Summary

Stephen Reicher and Alex Haslam start their article “Why not everyone is a torturer” by stating that those who see the photographs showing the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison must feel the need to distance themselves from the horror and brutality. People believe the abusers must be monsters, as ordinary people would never do such things.

This belief, the writers state, is contradicted by 50 years of social psychological research, which shows that any person can become violent in certain circumstances.

The writers then mention the 1971 Stanford prison experiment, which placed students in the roles of prisoners and guards. The research concluded that all people have the capacity to behave in evil ways.

The writers argue that it is bad psychology and bad ethics to think the torturers in Iraq were victims of their circumstances, because it suggests that they are not responsible for such events. The guards at the Abu Ghraib prison were torturing prisoners because they were fo...