Lecture Notes Be able to describe what Zimbardo means by the Lucifer effect o The Lucifer effect is the point in time when an ordinary normal person first crosses the boundary between good and evil to engage in an evil action Represents a transformation from an good to evil o It s a celebration of the human minds infinite capacity to make us behave kind or cruel caring or indifferent creative or destructive and villains or heroes Know the three ways psychologists understand transformations of human character and how they are related to Zimbardo s analogy of apples barrels Think of it like a scene in a movie or play How do actors react Everyone does so differently Big cultural economic political powers The source of situations and o Dispositional What who they are inside as a person Ex shy aggressive mean etc o Situational The situation an individual is in o Systemic events the system o Analogy of Apples Bad Apples Dispositional Bad Barrels Situations Bad Barrel Makers Systemic Understand what Zimbardo means by the banality of heroism and the issues he points out with traditional ideas of societal heroes and children s fantasy heroes o Banality of Heroism Ordinary people are the ones who do extraordinary deeds in certain situations not those we typically think of as heroes o Issues with Traditional Ideas of Societal Heroes Traditional societal heroes organize their lives around sacrifice for a cause Gandhi Nelson Mandela MLK and fantasy heroes possess supernatural talents so it s not realistic to think of these as the only kind of heroes there are heroes all around us ordinary everyday people Know the 3 possible responses situations can bring out in people o Perpetrator Evil o Bystander passive inaction also evil o Hero to the Good Know the 2 requirements for heroic action and what it means to say that to be a hero you have to learn to be deviant o Req 1 You have to act when others are passive o Req 2 You have to act socio centrically NOT ego centrically o In order to be a hero you have to be willing to do these two things which is kindof against the norms if others are being passive and your going to the rescue then you re deviating from what everyone else is doing If everyone else is acting ego centrically and your acting socio centrically then again you re deviating from what everyone else is doing You must go against conformity to be a hero you must deviate to be a hero Be able to describe the 4 moral codes discussed in class and be able to explain how they are related to heroism good and villainy evil o Code of Self What is right for me o Code of Loyalty What is right for those I m loyal to o Code of Humanity o Code of Nature What is right for all humans What is right for all living things o Moral codes can be contradictory which is why it s tough being a hero you ve gotta uphold a higher moral code and be willing to do what s right for or others instead of yourself o Villains on the other hand tend to think egocentrically which is the lower moral Passive bystanders higher levels of moral code are too high for them code of self Understand what it means to say someone is acting in bad faith o Acting in bad faith occurs when a person denies their innate freedom to act ethically or according to a higher moral code and instead blames their unethical or lower moral code behavior on circumstances or authority when deep down they know it is a lie Be able to describe the paradox of evil o People who do evil or bad things do not see themselves as evildoers Evil is in the eye of the beholder victim o If we want to understand evil then we have to be able to understand the circumstances and motivations that produce the acts behaviors that come to be known as evil Understand what is meant by the evil of victims o The evil comes about because the perpetrator interprets himself as the victim of some wrongdoing and responds evilly in the moment Be able to describe the magnitude gap and how it is related to the quote We are never more prone to evil than when we see ourselves as its victim o The magnitude gap refers to the degree of harm caused by an act especially in the eyes of those involved The victim tends to perceive the harm as more severe than the perpetrator does and responds with retaliatory behavior that is more extreme than the original action was Example A group of friends are in a bar and one guy Bob makes an inappropriate and rude joke about another guy Rick everyone laughs but now Rick is embarrassed so embarrassed that he smashes his bottle of beer over Bobs head and stabs him with the broken glass in this situation Rick perceived the harm as more severe than Bob did and overreacted and responded with extreme behavior There was a gap in the magnitude of harm each man perceived Understand how violence can be viewed as both self defense and self image defense be able to explain why individuals with fragile egos are more likely to be aggressive to perceived challenges o Self Defense We seek to avoid physical death of the body o Self Image Defense We seek to avoid symbolic death of a prized virtual identity our ego o People with fragile egos take their egos virtual identity very seriously and react aggressively when they think they re under attack they re defending their self image Be able to describe in Soc of Deviance terms what it means to objectify and to humanize suicide bombers o To objectify them the stigmatized other is to downplay their individual self and focus on our assumptions of them or their group o To humanize them is to see them the stigmatized other as a unique and worthy individual like you consider yourself Be able to explain the difference between martyrdom istishad and suicide o Martyrdom Istishad is acting on behalf of others and in doing so enduring great suffering or even death sacrifice and therefore being seen as heroic o Suicide on the other hand is just taking ones own life for their own reasons which is sometimes perceived as weakness from outsiders Martyrdom Strength Suicide Weakness Know the 3 major components of a culture of martyrdom and be able to explain how they contribute to the production volunteerism of suicide bombers o A perception of a threat There is something threatening what they care about so they feel as though if they do nothing their entire way of life and all they hold dear will be destroyed Leads them to taking action suicide bombers o A duty to family and community honor They feel as though they have a duty to their family and