Philip Zimbardo

Philip Zimbardo
Zimbardo speaking in Poland, 2009
Born	Philip George Zimbardo (1933-03-23) March 23, 1933 (age 83) New York City, New York, U.S.
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Brooklyn College Yale University
Known for	Stanford prison experiment The Time paradox The Lucifer Effect Abu Ghraib analysis time perspective therapy social intensity syndrome
Spouse(s)	Christina Maslach

Philip George Zimbardo (born March 23, 1933) is a psychologist and a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He became known for his 1971 Stanford prison experiment and has since authored various introductory psychology books, textbooks for college students, and other notable works, including The Lucifer Effect, The Time Paradox and The Time Cure. He is also the founder and president of the Heroic Imagination Project.

Zimbardo was born in New York City on March 23, 1933, from a family of Sicilian immigrants. He completed his BA with a triple major in psychology, sociology, and anthropology from Brooklyn College in 1954, where he graduated summa cum laude. He completed his M.S. (1955) and Ph.D (1959) in psychology from Yale University, where Neal E. Miller was his advisor. He taught at Yale from 1959 to 1960. From 1960 to 1967, he was a professor of psychology at New York University (University College of Arts & Sciences, Bronx NY.) From 1967 to 1968, he taught at Columbia University. He joined the faculty at Stanford University in 1968.

In 1971, Zimbardo accepted a tenured position as professor of psychology at Stanford University. With a government grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research, he conducted the Stanford prison study in which 24 clinically sane individuals were randomly assigned to be "prisoners" or "guards" in a mock dungeon located in the basement of the psychology building at Stanford (three additional college students were selected as alternates, only one of whom participated in the study). The planned two-week study into the psychology of prison life ended after only six days due to emotional trauma being experienced by the participants. The students quickly began acting out their roles, with "guards" becoming sadistic and "prisoners" showing extreme passivity and depression.