In this episode of Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam examines the Stanford prison experiment led by Philip Zimbardo, exploring the conditions under which ordinary people can commit evil acts. Zimbardo's insights stemmed from his own challenging childhood and observations of social dynamics, leading to a significant focus on leadership, group behavior, and situational factors. The episode discusses the emotional conflicts faced by Zimbardo and his assistant Christina Maslach, highlighting ethical concerns around the experiment's design and implications for understanding human nature, power dynamics, and the psychological roots of malevolence.