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The Lucifer effect: understanding how good people turn evil
Abstract
How well do we really know anyone? How well do we really know ourselves? Are those who commit atrocities people with serious character defects or psychopathology, or are they ordinary people responding to an extraordinary situation? How many times, in the course of our ordinary lives, have we been surprised to learn about the actions of someone we thought we knew well? The Lucifer Effect provides some possible explanations for this phenomenon, as well as for those of us who have been involved in cultic groups or other situations in which we were, in retrospect, baffled by our own actions, which contradicted our previous notions of our identities. The author, eminent social psychologist Philip Zimbardo, elaborates in-depth on a lifetime he has dedicated, as a professor at Stanford University, to research and exploration of these issues.
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Citations
Cited by
Mind Perception Is the Essence of Morality
Gray, K., Young, L., & Waytz, A. (2012) · Psychological Inquiry · doi:10.1080/1047840x.2012.651387 · Cited by 1,008
When group membership gets personal: a theory of identity fusion.
Swann, W. B., Jetten, J., Gómez, Á., Whitehouse, H., & Bastian, B. (2012) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/a0028589 · Cited by 862
Mishina, Y., Dykes, B. J., Block, E. S., & Pollock, T. G. (2010) · Academy of Management Journal · doi:10.5465/amj.2010.52814578 · Cited by 578
Understanding political radicalization: The two-pyramids model.
McCauley, C., & Moskalenko, S. (2017) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037/amp0000062 · Cited by 522
Heroism: A Conceptual Analysis and Differentiation between Heroic Action and Altruism
Franco, Z. E., Blau, K., & Zimbardo, P. G. (2011) · Review of General Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0022672 · Cited by 514
Metadata
- Venue
- Choice Reviews Online
- Publisher
- American Library Association
- Published
- 2007-10-01
- Volume
- 45
- Issue
- 02
- Pages
- 45-1153-45-1153
- ISSN
- 0009-4978 (ISSN-L)
- 1523-8253
- OpenAlex
- W1509373589
- Cited by
- 1,557
- References
- 0
- Type
- book review
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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