Zimbardo’s interest in understanding the dynamics of human aggression and violence stemmed from early personal experiences growing up amid the violence of the South Bronx ghetto where he was born and raised. In his work, he specifically focused on how “good” people are seduced or induced to engage in violent, or “evil” deeds by situational forces in which they find themselves, and the psychological interpretations they invoke to justify that behavior. He first developed a model of deindividuation that identified a set of factors that could trigger a temporary suspension of personal identity that allowed people to engage in bad acts that might run counter to their personal identity. This research broadened to include work on the psychology of terrorism.
Selected Publications:
- Zimbardo, P. G. (1970). The human choice: Individuation, reason, and order versus deindividuation, impulse, and chaos. In W. J. Arnold & D. Levine (Eds.), 1969 Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (pp. 237-307). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
- Zimbardo, P. G. (1999). Recollections of a Social Psychologist’s Career: An Interview with Dr. Philip Zimbardo. Journal of Social Behavior & Personality, 14(1).
- Huggins, M. K., Haritos-Fatouros, M., & Zimbardo, P. G. (2002). Violence workers: Police torturers and murderers reconstruct Brazilian atrocities. Univ of California Press.
- Zimbardo, P. G. (2004). A situationist perspective on the psychology of evil: Understanding how good people are transformed into perpetrators. In A. G. Miller (Ed.), The social psychology of good and evil (pp. 21-50). New York: Guilford Press.
- Zimbardo, P. G. (2011). The Lucifer effect: How good people turn evil. Random house.
- Related website: https://www.lucifereffect.com.