The Lucifer Effect - How Groups Go Bad [and How to Avoid It]

CZBZ, at her site Web of Narcissism , has shared an extremely valuable post regarding The Lucifer Effect.

This term was coined by Professor Philip Zimbardo, of Stanford, to describe the psychological de-evolution of human character, the shockingly swift conversion of previously normal, decent people into brutal abusers, that can occur in group settings - small or large, on any scale from chat rooms to nations - under the right conditions.

He first studied this dynamic in the well-known "Stanford Prison Experiment". Now Professor Emeritus, he has written a book about this process, exploring in detail both how normal human beings can come to behave like monsters, and how we can learn to recognize, and resist, the pressure to become less-than-fully-human beings.

There is a particularly trenchant exposition on Dr. Zimbardo's website regarding the incredible power of group norms to influence human behavior. The authors [Dr. Zimbardo and Cindy X. Wang] advise [bold italics mine]:

In our daily decisions, we should also examine whether our reasons justify our actions. In an unfamiliar situation, first ask yourself whether the actions you observe others performing [are] rational, warranted, and consistent with your own principles before thoughtlessly and automatically adopting them.

Similarly, in a situation in which you want to impress and be accepted by others, ask yourself whether the action conflicts with your moral code, and consider whether you would be willing to compromise your own opinion of yourself just so others would have a higher one of you. Ultimately, you are the only one who has to live with your actions. Also take a time out to find out the correct information.

To resist the powers of group conformity: know what you stand for; determine how really important it is that these other people like you, especially when they are strangers; recognize that there are other groups who would be delighted to have you as a member; take a future perspective to imagine what you will think of your current conforming action at some time in the future.

I am planning to spend a great deal of time reading Dr. Zimbardo's work... and being thankful, in this season, for the Internet, for people like CZBZ and Dr. Zimbardo, and for all the valuable websites such as theirs that shed light and offer validation to people who would otherwise be isolated and lost.

Without further ado, let me cede the floor to CZBZ and Dr. Zimbardo.

Good Reading, Safe Havens

Serendipity is a wonderful thing. Having recently discovered Narcissists Suck and What Makes Narcissists Tick, I've also had the privilege of discovering Brisbane Christian Fellowship [ great site ~ thank you, Jordie!], Web of Narcissism and Cosmicwalk.

There are people in the US, Australia, South Africa, all addressing the same issues, all seeing the same patterns, all standing up in protest. The sun literally never sets on this world of recovery!

But along with awareness come risks; when you leave the shadows, sometimes the shadows try to follow. Predators don't want to lose their prey, and the psychological predator seems to find a special 'thrill' in preying upon those who think they've escaped.

A page from the Cosmicwalk site gives very wise advice. I hope the WebMaster won't mind my posting the "money quote" here, along with this link:

" ...I found various groups and forums that helped me a lot, often just by the very fact that they were there and I knew I was not alone. However, some were merely playgrounds where narcissists hung out. They projected as victims but were there for sport, to attack real victims, sometimes in the most vicious and destructive ways. I was on the receiving end of some of these in the very early days and they set me back terribly, making me question myself and second-guess everything all over again. It caused me tremendous agony.

My point is please be careful. Don't expose yourself to a forum until you are sure that it is in fact a safe place. Don't use just one resource for your information or rely on just one site or author. This includes this site as well.

Read widely and read a lot. Test the theories, check the facts and reach your own, personal conclusions. ..."

It's incredibly validating and helpful to run across sites and blogs that 'speak to your condition', as Quakers so beautifully put it. But it can be even more helpful and validating to actually connect directly with others who are working their way towards the same light. Being ambushed while on such a quest can be terribly retraumatizing, and is an experience to be avoided if at all possible.

Here are a few observations that may help you avoid harm in chat rooms / forums / discussion groups ~ or recognize its approach early enough to get out quickly.

1. Look for a group with attentive and involved moderators, ideally multiple moderators. Moderators who appear and disappear, or find their responsibility overwhelming because they have no backup ~~ with the best will in the world, are not going to know what's really happening in the neighborhood; they can't; they won't have time. They may cease to care, or give up out of a sense of frustration and powerlessness.

At best, they may show up far too late in a conflict, after significant emotional damage has already been done; at worst, they not only might show up late, but could jump to conclusions based on incomplete information or a desire to 'just get it over with'. If that should happen, it risks rewarding an abuser[s] at the expense of the target[s], because, online or offline, abusers set things up to make it easier to join the abuse than to oppose it. Anyone who opts for the easy way out, in this situation, is likely to play right into that, even if totally unwittingly. If you have childhood memories of Mom or Dad punishing you, when your sibling was the provocateur, welcome to Family Scapegoat ~~ Instant Replay. Even when it's the most innocent error in the world, which it sadly may be, you don't need to relive it.

