Philip Zimbardo's Lucifer Effect

When history is viewed in retrospect, Hitler is remembered as one of the most insane, inhumane, and impure people to ever live, as he was notorious for his massive genocide nicknamed “Final Solution.” But in order to carry out this plan, Hitler had to convince thousands of innocent Germans to give up their daily aspirations and blindly abide to the malicious deeds of Hitler. Why did thousands of good people decide agree to Hitler's orders? How was Hitler able to capture the attention of these people and alter them from samaritans of Germany to corrupted individuals who blindly abided to all of his commands? How did he maintain this power for such an extended period? Philip Zimbardo’s research on the “Lucifer Effect,” Milgram’s experiment, and

Milgram’s experiment, and the two prison experiments both prove the effect of group hysteria on one’s decision making. In the Milgram experiment, it was discovered that 65% of the participants continued to the maximum voltage. When the first person continued to the maximum voltage, it was discovered that 90% of the remaining participants would continue to maximum voltage (Milgram video), which proves how group hysteria affects a person’s decision making. In the prison experiments, it was the group hysteria that provoked the guards to cumulatively harass the the prisoners. It was the group hysteria that diluted any opposition towards the inhumane practices of the guards. Likewise, the group hysteria during the Salem Witch Trials and in the novel, The Lottery, highlight how evilness can quickly spread through the influence of a group. During the witch trials, the hysteria among Abigail and her cult provoked Mary Warren to join in the witchcraft accusations. Originally, Warren “swear[ed] that she never saw familiar spirits” (Miller 93) to defend John Proctor. In addition, she wasn’t able to faint to prove that the accusations were pretense as she “had no sense of it” (Miller 95) due to her disaffiliation with the mass hysteria. However, when Abigail pretends that she was cursed by Mary, the other girls proceeded, eventually instigating Mary to retort to the group hysteria. Correspondingly, evilness rooted within group hysteria can also bee seen in “The Lottery”. In this fictional story, a lottery is held every year to sacrifice a person, to allow the crops to grow and thrive. The person that will be sacrificed is chosen from a black box, and on this specific year, Tessie, the protagonist, was chosen to be inhumanely stoned. Tessie claimed that the process “isn’t fair” (Jackson 8), and the average reader would agree that the system was asinine.