Circumstances

The article “Why not everyone is a torturer” by Stephen Reicher and Alex Haslam was published on the BBC News website on 10th of May, 2004.

The circumstances when the article was published are very important, as the article is written as a response to these circumstances. Less than a month before the article was published, a scandal caught worldwide attention after CBS News, an American television station, aired a news report which detailed the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraid prison in Iraq. The news report included pictures of American military personnel abusing naked prisoners.

The physical and psychological abuse of the prisoners received worldwide condemnation, as they represented severe human rights violations. The fact that military personnel were involved created feelings of outrage and disbelief all over the world. These feelings were also present among Americans, as many US citizens have a high respect for US military. This led to a debate over why these soldiers would have acted in this way.

The writers also refer to previous psychological research and conclusions – specifically the Stanford prison experiment. The experiment focused on an investigation of the effects of perceived power, in a setting where college students played the roles of guards and prisoners...

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