Overview and Significance of Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment

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Overview and Significance of Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment

Have you ever wondered why ordinary people do unusual things that seem alien to their natures? Why do good people sometimes act evil? Who do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things? Zimbardo is one of the most significant social psychologist and all his work aims to find the answers to these questions. The purpose of this paper is to go into depth on the previous prison experiment, how it came about, and how the findings play a role in society today.

The Life and Times of Zimbardo

Philip George Zimbardo was born in New York City on March 23, 1933. His parents originally migrated from a small town called Cammarata, about 40 miles from Palermo, Sicily. Stateside his father was an electrician and his mother was a stay at home mom taking care of Zimbardo, his sister Vera, and two other brothers George Jr. and Donald.

After attending James Monroe High School in the Bronx, Zimbardo went off to receive his BA in Sociology and Psychology in 1954. Not only this but also attended Yale University to receive his MS in 1955 and Ph. D. in 1959 both in psychology. Zimbardo would then go on to teach at the Columbia University but after just a year, he then went on to teach at Stanford University in 1968 and has actually been there ever since.

“Zimbardo's research includes prisons, time, shyness, madness, violence/evil, persuasion, dissonance, hypnosis, and teaching. Philip continues research in the area of social psychology, personality, and abnormal psychology.” (1) Zimbardo has authored more than 200 articles and earned many awards from Stanford for all his teaching and work. Furthermore was even elected president of the American Psychological Association in 2002. ...

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...psycweb/history/zimbardo.htm#Biography>.

Zimbardo, Philip. The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. Vol. 10, no.3, pp 287-295.

Bocchiaro, Piero, and Philip G. Zimbardo. "Defying Unjust Authority: An Exploratory Study." Current Psychology 29.2 (2010): 155-170. Print.

Green, Lauren. "The Problem of Evil: Why Do "Good" People Do Bad Things?." FOX News [New York ] 11 Apr. 2007: 1-3. Print.

Dreifus, Claudia. "Finding Hope in Knowing the Universal Capacity for Evil." The New York Times [San Francisco] 3 Apr. 2007: 1-5. Print.

Haney, Craig, Curtis Banks, and Philip Zimbardo. "Interpersonal Dynamics in a Simulated Prison."International Journal of Criminology and Penology 1 (1973): 69-97. Print.

Haslam, Nick, Steve Loughnan, and Gina Perry. "Meta-Milgram: An Empirical Synthesis of the Obedience Experiments." PLoS ONE 9.4 (2014): 1-9. Print.

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