Abuse at Abu Ghraib: Why Do Ordinary People Commit Evil Acts? When the first photos appeared from Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, Iraq, people around the world were shocked. The photos graphically depicted Iraqi prisoners being humiliated, abused, and beaten by U.S. military personnel. In one photo, an Iraqi prisoner stood naked with feces smeared on his face and body. Smiling American soldiers, both male and female, posed alongside the corpse of a beaten Iraqi prisoner, giving the thumbs-up sign for the camera. In the international uproar that followed, U.S. political leaders and Defense Department officials scrambled, damage control their priority. “A few bad apples” was the official pronouncement—just isolated incidents of sadistic soldiers run amok. The “bad apples” were identified and arrested: nine members of an Army Reserve unit based in Maryland. Why would ordinary Americans mistreat people like that? How can normal people commit such cruel, immoral acts? Unless we learn the dynamics of “why,” we will never be able to counteract the powerful forces that can transform ordinary people into evil perpetrators. -Philip Zimbardo, (2004b) What actually happened at Abu Ghraib? At its peak population in early 2004, the Abu Ghraib prison complex housed more than 6,000 Iraqis who had been detained during the American invasion and occupation of Iraq (James, 2008). There had been numerous reports of mistreatment at Abu Ghraib, including official complaints by the International Red Cross. However, most Americans had no knowledge of the prison conditions until photographs documenting shocking incidents of abuse were shown in the national media (Hersh, 2004a, 2004b). What factors contributed to the events that occurred at Abu Ghraib prison? Multiple elements combined to create the conditions for brutality, including in-group versus out-group thinking, negative stereotypes, dehumanization , and prejudice. The Iraqi prisoners were of a different culture, ethnic group, and religion than the prison guards, none of whom spoke Arabic. Categorizing the prisoners as a dangerous and threatening out-group allowed the American guards to dehumanize the detainees (Fiske & others, 2004). The worst incidents took place in a cell block that held the prisoners who had been identified as potential “terrorists” or “insurgents” (Hersh, 2005). The guards were led to believe that it was their patriotic duty to mistreat these potential terrorists in order to help extract useful information (Kelman, 2005; Post, 2011 ; Taguba, 2004). Thinking in this way also helped reduce any cognitive dissonance the soldiers might have been experiencing by justifying the aggression. Is what happened at Abu Ghraib similar to what happened in Milgram’s studies? Milgram’s controversial studies showed that even ordinary citizens will obey an authority figure and commit acts of destructive obedience. Some of the accused soldiers, like Army Reserve Private Lynndie England, did claim that they were “just following orders.” Photographs of England, especially the one in which she was holding a naked male prisoner on a leash, created international outrage and revulsion. But England (2004) testified that her superiors praised the photos, saying, “Hey, you’re doing great, keep it up.” But were the guards “just following orders”? During the court-martials, soldiers who were called as witnesses for the prosecution testified that no direct orders were given to mistreat prisoners (Zernike, 2004). However, as a classic and controversial study by Stanford University psychologist Philip Zimbardo and his colleagues (1973) showed, implied social norms and roles can be just as powerful as explicit orders. The study that became known as the Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted in 1971 (Haney & others, 1973). Twenty-four male college students were randomly assigned to be either prisoners or prison guards. They played their roles in a makeshift but realistic prison that had been set up in the basement of a Stanford University building. All of the participants had been evaluated and judged to be psychologically healthy, well-adjusted individuals. Originally, the study was slated to run for two weeks. But after just six days, the situation was spinning out of control. As Zimbardo (2005) recalls, “Within a few days, [those] assigned to the guard role became abusive, red-necked prison guards. . . . Within 36 hours the first prisoner had an emotional breakdown, crying, screaming, and thinking irrationally.” In all, five participants had emotional breakdowns (Drury & others, 2012). Prisoners who did not have extreme stress reactions became passive and depressed. While Milgram’s experiments showed the effects of direct authority pressure , the Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrated the powerful influence of situational roles and conformity to implied social rules and norms. These influences are especially pronounced in vague or novel situations where normative social influence is more likely (Zimbardo, 2007). When people are not certain what to do, they tend to rely on cues provided by others and to conform their behavior to that of those in their immediate group (Fiske & others, 2004). It’s important to note, however, that researchers have questioned whether it was only normative social influence that guided the behavior of the Stanford Prison Experiment participants (Griggs, 2014). For example, some psychologists noted that Zimbardo and his colleagues had been very directive with the guards (Reicher & Haslam, 2006). In 2002, a new study conducted in the United Kingdom was filmed for a show by the British Broadcasting Corporation. In this study, called the BBC Prison Experiment, the guards were not given directions as to how to treat the prisoners. What happened? The guards did not act abusively toward the prisoners. Thus, the researchers concluded that demand characteristics in the form of guidance from the Stanford researchers may have played a role in the abuse in the Stanford