The first chapter is on the book's title theme of Lucifer and on the nature of moral transformation as an outcome of the interplay between individual disposition, situation, and systems of power. The largest portion of the book, Chapters 2 through 9, is primarily a day-by-day account of the events which transpired during the Stanford experiment, largely written in literary present tense with dialogue taken from original experiment transcripts and includes several photographs taken at the time. Chapter 10 presents the data gathered in the SPE, and Chapter 11 is an examination of the ethical questions raised about the experiment. The remainder of the book covers a number of topics within the field of social psychology, such as similar studies like the Asch conformity experiments, Milgram experiment, Albert Bandura's research on moral disengagement, research on the bystander effect by John M. Darley and Bibb Latané, and Zimbardo's own later work on deindividuation. There is also an examination of the Stanford experiment's relevance to events such as the Attica Prison riot and the torture and abuse of prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003, with a special focus on the story of Sergeant Ivan Frederick. Zimbardo relates his experience as an expert witness for the defense at Frederick's military trial, and describes his view of what led to an "All-American poster soldier" becoming involved in the torture of prisoners. The final chapter describes the concept of heroism, the key roles of Joe Darby, the whistleblower of the Abu Ghraib events, and Christina Maslach, the graduate student who convinced Zimbardo to end the Stanford experiment early, and advice on how to resist negative situations.