> With the scientific elements either forgotten or rushed, the laboratory changed into a setting for unauthorized and senseless violence.
> The study authors propose that the experimenter played a major, passive role in establishing this dynamic. When the participants broke the rules and skipped steps, the authority figure rarely intervened to correct them or pause the session. By staying silent and letting the memory study fall apart, the experimenter allowed an atmosphere of illegitimate violence to flourish.
This sounds like looting scenarios to me. ie. When a situation descend into chaos, some people will just surf/leverage that chaos, instead of attempting a return to normalcy, for whatever reason.