In 1973, Philip Zimbardo began an experiment in order to study how some individuals are evil and how others are good based on the roles they adopt. He designed and began what we know today as the Stanford Prison Experiment.
In this experiment, Zimbardo transformed the basement of the Stanford psychology department into a mock prison. He then gathered a group of 24 participants and randomly split them in half between guards and prisoners. When they started, all 24 college-aged participants were of equal and "normal" health. None of them had any previous medical or psychological issues. They were of equal mental health.
The experiment was supposed to last for two weeks. It was shut down on the sixth day. A few of the “prisoners” left the experiment early due to mental breakdowns within the first 36 hours—mind you, they began as psychologically healthy individuals. The guards’ behavior was abominable. They forced the prisoners into sexually explicit poses, stripped them naked, dehumanized them, kept them from sleeping, and treated them in the worst ways imaginable.
So what happened? How could this happen?
As it turns out, people readily conform to their roles assigned. The students who conformed to their roles as guards, adopted attitudes and behaved as your stereotypical guard. Zimbardo concluded that what allowed these individuals to behave as they did were factors such as anonymity and deindividuation. Because nothing held these individuals accountable for their actions, they were left unchecked and able to behave however they felt. The guards could have treated the prisoners as human beings, but they chose to dehumanize and treat them in ways we would all consider morally wrong and evil. One conclusion that can be drawn from this is that each individual has the potential to do either good or evil, however, the individual’s choice determines how that person behaves. They can either choose to do good or bad.
As Alexandre Solzenitsyn says, “The line between good and evil cuts through the heart of every man.” With the Stanford Prison Experiment, the situation did not change. The guards behaved in evil ways, while Christina Maslach, a friend and PhD acquaintance of Zimbardo’s who came in to interview the guards and prisoners during the experiment, demanded the experiment be stopped after seeing how out of control it was. She’s famously said, “It’s terrible what you are doing to those boys!” Out of all the external individuals to see the experiment in progress (parents during visitations, other officers, friends of Zimbardo’s, etc.), she was the only one to question it and demand it be stopped.
So how can we apply this to what God commands of us? In any situation, we have the choice to do either good or evil. God’s character is the ultimate good. Christ’s behavior is what we should aim to emulate. Even in the case of Lucifer, the ultimate evil was disobeying God. Lucifer’s disobedience of God was what caused his downfall and decent into Hell. This choice was given to Adam and Eve, as well. They could either obey or disobey God when He told them not to eat the apple. They disobeyed God and thus, sinned against Him. This introduced evil into the world where evil was not meant to exist in.
Where does this leave us in the choice to do good or evil? We know that God commands us to love God first and foremost and then love our neighbor as ourselves (Mt 22.37-39). We are called to love our enemies and pray for them (Mt 5.44). We are called to submit ourselves to God (Jm 4.7) and behave like Christ (1 Jn 2.6). We should walk in God’s Spirit and produce fruits of the Spirit, which include: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal 5.22-23). When we produce these fruits, we are doing the ultimate good in pursuing holiness and pursuing God.
As situations are introduced into our lives, we have the option to choose whether to do good or evil. These situations can range from something small like deciding to buy a homeless person a meal, to something large such as standing up for someone who is getting bullied. Doing good, since it typically it goes unnoticed, seems odd or feels uncomfortable. We always see the evil in the world because that’s what sells a story. Everyone knows the horrors of the Stanford Experiment, but no one knows that Dr. Maslach demanded it be stopped. Doing good may feel awkward or uncomfortable, but it’s what God commands of us and it can help make the world a better place.
