CHAPTER 4
Choosing the Black Hat: The Evolution of Evil
Wind Goodfriend
“I was shedding my skin. And the darkness was what was underneath. It was mine all along. And I decided how much of it I let into the world.”
—The Man in Black1
“It raises the fundamental question of how well we really know ourselves, how confident we can be in predicting what we would or would not do in situations we have never before encountered. Could we, like God’s favorite angel, Lucifer, ever be led into the temptation to do the unthinkable to others?”
—social psychologist Philip Zimbardo2
The world isn’t made of good people and bad people. Perceiving humanity in this simplistic way harbors a false dichotomy. Think, instead, of a continuum or range in the shape of a normal bell curve, with “good” and “bad” as opposite poles or extremes and most people falling somewhere in the middle. The bulk of humanity resides in this middle ground of average ethics, the mode of mediocre morality. What moves the metaphorical needle, pushing someone toward one end of the continuum versus the other? Many psychologists argue that it’s not individual personality; instead, situational circumstances drive our actions. Temptation and fantasy can be fully explored within Westworld, where we can choose to enact heroism or horror. The latter is exemplified in the devolution of character as William becomes the Man in Black.
The Lucifer Effect
The progression of “good” people doing increasingly “bad” things due to their situational circumstances is labeled the Lucifer effect by social psychologist Philip Zimbardo.3 The name for this phenomenon was inspired by God’s beloved angel, Lucifer, who later betrayed him. Lucifer’s origins were holy and beautiful, but even such pure beginnings could not stop this fallen angel from eventually choosing a path of evil. While the example of Lucifer’s change is from one extreme end of the continuum to the other extreme, a more moderate—but still chilling—parallel can be seen in the Man in Black as he succumbs to the evil side of his nature.
The power of situations to bring out “evil” acts was explored in the infamous study known as the “Stanford Prison Experiment.”4 Normal, healthy young men were randomly assigned to act as “prisoners” or “guards” in a fake prison setting and quickly fell into these roles. The “guards” humiliated and harassed the “prisoners” so much that a few prisoners had to be released from the study after only a few days due to emotional breakdowns, and Zimbardo canceled the entire study (meant to last two weeks) after only six days.
The study is a controversial example of how situational pressure can lead average people to do abnormal and unethical things.5 Many criticisms have been raised regarding the project.6 Among other things, some critics have argued that a single “guard” nicknamed “John Wayne” for his cowboy attitude was responsible for how extreme the prison simulation became.7 Even if that might be the case, sometimes all it takes is one person who winds up his role to an extreme or even decides to write his own version of the script for everyone else—one good person somehow led into unleashing the worst in himself, one who might then become a catalyst for change in others. Regardless of whether the prison situation or Zimbardo’s own direction inspired them to behave as they did, changes in “John Wayne” and other “guards” might offer insight into how William—who starts as sweet, empathetic, and humble—transforms into the model of darkness we see later as the Man in Black, and contemplation of the fictional William might help shine new light on those who figuratively don the black hats in the real world.
“Good people can be induced, seduced, and initiated into behaving in evil ways,” Zimbardo observed, “when they are immersed in ‘total situations’ that impact human nature in ways that challenge our sense of the stability and consistency of individual personality, of character, and of morality.”8 What psychological forces provide the situational opportunity for the “banality of evil”9 to appear within William?
Even “Normal” People are Capable of Evil
The research participants chosen for the Stanford Prison Experiment were specifically selected because they were “normal,” healthy, average young men. This assessment was the result of giving potential participants over a dozen psychological measures, including (among others):
• Authoritarian obedience (unquestioning loyalty to authority figures)
• Machiavellianism (tendencies toward manipulation)
• Trustworthiness
• Conformity
• Stability
• Empathy
• Masculinity
Not only did all of the men chosen to be “guards” have scores in the average range on each of these scales, but their scores were also statistically identical to scores found in the men randomly assigned to be “prisoners.” The opportunity for them to show cruelty, humiliation, and abuse toward others was determined by random chance—and even these normal, healthy people gave in to that opportunity.10 Before guests enter Westworld, they also complete personality tests to help the park predict their preferences—and it’s statistically likely that many guests would also fall in the average range of each test.