2. Look for a group with rational standards of conduct, and check to see that these standards are applied 'without fear or favor'. Standards of conduct should be articulated ~ and easy to find. If it's obvious that the moderator has a pet, you might learn a lot about enabling and favoritism, but lurking is going to feel like the safest option. Power corrupts, and people in favored positions often become abusive merely because they can. Likewise, if stronger members of the group are left on their own to defend themselves as best they can when cornered, simply because they're perceived as strong, while members perceived as less emotionally competent are assisted and protected, then - inadvertently or not - some group members are being punished for being healthy, or at least for looking that way.

Limited progress is likely in an environment where those perceived as stronger or healthier feel left to protect themselves.

3. Look for a group in which Private Messaging has been disabled, or can be disabled by the user. This may seem odd, but there's good reason for it.

In realspace therapy groups, 'subgrouping' is actively discouraged since it leads to the formation of cliques, internal politics, etc. and is almost always destructive to group cohesion. In cyberspace recovery groups, the same problems can occur. Unhealthy members can create havoc in Web forums by using PMs.

I have seen people use sockpuppets [second screen names or anonymous tags] to abuse targets in open forums, while pretending to commiserate with the targets behind the scenes, via PM, under their usual screen name. [Back in the pre-Internet days, people would sometimes send anonymous 'poison pen letters' to a target, while pretending to support them in public. Plus ça change, plus ç'est la même chose!].

PMs can be misused by cyberbullies to recruit gang members, or by cybercheaters seeking emotional affairs. What better place to find people longing to belong, thus ripe for gangs, or lonely hearts, vulnerable to emotional affairs, than a chat room full of emotional abuse survivors?

I've found two other downsides to PMs:

First: troublemakers, even in the open forum, do lie about things said to them via PM. It's a waste of time and energy proving them to be lies, but usually the target will feel that it must be done, because otherwise they're endorsing the behavior.

Second, a group member may receive many PMs requesting advice or support; but when they need support in return, none may be forthcoming. [This is another way in which a group may, inadvertently, punish its healthier members.] It's good to be useful, not at all good to be - or feel -used. Reciprocity, in fact, is central to spiritual health as well as emotional health: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."

I stress, again, that these things are rare in healthy environments ~ but it's often the case that you'll only discover an environment is unhealthy when things like this take place there. And a healthy environment can feel unhealthy very quickly if even one member does these things.

So PMs, in my opinion, are best avoided. If PMs aren't disabled on a site you visit, consider blocking them in your own account. If you don't, you may eventually wish you had.

4. Look for a group with clearly designated 'trigger zones' = safe places to vent.Those who have suffered certain kinds of abuse need to be able to talk about it. Openly. With others who've 'been there'. Without being shamed. Others may find such discussions triggering. Therefore, a recovery site should have clearly delineated 'zones' where people can discuss this potentially triggering material ~ and ideally, these 'zones' should be second-password protected, to keep out voyeurs. A second-password requirement also may prevent troublemakers from visiting these areas, then claiming to be injured and offended by what they find there. Sadly, it appears that such things happen.

5. Look for groups without 'taboos'; watch for groupthink and other forms of 'stinkin' thinkin'. If people can't openly express a concern that there might be predators among them, without all hell breaking loose, then there's some real risk that there are indeed predators among them, simply because that risk can't even be discussed. If people can't discuss the fact that their parent was an abusive borderline or narcissist without being flamed, you can be reasonably certain that some of the flamers have things on their parental consciences that they don't want anyone guessing are there. [Sadly, these things might turn out to be well-intentioned errors, relatively easily amended, if they were ever brought out into the light.] If everyone is loudly and nervously and constantly assuring each other that they are all 100% wonderful people, and the baddies are all Out There, you're up to your neck in Groupthink, not to mention denial. Rational, detached self-scrutiny isn't going to be on the agenda, and it's an essential component of healing.

6. Look for groups where message boards or chat rooms are password protected. This protects against voyeurs, spammers, and other trolls, not to mention the occasional abuser looking to 'nail' his or her child, spouse, etc. in cyberspace. Few things are as frightening as seeing an emotionally battered woman cornered by her abuser on a site where she thought she was safe.

7. Remember ~ safety isn't subjective; but comfort is. You may be perfectly at ease in an environment you know is not entirely safe; you may be uncomfortable in an environment that seems utterly secure. I personally don't recommend prolonged stays in venues where you feel unsafe, because of a threefold risk: if you advocate for safety and oppose unhealthy behavior in the group setting, you are guaranteed to be abused, because you're 'rocking the boat'; even if you keep a low profile, you may be retraumatized as a witness when others are abused, or, worst of all, you may become a 'boiled frog' ~~ gradually, imperceptibly desensitized to others' suffering, thus tolerant of abuse ~~ as long as it's happening to someone else.

