Teaching | Educational Media

Throughout his career, Zimbardo espoused giving psychology away to the public through his popular PBS-TV series, Discovering Psychology, many editions of the popular and influential introductory psychology textbook, Psychology and Life, among his numerous academic and trade publications. Zimbardo’s love for teaching was balanced by two other deep concerns, for generating knowledge through original research, and for doing research that is readily translatable and appreciated by the general public, by trying to communicate directly with non-academic audiences through mass media. He further pursued outreach teaching through telecourse education.

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Teaching Career at Stanford

A charismatic speaker and generous educator, Zimbardo enjoyed primarily teaching large lecture courses in Introductory Psychology, one of the most highly-attended and memorable courses at Stanford. Zimbardo also designed a Practicum in Teaching seminar to train graduate and undergraduate teaching assistants to become effective teachers, first by helping them to develop engaging weekly sections that are coordinated with his lecture course, Introductory Psychology, but also to prepare them more generally for careers in teaching.

Examples of his Stanford lecture courses include Introduction to Psychology; The Psychology of Mind Control; Social Psychology; Social Psychology In Action; Social Alienation; The Nature of Madness;  The Psychology of Hypnosis; Psychology and Drama (co-taught with Patricia Ryan). Seminar courses included: The Psychology of Imprisonment (co-taught with Carlo Prescott), The Dynamics of Shyness, Practicum in Teaching (graduate and undergraduate), Collective Violence (co-taught with Bob Zajonc), The Psychology of Time Perspective, On Becoming a Professional Psychologist, Effective Teaching (Co-taught with David Rosenhan), Research Methods in Social Psychology, Research Issues in Social-Cognitive Pathology, Graduate Pro-seminar in Social Psychology, The Dynamics of Shyness, and Senior Psychology Majors’ Proseminar.

Zimbardo was honored for his dedication and excellence in teaching at Stanford by his colleagues and the administration with a number of awards, among them, the Gores Senior Faculty award, the Bing Teaching Fellowship, and Phoenix Award, as well as similar awards by the American Psychological Foundation (APA), Western Psychological Foundation, and New York University; and several honorary degrees. For instance, Zimbardo’s commitment to outreach including offering to teach the APA staff about the field while serving as the organization’s president.

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Psychology and Life

Zimbardo’s popular introductory psychology textbook, Psychology and Life, was a key influence for many generations of students and teachers. Psychology and Life has had a revolutionary impact on the teaching and textbook writing of psychology. Zimbardo began writing it in its 8th edition, with Floyd Ruch, through its 19th edition with Richard Gerrig as his co-author and heir. Psychology and Life was the oldest continuously selling textbook in the US, and won the McGuffey Award from the Textbook Authors Association for its excellence and longevity. 

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Discovering Psychology 

Zimbardo’s passion for psychology comes through in part in the PBS-TV series Discovering Psychology (26 programs) that he designed, co-wrote, and hosted, and which was seen regularly on educational TV channels, and widely used in colleges, high schools, and in several countries worldwide. The Discovering Psychology telecourse and educational video series first premiered in 1990 as a visual resource for teaching introductory psychology. The 26 video programs review the history of the field, including the work of early and contemporary theorists, practitioners, and researchers, illustrating their work with footage of classic experiments and modern studies. They tell the story of psychology through demonstrations, classic experiments and simulations, current research, documentary footage, and computer animation all based on extensive investigation and superior scholarship.

The Updated Edition, released in 2001, highlights major new developments in the field, and new areas of inquiry by the leading researchers. Through this telecourse, hundreds of thousands of students and distant learners received college credits in introductory psychology.

Discovering Psychology enables students, as well as general viewers, to learn psychology’s history, observe psychology in practice, and better understand its relevance to their own lives. Discovering Psychology: Updated Edition may be used as a video resource for classes, libraries, and media centers or as a telecourse for distant learners. 

“Highlighting major new developments in the field, this updated edition of Discovering Psychology offers high school and college students, and teachers of psychology at all levels, an overview of historic and current theories of human behavior. Stanford University professor and author Philip Zimbardo narrates as leading researchers, practitioners, and theorists probe the mysteries of the mind and body. Based on extensive investigation and authoritative scholarship, this introductory course in psychology features demonstrations, classic experiments and simulations, current research, documentary footage, and computer animation. This series is also valuable for teachers seeking to review the subject matter.” – Discovering Psychology, Annenberg Foundation
Access videos and descriptions of the 26-program Discovering Psychology PBS-TV series: https://www.learner.org/series/discovering-psychology/

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Candid Camera Classics for Teaching Psychology

Created and originally hosted by Allen Funt from 1948 to 1992, Candid Camera was a popular American hidden-camera television show. Funt and Zimbardo selected and narrated a set of classic scenarios from Candid Camera that illustrate basic themes and principles in psychology. The 17 selections for Introductory Psychology focus on topics such as expectations, memory, methodology, bias, selective perception, problem solving, and more. The 16 selections for Social Psychology cover a range of themes: conformity, compliance, obedience, construction of social reality, persuasion, expert influence, and others. Students learn while they laugh at these educational/entertainment gems, each of which is 2-6 minutes long. A detailed Instructor’s Manual is available for each video for educational lectures and classroom use. The guide includes analysis of every sequence on the DVDs, plus “Dr. Z`s Teaching Tips” and “Allen Funt`s Recollections.” Allen Funt Productions, Ltd. McGraw Hill: 1992

Candid Camera Classics for Introductory and Social Psychology is available for college and high school classrooms through university libraries, and for order from Candid Camera:  Click here to learn more.

“Allen Funt would go on to become a master of disguised observation in his epic Candid Camera series, which was the most popular program in America on Sunday nights for many years. I worked closely with Allen Funt in creating several programs of Candid Camera for Psychology classes on DVD format, that I made for use in both Introductory Psychology and Social Psychology courses.”

– Philip G. Zimbardo (Lewin Award speech)