Normative Influence and Deindividuation
How did the guards in the Stanford Prison Experiment learn how to act? Zimbardo gave only loose, vague instructions to them, encouraging them to do whatever was necessary to prevent the prisoners from escaping.11 Part of their navigation into their new social role was normative influence, or looking at others for cues regarding how to act. When William first enters the park, he appears to have done the same thing. Initially, he is startled by how realistic everything appears to be, and his guide is Logan (future brother-in-law and stereotypical privileged prick). As Logan attempts to teach William how to act in the park, William generally tries to go along with his new role, as normative influence dictates, drinking and letting loose. He does try to resist completely copying Logan’s behavior, though, as he appears to be simultaneously attempting to enact the social role or character of moralistic hero. He stands up to bullying, he declines sex with a prostitute due to a fiancée at home, and he falls for the gentle and apparently naive host Dolores. Still, the peer pressure of normative influence (from Logan and other guests in the park who have come for hedonistic purposes) starts to wear on him and influence his decisions.
Another behavioral cue that the Stanford Prison Experiment provided to the guards was a uniform. The guard nicknamed “John Wayne” reflected afterward, “Once you put a uniform on and are given a role, I mean, a job . . . then you’re certainly not the same person if you’re in street clothes and in a different role.”12 Their khaki uniforms, billy clubs, and reflecting sunglasses (which also provided anonymity) contributed to their deindividuation, a psychological process of losing personally identifying markers. Studies have shown that deindividuation leads people to loosen their moral constraints, increase levels of violence and prejudice,13 and be more likely to give in to group pressure.14 In short, deindividuated people feel “lost in the crowd” and do things they wouldn’t normally do. Upon arrival at the Westworld train station, one of the first things the guests do is choose a costume that helps guests lose their real identity and embrace anonymity and deindividuation.
When William confronts this opportunity, it seems like a simple selection at the time: a white hat versus a black hat. But as everyone familiar with Western cultural imagery knows, this selection is actually a symbol of whether he prefers to play a “good guy” or a “bad guy.”15 By initially choosing the white hat, he sends a heuristic signal—a culturally understood code—to others that he is out to play the hero.16 Eventually, he changes his mind. The social roles or characters that we enact—within the Westworld park or within our daily lives—become schemas, culturally based mental frameworks (schemes, patterns) upon which we rely to help navigate a world of decisions.17 Normative influence and deindividuation thus provide two keys regarding William’s slide along the continuum of good versus bad.
Dissociated Responsibility and Compartmentalization
One of the guards in the Stanford Prison Experiment who looked toward “John Wayne” as a role model for behavior reflected on his own actions afterward: “And while I was doing it I didn’t feel any regret, I didn’t feel any guilt. It was only afterwards, when I began to reflect on what I had done, that this behavior began to dawn on me and I realized that this was a part of me I had not noticed before.”18 How is it possible for William to live with himself as he enacts increasingly negative behaviors inside Westworld? One possibility is the use of dissociation—in this case, a mental split between his actions and his internalized sense of self.19 Through dissociation, people can engage in thoughts or behaviors seen, objectively, as negative; this defense mechanism allows people to continue their bad behavior without really realizing what they are doing or dealing with the consequences.
The Man in Black reveals his own dissociation of responsibility when we learn about his life outside of Westworld. There, he is a wealthy humanitarian, a philanthropist, a generous benefactor who saves people’s lives through his work. It appears that he is largely unaware of his slow progress toward more and more “evil” deeds in the park until recent events in his personal life force his realization. One of the ways that William delays admitting what he is becoming is thus through compartmentalization, a mental trick of dividing parts of our self and history into separate psychological “chambers that prevent interpretation or cross talk.”20
At one point, the host Lawrence tells William, “Maybe you’ve got more of an appetite for this than you think.”21 Some of his mental epiphany into who he has become derives from his wife’s confrontation: “She said if I stacked up all my good deeds, it was just an elegant wall I built to hide what’s inside from everyone—and from myself.”22 In the Stanford Prison Experiment, guards who displayed cruelty and sadistic natures set these social roles aside when they went home to their “normal” lives at the end of eight-hour shifts. A guest of Zimbardo who came to observe the experiment noted that “John Wayne” had been polite and friendly while waiting to enter the “prison,” but he immediately transformed into his sadistic character when he stepped into the scene.23 William attempts to do the same, transforming back and forth, when he comes home from repeated visits to Westworld, but over time this compartmentalization breaks down.
