Stanford Prison Experiment Professor Philip Zimbardo Was Controversial but His Work Lives On

The work of Dr. Philip Zimbardo spans decades and includes hundreds of articles, dozens of textbooks, a handful of books, and one experiment that would launch him into infamy for the duration of his career. In 1971 he accepted a tenured position as professor of psychology at Stanford University.

That very same year, he conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment which was soon plagued by controversy and contention.

Zimbardo's motivation behind this experiment was to explore the "power of roles, rules, symbols, group identity, and situational validation of behavior that generally would repulse ordinary individuals," per the Stanford University News Service. Despite its name, this experiment did not do anything for the prison industrial complex.

Zimbardo would go on to study other areas of interest that were still rooted in how a social situation can change a person. Where is he now? Here's what we know.

Sadly, Professor Philip Zimbardo passed away on Oct. 14, 2024. The Stanford Report eulogized the good doctor in a way befitting a man who devoted most of his life to understanding the human condition.

While the Stanford Prison Experiment was ultimately flawed and met with criticism by Zimbardo's peers, its impact is still felt today. He always maintained that it's a cautionary tale about what could happen if we allow external influences to guide us.

Using what he learned from the SPE, Zimbardo drew a connection between actual prison and the feeling of being imprisoned in one's body. That is how he described shyness, which led to the founding of the Stanford Shyness Clinic in 1977.

According to Psychology Today, Zimbardo's 1975 article The Social Disease Called Shyness helped launch an entire field of study on the matter. It was still going strong two decades later.

Zimbardo's interest in how outside forces can affect one's actions contributed to his interest in both the bystander effect and cults. He was particularly interested in the use of mind control as employed by state-sanctioned police, military, or destructive cults in order to "induce false confessions, create converts who willingly torture or kill 'invented enemies,' engage indoctrinated members to work tirelessly, give up their money — and even their lives — for 'the cause.'"

In his later years, Zimbardo looked at the other side of the coin he had been studying for much of his career. He asked himself if people can be compelled to do good things based on what's happening around them.

"Is it also possible that heroic acts are something that anyone can perform, given the right mindset and conditions," he asked in a 2006 article Greater Good Magazine. With that in mind, he created the Heroic Imagination Project in order to give people the psychological tools needed to make good choices.

It's difficult to imagine someone with this much passion and hope for humanity actually leaving this world, but sadly death comes for us all. Zimbardo died peacefully at his home in San Francisco at the age of 91, reported CBS News.

He is survived by his wife Christina Maslach Zimbardo, three children, and four grandchildren, as well as a legacy that will surely outlive us all.