The Lucifer Effect II — Situational Forces

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Wed, 10/12/2011 - 13:07

Book Reviews

This second blog post on Philip Zimbardo's book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lucifer-Effect-Understanding-Good-People/dp/08129…; target="”_blank”">The

Lucifer Effect</a> applies the situational approach to government
ethics programs, and looks at the situational forces at play with
respect to ethical misconduct. 
 
The Situational Approach 
It is in the interests of those who are responsible for the
preservation of a poor ethics environment to keep an ethics program
focused on individuals. This isolates problems and deflects
attention away from those responsible for situational pressures and
the lack of oversight. 
 
But there is an alternative approach, which takes a situational
orientation. Zimbardo refers to the alternative approach to
individual misconduct as a public health approach. The medical
approach is individualistic, treating the patient. The public health
approach identifies diseases and tries to prevent them from
spreading. In the context of local government ethics, the disease is
institutional corruption and a poor ethics environment. If patients
keep catching this disease from their
environment, treating their ethical misconduct alone is a short-sighted and short-term solution.

Only by recognizing the power of situational forces to infect us can
we avoid, prevent, challenge, and change them. Just as we need to
recognize that we are all vulnerable to diseases, ethics programs
need to recognize everyone's vulnerability to situational forces and
their need to deal not only with individual conduct, but also with
the situational forces themselves. This is similar to a flu
epidemic, where public health professionals try to stop the spread
of the flu at the same time that individuals are treated
individually. 
 
It's important to emphasize that although a poor ethics environment
is a principal cause of ethical misconduct, this does not mean that
individuals are not responsible for their actions. But depending on
the particular circumstances, situational forces could be considered
as mitigating circumstances or, for those putting pressure on
subordinates, for example, as
aggravating circumstances in determining an individual's penalty for
violating the ethics code. 
 
Zimbardo quotes Lee Ross and Donna Shestowsky arguing that the
criminal justice system (and this would also apply to the ethics
enforcement system) should not accept erroneous notions of the
individual's sole responsibility for misconduct, leaving out
situational effects, any more than it should accept what was once
considered equally valid, that is, the effects of demonic possession
and witchcraft. That's worth a bit of thought. 
 
The situational orientation does not apply only to ethics
enforcement. Officials can protect themselves best if they are
taught not only what conduct is unacceptable, but also what
situational pressures they will need to oppose, and how best they
can do this. Therefore, situational forces need to be taken into
account in every aspect of an ethics program, including training,
advice, disclosure, investigations, enforcement, and the drafting of
ethics codes, regulations, and rules of procedure. 
 
The Situational Forces 
What are the situational forces that cause people to act in ways
they do not act elsewhere in their lives? The forces most relevant
to local governments include obedience to authority, loyalty, intimidation
(and the resulting passivity), and
rationalization (government attorneys are best at providing this). These are forces I've written about in this blog. 
 
One of the strongest forces, which is employed both in prison
situations and especially in war, is, I believe, also relevant to
local governments, but it's one I haven't written about for a long
time, and not in this manner: dehumanization. By seeing others
("the enemy") as less than human (or at least less than us and our
colleagues), we can see them as deserving of mistreatment, and
ourselves and those like us as deserving of special treatment.
Dehumanizing others disengages our morality and our reason. 
 
In war, the enemy is pictured as animalistic, perverse, insane. In
government, the enemy is usually considered the other major party or
faction, and dehumanization does play a part in inter-party enmity.
But the real enemy, in a poor ethics environment, is the public, and
its other representatives, the news media. They are seen not in as
strong terms as an enemy in war, but as decidedly lower than
government officials. They don't understand the problems, don't know
the facts, and all they think about is their wallets or crazy ideas,
like stopping development or holding referendums. Ever notice how
often when a citizen rises and makes a strong critical point, she is
told she doesn't know what she's talking about? Humiliation is an
important weapon of dehumanization. 
 
On one hand, this is a classic example of the ad hominem attack,
attacking the individual rather than the argument that is being
made. And when community leaders make this sort of attack, since
they are presumed to know what's what, it is an effective way to
counter an argument, as dishonest as it might be. But it reflects
something more than cleverness and dishonesty: the fact that
many government officials feel they have special knowledge that
makes them superior to the rest of the community. With this special
knowledge, such officials feel they don't really have to listen to
what is said by the public, unless feelings are strong enough to
make a difference at the polls. 
 