An extreme version of compartmentalization is called doubling; this happens when people can successfully keep two separate and very divergent versions of the self alive, simultaneously, but housed in different physical locations or situations.24 When doubling occurs, it results in a strange juxtaposition of extreme good and extreme evil in vacillating swings instead of the “average” relatively consistent morality of most people. This attempted doubling becomes difficult if the two worlds are forced to collide. When another guest inside Westworld recognizes the Man in Black as the seemingly good person he is outside of the park and attempts to engage with him as such, the Man in Black reacts with defensive rage and tells the other guest never to acknowledge who he really is.25 He feels the same type of confrontation when his daughter finds him in the park.26 He finds it difficult to maintain his compartmentalization because that would force him to confront the hypocrisy of his life.
Cognitive Dissonance and Dehumanization
We observe the slow change from innocent and likeable William to the Man in Black, and we come to know that this progression happens slowly over three decades of Westworld visits. Because his change develops in small doses over such a long period of time, William is able to justify what he does without feeling the anxiety of cognitive dissonance, the internal distress we experience when we realize our actions don’t align with the type of person we think we are.27 We don’t want to be hypocrites. In order to avoid this mental dissonance, William psychologically defends his actions as being moral and justified.
One way this is accomplished is that his first potential moral transgressions are somewhat disputable in terms of their ethics. His first act of violence is to shoot a man who’s a criminal and who has taken an innocent woman hostage.28 Most courts of law would dismiss this action as simply acting in self-defense or to protect another person. He also gives in to Logan’s pressure to relax and enjoy a little “black hat” fun, but this is understandable because he’s trying to be a good future brother-in-law. His violence then progresses into shooting what appear to be upstanding military men; again, though, his excuse is that they might have hurt a woman.29 Already, his metaphorical needle has been pushed toward the evil end of the continuum, as one of the men he shoots is clearly unarmed. William appears to be having an unconscious existential struggle with the kind of man he wants to be.
William might be able to assuage his guilt over any actions taken in the park against one of the hosts because they are, after all, just robots there to amuse him. Across many examples of terrorism, racism, and war people have minimized guilt over evil actions through dehumanization,30 viewing others as less than human and therefore not deserving of the respect and ethical rules among men and women. In Westworld, dehumanization should be relatively easy. Guests of the park are encouraged to do exactly whatever they want, to “whomever” they want; they are explicitly told that their actions are legal and have no consequences in the outside world. Hedonism is the name of the game.
Dehumanization was part of the Stanford Prison Experiment as well, as the “guards” minimized feelings of guilt toward the “prisoners” by calling them by their arbitrary numbers instead of by names, referring to them as frogs, camels, and pigs, and by forcing them to forgo dignities such as bathing and wearing underwear.31 In Westworld, though, dehumanization is made difficult precisely because the point of the park is to make it as absolutely realistic as possible. The programming of the hosts even includes the “reveries,” tiny gestures and micro expressions that imply human thought and emotion. The challenge of treating hosts as if they are not human must, then, go beyond typical dehumanization to a level of counter-anthropomorphism.32 Anthropomorphism occurs when humans assign humanlike emotions and reactions onto nonhuman beings, such as dogs or deities. Counter-anthropomorphism is the opposite, when any humanity is stripped from another being, even when that being really does have humanlike qualities.
While counter-anthropomorphism might help William manage any guilt he feels over his evil actions, he struggles with this mental process precisely because he is simultaneously falling in love with Dolores. He cannot maintain both the belief that the hosts are inhuman and that they have artificial intelligence and can reciprocate his love; this cognitive dissonance is too difficult. Instead, he appears to embrace his persona of the Man in Black, admitting to himself that in the park, he really does enact terrible deeds for which he feels no remorse. But even then, with this acknowledged antagonist role, he maintains a shred of justification.
