Philip Zimbardo: biography of this social psychologist

We review the life of this psychologist known for the Standford prison research.

Philip Zimbardo (1933-) is one of the most popular social psychologists today. He is recognized for his theories related to situational attribution of behavior, prosocial behaviors, the relationship between obedience and authority, among others. He is especially recognized for the classic and controversial Stanford Prison experiment, conducted in the 70's in the vicinity of Stanford University.

The following is a biography of Philip Zimbardoas well as a brief description of the experiment that led him to be internationally recognized as one of the most representative social psychologists of the 20th century.

Philip Zimbardo: biography of this social psychologist.

Philip Zimbardo was born on March 23, 1933 in New York City to a Sicilian family in the Bronx. In 1954, Zimbardo graduated with a triple major in psychology, sociology, sociology majored with a triple degree in psychology, sociology and anthropology at Brooklyn College in 1954..

Subsequently, he pursued graduate studies in social psychology and finally earned a Ph.D. in the same area from Yale University. He taught at Yale University and did the same at New York University and Columbia University. He was also president of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2002, and has received numerous awards recognizing his research as one of the most important contributions to psychology.

He is currently professor emeritus of Stanford Universitywhere he taught for 50 years, and also teaches at Palo Alto University in California.

The Stanford Prison Experiment

In 1971, Philip Zimbardo, together with other researchers, conducted an experiment that led him to be recognized as one of the most representative social psychologists of the time.

It was the Stanford Prison Experiment, which had the objective of studying the influence of the social environment on a person's character and actions. Through this experiment he wanted to demonstrate how social situations have the power to significantly influence individual behavior..

Broadly speaking, the experiment consisted of simulating a prison in the facilities of Stanford University, establishing different roles for each of the 24 men who participated.

They were randomly divided into two groups: some were guards, while others were prisoners.. All of them were college students and had been previously evaluated to determine a good state of physical and psychological health.

Results and repercussions.

In exchange for their participation, they were offered financial remuneration and, upon initiation, were asked to wear specific uniforms according to their role. The prisoners were taken to the prison, also simulating an arrest. While there, they were assigned a number and a space. For their part, the guards were forbidden to exercise physical violence, while they were also asked to directThey were also asked to run the prison as they saw fit.

Although the experiment was designed to last several weeks, it had to be suspended before the end of the first week because each of the participants had assumed his or her role in such a way that serious dynamics of violence were being generated..

This experiment concluded, among many other things, that it is the situation that generates both violent behavior and submission to authority. In addition, because of the results that emerged after the experiment was completed, Zimbardo was called to testify as an expert witness in the trials on the abuses that took place in the Iraqi prison of Abu Ghraib.

Some criticisms

Because of the conditions under which this experiment was designed and conducted, both Zimbardo and his collaborators have received numerous criticisms. The most widespread is the ethical questioning of the tendency of much scientific research to generate severe stress in the participants. to generate severe stressful situations in the participants in order to test a hypothesis..

On the other hand, the generalizability of their findings has been questioned, due to the homogeneity of the sample they used. In the same sense, it has been questioned for the presence of gender biases (for example, only men participated, including the researchers themselves), in addition to the fact that it starts from considering theories about prosocial behaviors that tend to be measured based on male behavioral models.

Later work: psychology of heroism

Currently, Philip Zimbardo continues to develop studies on prosocial behaviors, more specifically in critical circumstances, andmore specifically in critical circumstances, and in relation to what he has termed "heroism". He is founder and president of the Heroic Imagination Project, where he has worked significantly on the "Psychology of Heroism" and the training of "heroic behaviors".

Outstanding works

Among Philip Zimbardo's most outstanding works are the following The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Become Evilin which analyzes the parallels between the Stanford prison experiment and the mistreatment at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.. Other of his important works are Psychology and Life, y The paradox of time.

Bibliographical references:

• American Psychological Association (2018). Philip G. Zimbardo. Retrieved August 30, 2018. Available at http://www.apa.org/about/governance/president/bio-philip-zimbardo.aspx.
• García Dauder, S. and Pérez Sedeño, E. (2018). Scientific 'lies' about women. Catarata: Madrid.
• Stanford Prison Experiment (2018). The Stanford Prison Experiment: a simulation study on the psychology of the imprisonment. Retrieved August 30, 2018. Available at http://www.prisonexp.org.
• Heroic Imagination Project (2017). Our Mission. Retrieved August 30, 2018. Available at https://www.heroicimagination.org.
• Networks-The Slippery Slope of Evil (2010). Networks for science. Recuperado 30 de agosto de 2018. Disponible en http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/redes/redes-pendiente-resbaladiza-maldad/736047/.
• Biographical Sketch (2000) Philip G. Zimbardo. Recuperado 30 de agosto de 2018. Disponible en http://www.zimbardo.com/votezim/bio.html.
• Eagly, A. y Crowley, M (1986). Gender and helping behavior: a meta-analysis review of the social psychological literature. Psychological Bulletin, 100(3): 283-308.