, distorting, minimizing, or
disbelieving any negative consequences of our conduct.
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