REPLY Zimbardo lecture (SD6441)

[SDMAIL Tom Cavin]

Posted by  Tom Cavin <cavin at MIT.EDU>

Hi All,

I just saw the Zimbardo lecture video, and while I found it informative,
interesting and gratuitously disturbing, I also found it to be incomplete
in the sense that Zimbardo didn't seem to want to follow through with his
own argument as he went up the chain of command.  He is essentially making
the argument that about 90% of our behavior is situationally determined.
The lecture argues the case that although the guards in Abu Ghraib did
horrific things, what they did was due more to the situation they were in
rather than any guard's inherent moral failure.

Zimbardo argues that the initial statements about "bad apples" are
unproductive in light of current understanding of social psychology and
counters that this was a "bad barrel".  He also makes the point that  the
intent to "get to the bottom of this" means we'll never "get to the top".

Zimbardo argues that the horrors of Abu Ghraib were inevitable given the
situation, and focuses the blame for the situation on George W. Bush, Dick
Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and George Tenet.  He makes a very good case for
the situation being directly due to the actions of these men, but it seems
to me that he then falls into exactly the same trap that he has just been
detailing by pointing the finger at this new set of "bad apples".

I find Zimbardo's arguments with respect to the guards compelling, and that
brings me to the question of understanding the situation of the four men he
singles out as ultimately responsible.  What are the characteristics of the
situation that cause these four men to act in ways that bring about Abu
Ghraib and other tragedies?  How could our congress have passed laws that
limit some of our fundamental rights that are supposed to be guaranteed by
our constitution?  What is the structural nature of our society that
encourages the creation of "bad barrels"?

It seems to me that many of our social ills are due to "the system" and
Zimbardo's research supports this notion.  If 90% of what we do is
determined by "the system", then it is highly likely that our "leaders" are
similarly influenced by their own situation.  If that's the case, then
changing leaders without changing "the system" is not likely to be very
effective.  Yet changing "the system" without first understanding it is
also likely to be ineffective simply because "the system" is complex.

This is the obvious moment to introduce an SD model of the situation as a
whole, describe the various links with their justifications, demonstrate
that the model does reproduce the undesirable behavior, and then provide an
analysis of possibly more desirable alternatives.  However, I don't have
such a model.  I do have some ideas, but I haven't yet transfered those
ideas from wetware to software.  Before I do so, I'd like to know if anyone
else feels the same way I do about Zimbardo's arguments.

  Do you think Philip Zimbardo is correct in attributing 90% of our
  behavior to the situations we are in?

  Do you think Philip Zimbardo's arguments could be applied to the
  behavior of the four people he identifies as ultimately responsible for
  Abu Ghraib?

  Do you think SD is an appropriate tool for the analysis of this aspect of
  our society?

I would greatly appreciate knowing the reactions of other SDers to
Zimbardo's ideas and how they might apply to our larger social systems.

Best Wishes,

     --Tom
Posted by  Tom Cavin <cavin at MIT.EDU>
posting date  Thu, 17 May 2007 02:01:39 -0400