Philip Zimbardo
Philip Zimbardo
Philip George Zimbardois a psychologist and a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He became known for his 1971 Stanford prison experiment and has since authored various introductory psychology books, textbooks for college students, and other notable works, including The Lucifer Effect, The Time Paradox and The Time Cure. He is also the founder and president of the Heroic Imagination Project...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth23 March 1933
CountryUnited States of America
Philip Zimbardo quotes about
My first formal research, published in 1953, was on trying to understand the dynamics of prejudice, of interaction between blacks and Puerto Ricans.
What troubles me is the Internet and the electronic technology revolution. Shyness is fueled in part by so many people spending huge amounts of time alone, isolated on e-mail, in chat rooms, which reduces their face-to-face contact with other people.
Heroes are those who can somehow resist the power of the situation and act out of noble motives, or behave in ways that do not demean others when they easily can.
The world is, was, will always be filled with good and evil, because good and evil is the yin and yang of the human condition.
Bullies may be the perpetrators of evil, but it is the evil of passivity of all those who know what is happening and never intervene that perpetuates such abuse.
To be a hero you have to learn to be a deviant — because you're always going against the conformity of the group.
Evil is knowing better, but willingly doing worse.
The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces.
I'm saying to be a hero it means you step accross the line and are willing to make a sacrifice, so heroes always are making a sacrifice. Heroes always take a risk. Heroes always deviant. Heroes always doing something that most people don't and we want to change - I want to democratise heroism to say any of us can be a hero.
You are not the same person working alone as you are in a group; in a romantic setting versus an educational one; when you are with close friends or in an anonymous crowd; or when you are traveling abroad as when at home base.
Prejudice and discrimination have always been a big part of my life. When I was 6, I got beat up and called dirty Jew boy because they thought I looked Jewish.
One can't live mindfully without being enmeshed in psychological processes that are around us.
Sticks and stones can break your bones, but names can kill you.
I've always been curious about the psychology of the person behind the mask. When someone is anonymous, it opens the door to all kinds of antisocial behavior, as seen by the Ku Klux Klan.