A password-protected site with multiple message boards for different types of issues, clear structure, well defined standards of conduct, and involved, aware moderators will be the safest place to heal.

There are such places. If you seek them, may you find them, and may your healing ~ in true community ~ last lifelong.

Looking Into the Abyss [the Only Way to Win is Not to Play]

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you."
-- Nietzche

It can be hellishly easy, incredibly seductive, to respond to abusers with abuse.

So easy to justify; there's even a Game Theory thesis that seems to support it - the Tit for Tat strategy as the most effective solution to The Prisoner's Dilemma... "First cooperate, but if betrayed, retaliate exactly as you were betrayed."

So deeply and repeatedly modeled; if we have been raised by abusive and enabling parents, then we have been shown, over and over, how to abuse and how to enable abusers. How to abuse and how to be abused. We have not been shown how to stop abuse. We have not been shown how to assert, how to call out abuse for what it is and stand fast in the midst of the ensuing storm. We have seen abuse met with enabling or with more abuse - no third way.

So firmly approved by our culture, so emotionally satisfying. It works in the movies, it works on TV - just destroy the baddies by whatever means comes to hand, and look Ma! A nice clean universe!

Not.

This is not to say that there is no such thing as abuse, nor am I advocating an 'evil does not exist' non-solution to the dilemma. That is the most devious form of enabling; it effectively says we are all sociopaths together, and the difference between 'us' and 'them' is merely that 'they' have the guts to act on it, and the rest of us don't.

I'm also not advocating hopelessness in the face of evil [get rid of one and you just end up with a dozen more]. That, to me, is the saddest and most prevalent form of learned helplessness; it is culturally inculcated despair.

Abuse exists, and the most committed abusers are not simply a gutsier version of our 'lesser selves'. They are another kind of animal entirely, and it is a serious failure in our culture and in our species that we allow them to prey unchecked.

But if we respond to abusers by abusing them in return, we indeed become, to some extent, the thing we abhor. Trapped in Karpman dynamics, we merely persecute our persecutor.

Here it is important to make a very significant distinction. Standing up to an abuser is not abusing them. Pointing out the abusive behaviors and tactics they are using is not abusing them. Refusing to be intimidated by these behaviors and tactics is not abusing them. They will insist that these things are abusive, because in the world of the abuser, any impulse denied, any gratification delayed, is defined as abuse.

Do not let them define your reality.

The most powerful, indeed the only effective, response to an abuser is constraint.

And there is the heart of the problem.

It is almost impossible for an individual, acting alone, to impose any meaningful temporal constraints upon an abuser.

It is also very unlikely that most groups, faced with an abuser [or a gang of them] and a target [or a targeted group of individuals] in their midst, will have enough healthy emotional history available in their membership to muster a solid, reality-based, constraining response - and direct it accurately at the abuse. Far more likely, someone will advocate for the 'we're all sociopaths together' fallacy, or, sadly, the abuser [or gang], via a combination of manipulation, intimidation, and appeals to recreational malice, will recruit and enlist members of the larger group to assist in abusing the chosen target.

Therefore: nearly all advocates for the abused sooner or later reach the point where they advise No Contact as the most effective solution.

It is the only ethical form of constraint that one person, acting unilaterally, may have sufficient power to impose permanently and effectively.

It does not rely upon the tenuous emotional health and even more tenuous goodwill of an uninformed [or poorly informed] and easily manipulated group.

And most importantly, it does not involve an abusive response. Instead, it provides distance, safety, and a space within which to reflect, to assess, to determine just how much of the abyss we may have carried away within ourselves, from the years spent on its brink - and to begin ridding ourselves of that poison.

It puts us on the road to sanctuary and healing.

Other Women, Other Voices

There is awareness, and then there is awareness.

In a future post I will talk about the way in which a group shades into a team shades into a clique shades into a gang shades into a mob, and where the tipping points seem to be.

But for now, know this: the antidote to gangs, to mobs, to Twilight-Zone churches and families and workplaces, where denial predominates and abusers rule, is: awareness.

I have recently discovered two excellent blogs on the subject of abuse and abusers, by other women who recognize abuse as predation, abusers as predatory, and our social framework as horrendously enabling. They are not fooled by surfaces, false personae, word salad, projection. They know a bully when they see one, and they're not afraid to believe in evil... these women see what's there, and talk about it, sometimes very frankly.

It's extremely reassuring to know they exist. Reading them is both education and vindication.

There are links to these blogs [including an earlier version of the second one] in the sidebar here, but I want to place them in the prominence they deserve:

Narcissists Suck
What Makes Narcissists Tick
What Makes Narcissists Tick ["first edition"]

These women are aware.

Read, explore, enjoy. And watch your paradigms.