Hockenbury Discovering Psychology 5th txtbk

482 CHAPTER 11 Social PsychologyCRITICAL THINKINGAbuse at Abu Ghraib: Why Do Ordinary People Commit Evil Acts?When the first Abu Ghraib photos appeared in 2004, Americanswere shocked. The photos graphically depicted Iraqi prisonersbeing humiliated, abused, and beaten by U.S. military personnelat Abu Ghraib prison. In one photo, an Iraqi prisoner stoodnaked with feces smeared on his face and body. In another,naked prisoners were piled in a pyramid. Military guard dogsthreatened and bit naked prisoners. A hooded prisoner stood ona box with wires dangling from his outstretched arms. SmilingAmerican soldiers, both male and female, posed alongside thecorpse of a beaten Iraqi prisoner, giving the thumbs-up sign forthe camera.In the international uproar that followed, U.S. political leadersand Defense Department officials scrambled, damage controlat the top of their lists. “A few bad apples” was the officialpronouncement—just isolated incidents of overzealous or sadisticsoldiers run amok. The few “bad apples” were identified andarrested: nine members of an Army Reserve unit that was basedin Cresaptown, 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 neverbe able to counteract the powerful forces that cantransform ordinary people into evil perpetrators.—PHILIP ZIMBARDO, 2004bWhat actually happened at Abu Ghraib?At its peak population in early 2004, the Abu Ghraib prison complex,some 20 miles west of Baghdad, housed more than 6,000Iraqi detainees. These were Iraqis who had been detained duringWould you have obeyed? “I was instructed by persons in higherrank to ‘stand there, hold this leash, look at the camera,’” LynndieEngland (2005) said. Among those calling the shots was her thenlover,Corporal Charles Graner, the alleged ringleader who wassentenced to 10 years in prison for his attacks on Iraqi detainees.Graner, England, and one other reservist were convicted of mistreatmentand given prison sentences, while the other six reservistsmade plea deals. No officers were court-martialed or chargedwith any criminal offense, although some were fined, demoted,or relieved of their command.the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. The detaineesranged from petty thieves and other criminals to armed insurgents.But also swept up in the detention were many Iraqi civilianswho seemed guilty only of being in the wrong place at thewrong time. The prison complex was short of food, water, andbasic sanitary facilities, understaffed, and poorly supervised(James, 2008).There had been numerous reports that prisoners were beingmistreated at Abu Ghraib, including official complaints by theInternational Red Cross. However, most Americans had noknowledge of the prison conditions until late April 2004, whenthe photographs documenting shocking incidents of abuse wereshown on national television and featured in the New Yorkermagazine (Hersh, 2004a, 2004b).The worst incidents took place in a particular cell block thatwas controlled by military intelligence personnel rather than regularArmy military police. This cell block held the prisoners whowere thought to be most dangerous and who had been identifiedas potential “terrorists” or “insurgents” (Hersh, 2005). The ArmyReserve soldiers assigned to guard these prisoners were told thattheir role was to assist military intelligence by “loosening up” theprisoners for later interrogation (Taguba, 2004).What factors contributed to the events that occurredat Abu Ghraib prison?Multiple elements combined to create the conditions for brutality,including in-group versus out-group thinking, negativestereotypes, dehumanization, and prejudice. The Iraqi prisonerswere of a different culture, ethnic group, and religion than theprison guards, none of whom spoke Arabic. To the Americanprison guards, the Arab prisoners represented a despised, dangerous,and threatening out-group. Categorizing the prisonersin this way allowed the guards to dehumanize the detainees,who were seen as subhuman (Fiske & others, 2004).Because the detainees were presumed to be potential terrorists,the guards were led to believe that it was their duty to mistreatthem in order to help extract useful information. In thisway, aggression was transformed from being inexcusable andinhumane into a virtuous act of patriotism (Kelman, 2005).Thinking in this way also helped reduce any cognitive dissonancethe soldiers might have been experiencing by justifying theaggression. “I was doing what I believed my superiors wantedme to do,” said Army Reserve Private Lynndie England (2004), afile clerk from West Virginia.Is what happened at Abu Ghraib similar to whathappened in Milgram’s studies?Milgram’s controversial studies showed that even ordinary citizenswill obey an authority figure and commit acts of destructiveobedience. Some of the accused soldiers, like England, did claimthat they were “just following orders.” The photographs ofEngland with naked prisoners, especially the one in which shewas holding a naked male prisoner on a leash, created inter -national outrage and revulsion. But England (2004) testified thather superiors praised the photos and told her, “Hey, you’re doinggreat, keep it up.”