I didn't realize that I knew who Philip Zimbardo was until I saw his picture in the context of this essay. I had heard of the famous Stanford prison experiment and I have recently seen episodes of his Psychology program on our local cable, but I'd hadn't realized that he was the same guy in both circumstances.
Zimbardo's research argues that our environment, the situations we find ourselves in, has a huge impact on our personal behavior. Given the right set of circumstances, otherwise good and rational people, can be seen to act in surprisingly sadistic and sometimes very evil ways.
It's interesting to think about this research as part of an overall discussion that includes the nature/nurture debate and the debate over the causes of violence (human nature vs. culture) and the implications in the gun debate. It's also interesting to think about Zimbardo's ideas in terms of evolutionary psychology. For instance, if we've evolved our violent behaviors, how do they relate to the evolution of these group-think and obedience to authority behaviors.
Furthermore how do both of these relate to the proposed evolution of religion.
I don't have the answer yet, it's all a jumble of ideas in my head right now.
