Professor of
Psychology at
Stanford University. He has done several studies on how and
why people can be persuaded to do
evil things to each other. His most
famous experiment is the
Stanford Prison Experiment, in which participants were randomly selected to act as
guards or
prisoners, then observed by researchers to see what would happen. The experiment fell apart after only 6 days as the situation degenerated into something like ....well.... like a
real prison.
Zimbardo has also left abandoned cars in various urban locations, then watched from behind a blind to see who would come to dismantle them, and how soon (New York City: 30 minutes. Palo Alto: nothing after a week).
Zimbardo's research has produced over 200 articles, which have covered prisons, shyness, persuasion, dissociation, and hypnosis. His home page is at http://www.zimbardo.com.