Very difficult read; you will come away with a gloomy view of humankind, in spite of the authors attempts to mitigate the message that we are all capable of great evil under the right circumstances ( )

the start of this book is very interesting. i think that is this book's only redeeming quality. I was very excited to read it and it was no longer interesting to me, which is why I gave it one star. I truly can't imagine anyone reading this book and enjoying it unless it has to be read for school purposes. I stopped reading about halfway- but it felt like an eternity. This book is not at all what you think it's going to be. ( )

Well, I bought this book when it was just out, so it was this huge hardback. I got to like halfway (because it was really interesting) and then it got left for many years. Because it was too heavy to carry around. Once I got kindle I finally bought a kindle version and now I've read it!

I first got interested in Stanford Prison Experiment when I was about 10 and was devouring Reader's Digest. There was a story about the experiment and it fascinated me. I think this was about the first time I realized people are usually not good or evil. As in, it's not black and white. So, when I heard Zimbardo's interview about the book on Skepticality podcast, I knew I needed to read this book. And it was so interesting. I would've given 5 stars for the subject matter, but I think the writing was a bit long-winded, so that's the reason I came down to 4. But I think Zimbardo really challenges you to think about who you are and what you would do in that situation. And if you think you know, think again. ( )

I read about the infamous prison experiment many times but never in such detail - half of the book is a step by step first hand account. Further into the book it also includes other experiments to support its thesis of the extent of systems' shaping people's behaviour being far stronger than anyone anticipates.

I tend to agree but I think the prison experiment itself is of dubious merit. Aside from many technical failures, if anything it shows how far a group of youngsters will go to earn some money. If you compare it to the Milgram obedience experiment (which the book cites extensively as well) it's not even in the same category of validity - there's no analogy absurd enough to illustrate that.

The rest of the book is Zimbardo getting political urging jailtime for generals and politicians for creating these systems. I think it's fair although his zeal is disturbing, clearly not a fan of the American government. He is a fan of mother Theresa though which makes me question his moral judgements.

One interesting thing I didn't know about the prison experiment was that he only called an end to it because he wanted to sleep with the attractive young woman who showed disapproval for what he was doing. Well, that puts an unexpected spin on it. Love is the key to saving our humanity? ( )