The Man in Black can tell himself that all of the truly horrible things he does are really to push the hosts into remembering their past, into feeling something toward him, into truly becoming “alive.” This excuse is what serves him when he makes the conscious decision to visit the park deliberately to test his own true nature and to test the limit of the hosts. When he murders an innocent woman (the host called Maeve) and her daughter, he feels no guilt or remorse or sadness—but instead later tells himself that the woman was truly alive in that moment for the first time.33 All of his hedonistic, sadistic acts can thus be excused by his inner critic because he convinces himself that they are for the “just cause” of trying to liberate the hosts. Perhaps this, too, is just the next in his long line of ever evolving excuses—his rationalization, creating a rational-seeming justification for his behavior instead of acknowledging his real reasons.34
Counter-Anthropomorphism in Milgram’s Research
When psychologist Stanley Milgram misled his research participants into believing they were delivering electric shocks to someone else, his participants reportedly engaged in counter-anthropomorphism to assuage their guilt. Many of the participants ignored or discounted the humanity of the other person (who was ostensibly receiving the shocks), instead favoring the “greater cause” of “The Experiment.” The “greater good” of “scientific truth” became more paramount than the pain of another human being.35 Part of Westworld’s appeal is that guests are explicitly encouraged to participate in counter-anthropomorphism as they do whatever they want to the hosts without guilt.
The Journey into Darkness
We don’t know exactly when, over the course of thirty years, William decides to don a black hat for the first time. His journey along the continuum of good versus bad, toward one extreme over the other, is surely slow and developed over many small situations, minor choices, and tiny decisions. In this case, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts as the end result is a man who has little guilt or shame, but instead is cobbled together from obsession and excuses. Chivalry becomes cruelty, and brotherhood becomes brutality.
When Philip Zimbardo wrote his book recounting the famous Stanford Prison Experiment36 (as well as analyses of nonfictional “evil” situations), he emphasized that situational circumstances can influence anyone toward evil, just as the “guards” in his study discovered. But he also emphasized that situational circumstances could, almost just as easily, influence people toward the good end of the moral spectrum. We can envision a William who chose a different path at many points along the way, someone who managed to avoid the deindividuation, dissociation, justification, compartmentalization, dehumanization, and dissonance that he had to experience simply because he allowed the situation to dictate who he became.
The fundamental point of Zimbardo’s famous and controversial research is that anyone is capable of donning a metaphorical black hat: “Any deed that any human being has ever committed, however horrible, is possible for any of us—under the right or wrong situational circumstances.”37 Psychological research uncomfortably predicts that any of us may be capable of becoming the Man in Black, given the opportunity. None of us are just good, or just evil—and we can be pushed along the continuum in either direction, depending on the power of the situation. Becoming the Man in Black does not condemn a person to wear the black (or any other hat) forever. A hero can become a villain, a villain can become a hero, and we can all move along the continuum in either direction.38 While situations may place social and psychological pressures upon us, we are still responsible and culpable for our own choices.
Notes
1. Episode 2–9, “Vanishing Point” (June 17, 2018).
2. Zimbardo (2007), p. xii.
3. Zimbardo (2007).
4. Haney et al. (1973).
5. Zimbardo (2007).
6. e.g., Blum (2018), to which Zimbardo (n.d.) responds.
7. e.g., Ronson (2015).
8. Zimbardo (2007), p. 211.
9. Arendt (1963).
10. Zimbardo (2007).
11. Zimbardo (2007).
12. Zimbardo (2007), p. 193.
13. Lea et al. (2001).
14. Postmes & Spears (1998).
15. Episode 1–2, “Chestnut” (October 7, 2016).
16. Kahneman & Tversky (1973); Spina et al. (2010).
17. Heine et al. (2006); Wang & Ross (2007).
18. Zimbardo (2007), p. 158.
19. Dell (2006); Gleaves et al. (2001).
20. Zimbardo (2007), p. 214.
21. Episode 1–7, “Trompe L’Oeil” (November 13, 2016).
22. Episode 1–8, “Trace Decay” (November 20, 2016).
23. Zimbardo (2007).
24. Lifton (1986).
25. Episode 1–8, “Trace Decay” (November 20, 2016).
26. Episode 2–4, “The Riddle of the Sphinx” (May 13, 2018).
27. Festinger (1957).
28. Episode 1–4, “Dissonance Theory” (October 23, 2016).
29. Episode 1–5, “Contrapasso” (October 30, 2016).
30. Haslam (2006); Zimbardo (2007).
31. Zimbardo (2007), p. 170.
32. Milgram (1974/2007).
33. Episode 1–8, “Trace Decay” (November 20, 2016).
34. Simon (2009).
35. Milgram (1974/2007), p. 9.
36. Zimbardo (2007).
37. Zimbardo (2007), p. 211.
38. Franco et al. (2011).