Another way in which people can separate there personal ethics and integrity for another person is Bandura’s Model of Moral Disengagement and Dehuminization. Which basically states a) one‘s own perspective on shameful conduct (justifying it morally); b) minimizing the consequences of action to ones self; c) Diffusion of responsibility; and d) In ones mindset dehumanizing the victim. (Zimbardo, p. 8). The guards justified their actions as they were doing a service by making the prisoners follow their regulations and maintain respect for them. They minimized the consequences believing it was necessary to use violence and humiliate the prisoners. The guards diffused the responsibility by “following” the directors orders, and doing all of the heinous acts as a group thus displacing their actions on to another. They dehumanized the prisoners by giving them numbers instead of names. They were no longer an individual to the guards but digits in a sequence of numbers. This model represents how a highly moral person can act unethically due to cognitive mechanisms that become altered. In an experiment done by Bandura’s, students overheard the person they were going to shock was either “nice” or an “animal”. Those labeled as animals had a more intensified shock, due to their dehumanized stigma.
It is clear that good people can do evil things, given the right condition to change their perception on an individual. These two theoretical models, and many situations have modified people’s moral cognition, which gives me great empathy for the prison guards in the experiment. One part of the movie was impressionable when the guards discussed their children and compared pictures, having close family ties showed their virtuous side. They didn’t start off as corrupt people, there unusual behavior was due to their circumstance. In society situation is nothing more than a minute justifiable extrinsic condition. Only if the individual is crazy should they be unaware of their...