One way in which the dehumanization of the public becomes normal
practice is in the rules for speaking at public meetings. Members of
the public are often given a very short period of time in which to
speak, they are often not allowed to ask direct questions (and
rarely follow-up questions), and officials often respond to them in
a condescending way, even when their tone is very civil. Or they
refuse to respond at all, as if the questioner is too lowly to
deserve an answer. In the worst ethics environments (and I've seen
videos of this from council meetings across the country),
legislative bodies have "difficult" members of the public forcefully
taken out of the meeting by police officers, or the threat is made. 
 
When I rose to ask a question of my town's finance director at a
town meeting several years ago, the moderator (a neighbor of mine)
told me that the rules did not allow for asking questions of town
officials. I successfully appealed the moderator's decision pursuant
to Robert's Rules §24. He is a good person who was apparently
protecting those who had chosen him for the position. As a lawyer,
he is used to representing those who "hire" him and doing what is
necessary to "win." What he did turned out to be unnecessary,
because the finance director, who was one of those responsible for
the town government's poor ethics environment, refused to answer my
question. And no one said a word in protest. It was as if the town
meeting, the height of public participation in our society, were one
big prison guarded by its officials who, of course, made the
unwritten rules, often as they went along. The goal is to keep the
inmates . . . I mean the citizens . . . from getting out of line. 
 
The Effect of Situational Forces on New Officials 
New officials often get pulled into feeling superior to ordinary citizens. They come in as
members of the public who don't know what's what, but they have the
chance to become a member of the in crowd, knowledgeable, respected,
and arrogant. This is hard to resist. And with the idea of having
special knowledge and becoming one of the elect comes the idea that
you have special rights, that you deserve things others don't
deserve. You are entitled to treat yourself and others differently
from the average citizen.This is one of the principal factors in the
process of co-opting. And once you're accepted, it's hard to act in
such a way that you might be kicked out. It takes a strong rather
than a good character. It takes independence of mind as well as
courage. 
 
Zimbardo included in his book a quotation from a lecture by the
writer C. S. Lewis, best known for his Narnia books, but also an
Oxford professor and lay theologian. The quote shows how easily our
desire to belong can lead us to do things we would not otherwise do:<ul>

[I]t will be the hint of something, which is not quite in accordance
with the technical rules of fair play, something that the public,
the ignorant, romantic public, would never understand. Something
which even the outsiders in your own profession are apt to make a
fuss about, but something, says your new friend, which "we" — and at
that the word "we" you try not to blush from your pleasure —
something "we always do." And you will be drawn in, if you are drawn
in, not by desire for gain or ease, but simply because at that
moment, when the cup was so near your lips, you cannot bear to be
thrust back again into the cold outer world. It would be so terrible
to see the other man's face — that genial, confidential,
delightfully sophisticated face — turn suddenly cold and
contemptuous, to know that you have been tried for the Inner Ring
and rejected. And then, if you are drawn in, next week will be
something a little further from the rules, and next year something
further still, but all in the jolliest, friendliest spirit.</ul>

And then, of course, there is power. Having authority can do
incredible things to a person's conduct. A former prison inmate (in
the real world) was made head of the imaginary Parole Board in the
Stanford Prison Experiment, and as the "prisoners" came before the
board, he embraced his authority with increasing intensity and
conviction. He "confided that he had been sickened by what he had
heard himself say and feel when he was cloaked in his new role."
And this happened in just one day, in what he knew was an
experiment. 
 
It's important to recall that relationships are central to conflicts
of interest, and relationships are also central to this process of
becoming one of the elect, subject to the unwritten rules more than
to the rules of law and ethics. It is also important to recognize
that this process is not only positive – learning the ropes – but
also negative – looking down on the public and coming to feel entitled. The negative aspects
help officials to justify ignoring the public interest because, after all, the
public doesn't know what its interest is. 
 
See the other blog posts on The
Lucifer Effect: 
<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/lucifer-effect-i-%E2%80%94-situationa…–A
Situational Approach to Local Government Ethics</a> 
<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/lucifer-effect-iii-%E2%80%94-debriefi…–Debriefing
and Other Ways to Deal with Situational Forces</a> 
<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/lucifer-effect-iv-%E2%80%94-miscellan…–Miscellaneous
Observations</a> 
 
Robert Wechsler 
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics 
 
203-859-1959

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