Elizabeth R. (esjro) - , reviewed on 1/6/2023 + 949 more book reviews

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the plus side, it is very long and essentially two books in one, so you definitely get your money's worth! The first half or so is about the Stanford Prison Experiment, for which the author was the PI. Events are described in great detail. The author acknowledges repeatedly his complicity in allowing verbal and emotional abuse of the "prisoners", and only after the woman who later becomes his wife snaps him out of it does he end the study sooner than planned. The rest of the book addresses the title topic more broadly then the prison experiment, and often reads like a mea culpa: the author repeatedly acknowldges his mistakes, but goes on to site example after example of how despite its questionable ethics his research contributed to the understanding of how people change their behavior in novel and pressure-filled situations. He also points out quite often that his wife was right.

There is a lot of interesing content in this book. The chapter about Abu Ghraib was particularly fascinating. However, it was long and really dragged in places. This book would have benefited from tighter editing as it went on side tangents (again, in great detail) about particular people and other research studies, and some of the content was repetitive. (For example, a school experiment in which blue versus brown eyed students were favored and the roles then reversed was discussed at length twice). Nonetheless, it is worth a read by people interested in human behavior in group situations, if the reader allows themself the liberty of skimming some parts.

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