Psychology of Evil

ORB 150

Psychology of Evil

From my personal experiences, people will do about anything if they are influenced enough. Peer pressure has a stronger influence then people give it. Evil things, bad habits, and things that we really don't need to be doing can be pushed upon us with almost little personal resistance. Take smoking for example. My whole life I have been Tobacco free until I started working at UPS. At break everybody and I meen everybody rushes outside for a smoke. I tried to stay away, but the constant pressures from my environment eventually influenced me to start smoking. Even when I smoke I feel like I am doing something that I shouldn't be doing but since smoking is a standard in my work environment, I feel like I need to participate. Smoking isn't evil but it is unhealthy and leads to very painful disease.

Throughout history, humans have committed some of the most heinous atrocities against each other. From the Holocaust in World War II to the extermination of Native Americans in the United States, Slavery, and Racial Cleansing to religious wars; we have been killing each other with no hesitation. Phillip Zimbardo is a psychologist that studied people and Evil. In his research he found ten things that can make people do evil acts. The first thing would be to create an ideology where the ends justify the means to be evil. We can see this being done today with fanatical religious icons manipulating their religion to give followers a reason to kill in the name of their God. Next they get a contract from the subjects where they agree to comply with what wants to be done. Basically people take an oath to a person or an ideology before the evil act is asked to be done. Then you can give participants meaningful roles with clear social value, people will do anything for something that they need or want. Next, make a set of rules that are vague and changing. Re-label actors and actions, for example instead of being labeled a monster for some atrocities, call it liberation. Taking away the sense of being liable so the person doesn't feel responsible make it easier for people to make decisions that may conflict with morality. The person incorporating all of this has to make sure that he starts slow and gives people time to adjust and get used to being evil. Whoever is in control, or what ever institution that is trying