Lucifer Effect
久闻津巴多博士的“斯坦福监狱实验”，但一直没有详细看这本书。直到梁文道在《开卷八分钟》中正式介绍了一下，才起了认真读的愿望。
这个实验发生在上世纪70年代，一群身体健康的大学生通过申请，走入了“斯坦福监狱”，他们被随机分成两组，“狱卒”和“囚犯”。仅仅几天后，这些大学生变发生了惊人的变化，“狱卒”们学会了惩罚“囚犯”，各种手段，可以说无所不用其极；“囚犯”们有的反抗，有的顺从，有的沉默。。。实验并没有按计划完成，津巴多博士女友的到来中止了这项实验，在她的提醒下，津巴多博士才从“典狱长”的身份中跳出来，正视已然变味的实验。
不到一周的时间，这个实验便让9名身心健康、遵纪守法、毫无前科，具有大学文化知识的年轻人，变成了冷酷无情的看守。到底是为什么呢？津巴多的实验结论是：个人的性情并不像我们想像得那般重要，善恶之间并非不可逾越，环境的压力会让好人干出可怕的事情。
虽然有些难以置信，还是不得不接受这样的结论。我们不也经常说“屁股决定脑袋”么？身处的环境和位置，决定了人的思维方式和行为，很多时候，所谓“个人”的存在是微乎其微，可以忽略不计的，情境的力量比我们想象的要大得多。这也是我不喜欢脸谱化日本军人的影视作品的原因，似乎日本人就是那样暴虐无人性；但其实身处那样的环境中，我们自己会有何种作为，都是很难估量的。
这么一讲，孟子的“居移气，养移体，大哉居乎”和吴思的“良民淘汰定律”都变得理所当然，人果然是趋利避害的动物，不要太高估自己的道德约束力。相比X党的“道德楷模”，我认为好的好的制度设计更加重要，让人处在有监督的环境中，不能作恶，而不是“不愿作恶”。
当然，人还是有自主意识的，并不完全是情境的产物，按照津巴多博士的“十步法”，或许能多多少少抵制下情境对于我们的作用。具体如下：
1. I made a mistake: Encourage admission of our mistakes, first to ourselves, then to others. Doing so openly reduces the need to justify or rationalize our mistakes and thereby to continue to give support to bad or immoral influence.
2. I am mindful: We must transform our usual state of mindless inattention into mindfulness, especially in new situations. Ask for evidence to support assertion; demand that ideologies be sufficiently elaborated to allow you to separate rhetoric from substance. Try to determine whether the recommended means ever justify potentially harmful ends. Reject simple solutions as quick fixed for complex personal or social problems. Support critical thinking from the earliest times in children’s lives, alerting them to the deceptive TV ads, biased claims, and distorted perspectives being presented to them.
3. I am responsible: Taking responsibility for one’s decisions. We become more resistant to undesirable social influence by always maintaining a sense of personal responsibility and by being willing to be held accountable for our actions. Obedience to authority is less blind t the extent that we are aware that diffusion or responsibility merely disguises our individual complicity in the conduct of questionable actions.
4. I will assert my unique identity: Do not allow others to deindividuate you, to put you into a category, a box, a slot, to turn you into an object. Make eye contact. Anonymity and secrecy conceal wrongdoing and undermine the human connection. They can become the breeding grounds that generate dehumanization that provides the killing ground for bullies, rapists, torturers, terrorists, and tyrants. Never allow or practice negative stereotyping; words, labels, and jokes can be destructive, if they mock others.
5. I respect just authority but rebel against unjust authority: Work to distinguish between those in authority who, because of their expertise, wisdom, seniority, or special status, deserve respect, and the unjust authority figures who demand our obedience without having any substance. Doing so will reduce our mindless obedience t self-proclaimed authorities whose priorities are not in our best interests.
6. I want group acceptance, but value my independence: The power of that desire for acceptance will make some people do almost anything to be accepted and go to even further extremes to avoid refection by the Group. There are times when conformity to a group norm is counterproductive to the social good. It is imperative to determine when to follow the norm and when to reject it.
7. I will be more frame-vigilant: Who makes the frame becomes the artist, or the econ artist. The way issues are framed is often more influential than the persuasive arguments within their boundaries. Moreover, effective frames can seem not to be frames at all, just sound bites, visual images, slogans, and logos. They influence us without being conscious of them, and they shape our orientation toward the ideas or issues they promote. It is crucial to be aware of power and to be vigilant in order to offset its insidious influence on our emotions, thoughts and votes.
8. I will balance my time perspective: We can be led to do things that are not what we believe in when we allow ourselves to become trapped in an expanded present moment. Situational power is weakened when past and future combine to contain the excesses of the present.
9. I will not sacrifice personal or civic freedoms for the illusion of security: The need for security is a powerful determinant of human behavior. We can be manipulated into engaging in actions that are alien to us when faced with alleged threats to our security or the promise of security from danger. Never sacrifice basic personal freedoms for the promise of security because that sacrifices are real and immediate and the security is a distant illusion. Such as when a leader promises personal safety and notional security at the cost of a collective sacrifice of suspending laws, privacy, and freedoms.
10. I can oppose unjust systems: Individuals falter in the face of the intensity of the systems we have described: the military and prison systems as well as those of gangs, cults, fraternities, corporations, and even dysfunctional families. But individual resistance in concert with that of others of the same mind and resolve can combine to make a difference. Resistance may involve physically removing one’s self from a total situation in which all information, rewards, and punishments are controlled. It may involve challenging the groupthink mentality and being able to document all allegations of wrongdoing. Systems have enormous power to resist change and withstand even righteous assault.
