Philip Zimbardo, the psychologist behind the ‘Stanford Prison Experiment,’ dies at 91
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Philip G. Zimbardo, one of the world’s most renowned psychologists, died Oct. 14 in his home in San Francisco. He was 91.
Broadly, Zimbardo’s research explored how environments influence behavior. He is most known for his controversial 1971 study, the Stanford Prison Experiment, with W. Curtis Banks, Craig Haney, and David Jaffe. The study, intended to examine the psychological experiences of imprisonment, revealed the shocking extent to which circumstances can alter individual behavior. To this day, it is used as a case study in psychology classes to highlight both the psychology of evil as well as the ethics of doing psychological research with human subjects.
Yet Zimbardo’s research went far beyond the prison experiment. In a career that spanned over five decades, Zimbardo examined topics including persuasion, attitude change, cognitive dissonance, hypnosis, cults, alienation, shyness, time perspective, altruism, and compassion.
“Phil Zimbardo is one of the most prolific and influential psychologists of his generation – a true pioneer of the field of social psychology,” said Claude Steele, the Lucie Stern Professor in the Social Sciences, Emeritus, and professor of psychology. “Virtually all of Phil’s research shows how important phenomena of real-life human behavior can be studied scientifically. For a young science like social psychology, this has been an especially important contribution.”
Content retrieved from: https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2024/10/philip-zimbardo-the-psychologist-behind-stanford-prison-experiment-dies-at-age-91.
