Finding aid for the Philip Zimbardo papers

Biography of Philip Zimbardo

Philip Zimbardo, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University since 1968, is internationally recognized as an innovative researcher in many areas of psychology. He has won numerous awards for his distinguished teaching, writing, research, and media productions. Zimbardo has been called the "voice and image of modern psychology" because of his popular PBS-TV series, Discovering Psychology and his best selling text, Psychology and Life (now in its 16th edition). He has been president of the American Psychological Association (2002) and the Western Psychological Association (1983). Zimbardo's undergraduate study was at Brooklyn College where he graduated Summa Cum Laude in 1954 with honors in Psychology and Sociology/Anthropology. His graduate work was completed at Yale University (MS. 1955; Ph.D. 1959). He has taught at Yale Columbia, Barnard College and New York University (1960 - 1976). Zimbardo is a generalist, although his major focus is social psychology. His research spans more than a dozen areas from animal research on curiosity, sexual behavior and drugs, to human research on persuasion, cults, hypnosis, vandalism, violence, time perspective, evil, and madness. He has more than 300 professional publications, including 50 scholarly, text and trade books. His Stanford Prison Experiment conducted in 1971 is a classic demonstration of the power of situational forces to overwhelm ordinary people. Zimbardo's video of that study, Quiet Rage, is a powerful documentary of this unique experiment in which students played the role of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison setting that became quite real and was terminated prematurely. Dr. Zimbardo's most recent book is The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, (2007) *Information for this biographical note was taken from Dr. Zimbardo's home page, (http://www.zimbardo.com/).

Scope and Content

This collection contains materials related to Zimbardo's 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. Central to this collection are the data and analysis, participants' profiles, consent forms and diaries, experimenter daily log notes, and scripts for guards from the study. Also included is a report of a pilot study by David Jaffe in the spring of 1971, A Simple Prison. Additional materials in this collection include Zimbardo's correspondence with study participants and parents of some participants, scripts for movie and television programs related to the content and implication of this research, outlines of other professional articles and books, newspaper articles from 1971 to 2004, conference presentations, and interviews regarding information from the study. A Day-to-day, hour-by-hour summary of activities of the Stanford Prison Experiment from August 1971 has been moved to the Oversized Materials Section, Oversized map case 2, drawer 5.

Statement of Arrangement

Restrictions on Use

Some restrictions apply. Contact CHP staff for details.

The researcher assumes full responsibility for observing all copyright, property, and libel laws as they apply.

Restrictions on Access

Some restrictions apply. Contact CHP staff for details.

Detailed summary of the Standford Prison Experiment is located in oversized map case 2, drawer 5. Various Zimbardo awards are located in boxes M1445-M1451 in oversized stacks.

Subject Headings

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

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Preferred Citation

Cite as: [identification of item], [folder number, box number], Archives of the History of American Psychology, The Drs. Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Center for the History of Psychology - The University of Akron

Processing Information

The Philip Zimbardo papers were processed by Rhonda Rinehart in April 2007. Updated by Samantha Hurst, October 2021.

Detailed Description of The Collection