Born March 23, 1933; in New York Professor at Stanford University Majors in anthropology, psychology, & Sociology from Brooklyn College in 1954 He completed his M.S. and Ph.D from Yale University

Taught at Yale from 1959 to 1960 Taught psychology at the New York University from 1960 to 1967 Taught at Columbia University from 1967 to 1968 Joined Stanford in 1968

Prison Study In the year 1971, Zimbardo accepted a tenured position as professor of psychology at Stanford University. There he conducted the Stanford prison study, in which 24 normal college students were randomly assigned to be "prisoners" or "guards" in a mock prison located in the basement of the psychology building at Stanford.

Cont. The students quickly began acting out their roles, with "guards" becoming sadistic and "prisoners" showing extreme passivity and depression. Prisoners and guards rapidly adapted to their roles, stepping beyond the boundaries of what had been predicted and leading to dangerous and psychologically damaging situations. One-third of the guards were judged to have exhibited "genuine" sadistic tendencies, while many prisoners were emotionally traumatized and five had to be removed from the study early.

Cont. The Stanford experiment ended on August 20, 1971, only six days after it began instead of the fourteen it was supposed to have lasted. The experiment's result has been argued to demonstrate the impressionability and obedience of people when provided with a legitimizing ideology and social and institutional support. It is also used to illustrate cognitive dissonance theory and the power of authority. In psychology, the results of the experiment are said to support situational attribution of behaviour rather than dispositional attribution. In this way, it is compatible with the results of the also-famous Milgram experiment, in which ordinary people fulfilled orders to administer what appeared to be damaging electric shocks to a confederate of the experimenter.

Cont. Shortly after the study had been completed, there were bloody revolts at both the San Quentin and Attica prison facilities, and Zimbardo reported his findings on the experiment to the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary.

Criticism The experiment was widely criticized as being unethical and unscientific. Current ethical standards of psychology would not permit such a study to be conducted today. The study would violate the Ethics Code of the American Psychological Association, the Canadian Code of Conduct for Research Involving Humans, and the Belmont Report. Critics including Erich Fromm challenged how readily the results of the experiment could be generalized. Fromm specifically writes about how the personality of an individual does in fact affect behavior when imprisoned. This runs counter to the study's conclusion that the prison situation itself controls the individual's behavior.

Cont. Because it was a field experiment, it was impossible to keep traditional scientific controls. Dr Zimbardo was not merely a neutral observer, but influenced the direction of the experiment as its "superintendent". Conclusions and observations drawn by the experimenters were largely subjective and anecdotal, and the experiment would be difficult for other researchers to reproduce.

Other Info… Founded The Shyness Clinic in Menlo Park, California, which treats shy behavior in adults and children. Zimbardo's research on shyness resulted in several bestselling books on the topic Zimbardo is the co-author of an introductory Psychology textbook entitled Psychology and Life, which is used in many American undergraduate psychology courses.

Prison Study

Philip Zimbardo

Prison Study Video

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