study. As you learned in the introduction and research methods chapter, demand characteristics are cues that suggest to participants how they should respond. The psychologists concluded that similar cues may have been present in the “culture” of the Abu Ghraib prison. At Abu Ghraib, the accused soldiers received no special training and were ignorant of regulations regarding the treatment of civilian detainees or enemy prisoners of war (see James, 2008; Zimbardo, 2007). Guards apparently took their cues from one another and from the military intelligence personnel who encouraged them to “set the conditions” for interrogation (Hersh, 2005; Taguba, 2004). Other factors might also be at play in situations like Abu Ghraib. For example, researchers found that participants who signed up for a study described to be about prison were more likely to have qualities related to the potential to abuse others—such as aggression, narcissism, and dominance—than those signing up for other studies (Carnahan & McFarland, 2007). These researchers noted that this self-selection was likely to be true in military contexts, such as Abu Ghraib, as well. Are people helpless to resist destructive obedience in a situation like Abu Ghraib prison? No. As Milgram demonstrated, people can and do resist pressure to perform evil actions. Not all military personnel at Abu Ghraib went along with the pressure to mistreat prisoners (Hersh, 2005; Taguba, 2004). Consider these examples: • Master-at-Arms William J. Kimbro, a Navy dog handler, adamantly refused to participate in improper interrogations using dogs to intimidate prisoners despite being pressured by military intelligence personnel (Hersh, 2004b). • When handed a CD filled with digital photographs depicting prisoners being abused and humiliated, Specialist Joseph M. Darby turned it over to the Army Criminal Investigation Division. It was Darby’s conscientious action that finally prompted a formal investigation of the prison. At the court-martials, army witnesses testified that the abusive treatment would never be allowed under any stretch of the normal rules for handling inmates in a military prison (Zernike, 2004). In fact, as General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated forcefully in a November 2005 press conference, “It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene to stop it.” Finally, it’s important to point out that understanding the factors that contributed to the events at Abu Ghraib does not excuse the perpetrators’ behavior or absolve them of individual responsibility. And, as Milgram’s research shows, the action of even one outspoken dissenter can inspire others to resist unethical or illegal commands from an authority figure (Packer, 2008a). CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS • How might the fundamental attribution error lead people to blame “a few bad apples” rather than noticing situational factors that contributed to the Abu Ghraib prison abuse? • Who should be held responsible for the inhumane conditions and abuse that occurred at Abu Ghraib prison? Like some of the other participants in the obedience and conformity studies, Rensaleer effectively resisted the situational and social pressures that pushed him to obey. As did Army Sergeant Joseph M. Darby, who triggered the investigation of abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison camp in Iraq by turning over a CD with photos of the abuse to authorities. As Darby said, the photos “violated everything that I personally believed in and everything that I had been taught about the rules of war.” Table 11.5 summarizes several strategies that can help people resist the pressure to conform or obey in a destructive, dangerous, or morally questionable situation. TABLE 11.5 Resisting an Authority’s Unacceptable Orders • Verify your own discomfort by asking yourself, “Is this something I would do if I were controlling the situation?” • Express your discomfort. It can be as simple as saying, “I’m really not comfortable with this.” • Resist even slightly objectionable commands so that the situation doesn’t escalate into increasingly immoral or destructive obedience. • If you realize you’ve already done something unacceptable, stop at that point rather than continuing to comply. • Find or create an excuse to get out of the situation and validate your concerns with someone who is not involved with the situation. • Question the legitimacy of the authority. Most authorities have legitimacy only in specific situations. If authorities are out of their legitimate context, they have no more authority in the situation than you do. • If it is a group situation, find an ally who also feels uncomfortable with the authority’s orders. Two people expressing dissent in harmony can effectively resist conforming to the group’s actions. Sources: Information from American Psychological Association, 2005b; Asch, 1956, 1957; Blass, 1991, 2004; Haney & others, 1973; Milgram, 1963, 1974a; Zimbardo, 2000a, 2004a, 2007. How are such people different from those who conform or obey? Unfortunately, there’s no satisfying answer to that question. No specific personality trait consistently predicts conformity or obedience in experimental situations such as those Asch and Milgram created (see Blass, 2000, 2004; Burger, 2009). In other words, the social influences that Asch and Milgram created in their experimental situations can be compelling even to people who are normally quite independent. Finally, we need to emphasize that conformity and obedience are not completely bad in and of themselves. Quite the contrary. Conformity and obedience are necessary for an orderly society, which is why such behaviors were instilled in all of us as children. The critical issue is not so much whether people conform or obey, because we all do so every day of our lives. Rather, the critical issue is whether the norms we conform to, or the orders we obey, reflect values that respect the rights, well-being, and dignity of others.
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