What Makes a Hero? by Elizabeth Svoboda

Author:Elizabeth Svoboda [Svoboda, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101622643
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-08-28T16:00:00+00:00

Having a prosocial vision is one thing, but securing the financial backing needed to carry it out is quite another. Zimbardo devotes huge amounts of time to what essentially amounts to pounding the pavement. Like the heads of ballet companies and volunteer outfits, he has to plan everything he does with an eye to courting potential donors—and that means getting the word out about his program to the stars of the Bay Area’s business community. His ultimate goal is to kick fund-raising into gear, of course, but also to showcase HIP to community leaders who have enough clout to champion the cause.

One typical HIP informational event, held on the Stanford campus, attracts an eclectic mix of corporate leaders and students and professors from Stanford’s law and business schools. The registration table is tiled with rows of nametags crisply preprinted with attendees’ names, and a lavish appetizer spread features mozzarella–cherry tomato skewers, vegetable spears, dips, pita, and cheese cubes.

I greet Zimbardo outside the auditorium a few minutes before his talk is scheduled to start. As I load my plate with veggies, he tells me—agitation creeping into his voice—that eighty people are signed up to come, and only a few dozen have shown up so far. I assure him that many are probably on their way from work, but he seems concerned that the latecomers may opt not to show up. “It’s going to get to be their dinnertime,” he says. At 5:53, there are about thirty or thirty-five people sitting in the auditorium seats, and by 6:00, the designated starting time, the count’s up to about fifty.

Zimbardo clicks a button on his laptop and “Evil Ways” (lyrics: “You’ve got to change your evil ways, baby….”) starts playing. From there, he launches into a presentation on the detrimental effects of conformity. He cites his Stanford Prison Experiment as an example of the moral deterioration that can happen when ordinary people don’t act against corrupt situational norms. The ideal strategy, he says, is to create a corporate culture that actively guards against these kinds of situations. “The best organizations create self-correcting cultures of integrity. Anything that sullies your brand is the worst thing that could happen. Every company should be rewarding internal whistle-blowing.” He stops every few minutes throughout the presentation to let audience members reflect on situational influences in their own lives that might have potential to foster ethical corner-cutting. A second-year law student stands up and talks about the time he felt tempted to stretch the truth in a research report. “I knew what the law said and I knew what I wanted it to say, and they weren’t the same thing.”

After the presentation, Zimbardo and his colleague Brooke Deterline open the floor for a question-and-answer period. Someone asks whether ethical transgressors should ever get a second chance—whether situational circumstances should be taken into account. Deterline nods understandingly. “We don’t toss the bad apple. Phil was an expert witness for one of the [Abu Ghraib] guards. He’s still responsible, but there are mitigating circumstances.

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