Filip Zimbardo

Philip George Zimbardo is an American social psychologist, writer, and screenwriter. He holds a doctorate and is an educator and the organizer of the famous Stanford prison experiment. He is the author of more than 300 professional publications, including about 50 books. His wife is Christina Maslach, a social psychologist and professor.

Philip Zimbardo is of Sicilian origin and grew up in the South Bronx (New York), where he attended the same school as the future psychologist Stanley Milgram. In 1954, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude with specializations in psychology, sociology, and anthropology; a year later, he earned a master’s degree at Yale University, and in 1959 he received a PhD in psychology. From 1960 to 1967, he was a professor of psychology at the College of Arts and Sciences of New York University, and then taught for about a year at Columbia University.

Since 1968, he has been a professor of psychology at Stanford University. During the Stanford prison experiment he conducted together with W. Curtis Banks, Craig Haney, and David Jaffe, 24 ordinary college students were randomly assigned to the roles of “prisoners” and “guards” in a mock prison set up in the basement of the psychology department. It was found that the participants very quickly became absorbed in their roles: the guards began to experience sadistic emotions and intentions, while the prisoners experienced depression and hopelessness. The experiment was terminated six days early for ethical reasons.

Zimbardo also studied such topics as persuasion, attitude change, cognitive dissonance, hypnosis, cults, alienation, shyness, time perspective, altruism, and compassion. While studying the causes of vandalism, he concluded that anonymity and the absence of community can lead to antisocial behavior.