As promised, in this case and in interventions that follow I would talk about a series of books from which I was hit, and through which I could understand some things that, if anything, helped me to develop my ideas and that you are more or less fully got to see expressed on this blog himself. The first book that I want to talk today is titled The Lucifer Effect . The author, Philip Zimbardo , is an eccentric character to some extent within the global landscape of research in the field of psychology.
He is best known for an experiment in ' summer of 1971, known to history as the' Stanford Prison Experiment . After the tests, conducted a few years earlier, on obedience to the authority conducted by Stanley Milgram , another famous psychologist, Zimbardo's experiment has the merit to be among the first to experimentally investigate a little known aspect of the human psyche : one that leads ordinary people, "good", to commit evil deeds under the influence of subtle and almost imperceptible in situations where they are or the roles to which they belong.
In almost seven hundred pages that make up The Lucifer Effect, Philip Zimbardo Experiment tells in detail in question, analyzing the mechanisms Stepper The distinctive human mutagens, and making an interesting parallel with an event a few years ago, but that everyone will remember at least vaguely, the abuses of Abu Ghraib prison .
would take too long to explain, comprehensively summarizing the results of the work of Zimbardo, at least, it would be impossible in a single incident. I will confine myself, therefore, to make a small digression to be those that the teacher recognizes the mental processes underlying the monstrous metamorphosis that can turn an honest citizen in a brutal murderer. These
processes are the deindividuation, obedience to authority, passivity in the face of threats, self-justification, rationalization, dehumanization. The rationalization, especially, is something altogether quite daily, almost familiar. By streamlining the most of us has to do more than once a day. I dare say, for extreme simplification, rationalization is something close to what we commonly call "climbing of mirrors."
Do not think that climbing of mirrors is the favorite sport of a certain category of people. All, more or less, are sensitive a questo fenomeno, tutti, ognuno in misura particolare, possono, di tanto in tanto o con regolare frequenza, arrampicarsi sugli specchi. Ognuno di noi, in quanto essere umano, ha una sua personale percezione di sé e del mondo circostante, ed è su questo humus percettivo che nascono e si sviluppano le idee. Che cosa avviene quando una nostra idea viene contraddetta dai fatti?
Da alcuni recenti studi è emerso come, nella maggior parte dei casi, le idee siano più forti dei fatti: in altri termini, spesso siamo così convinti della veridicità di una data convinzione che, una volta di fronte al fatto che dimostra l'esatto opposto, tendiamo più facilmente a rimuovere dalla nostra memoria il fatto same rather than change our belief. This is particularly true as the idea which is undermined touches the deepest parts of our being. This is, in other words, rationalization. The rationalization allows us, in certain circumstances, to take actions contrary to our ethics without which our consciousness sounds like an alarm bell. It 'obvious that the rationalization is usually not sufficient in itself to do so, and this is all the more evident as he has done is clearly contrary to our moral contradictions larger structures will require more time-consuming to be rationalized, reabsorbed in our sense of ethics, in our mental integrity, the reading which we give of ourselves. Besides streamlining play many other factors, which are precisely among those appointed at the beginning of this intervention.
But let's step back. If you recall, we had already happened, indirectly, to speak of rationalization. Do you remember where? The first occasion in which they discussed was one in which I spoke of ' mental training. Another was one where, inspired by a book of Gherardo Colombo, I introduced the theme of responsibility . Two situations in which I was surprised to rationalize, to climb on mirrors, on which after almost a year I go back to question and reflect, sicuro del fatto che, senza una presa di coscienza realmente sentita, abbassare la guardia di fronte a noi stessi, il nostro primo e peggior nemico, diventa inevitabile.
