Biography

This famous psychologist's notorious 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment had to be canceled after Day 5, because the division of college students into "guards" and "prisoners" became grimly realistic, cruel, and ultimately sadistic. This experiment, decades later, is still studied by psychologists interested in human behavior.

Zimbardo is of Sicilian ancestry. His father, George Zimbardo, was an electrician, and his mother, Margaret Bisicchia, worked at home raising Zimbardo, his sister, Vera, and two brothers, George Jr. and Donald. His parents originally immigrated from a small village called Cammarata, about 40 miles from Palermo, Sicily.

Zimbardo attended these schools: James Monroe High School in the Bronx, where he grew up; Brooklyn College, where he earned his BA in Psychology and Sociology (1954); and Yale University, where he earned his MS (1955) and Ph.D. (1959).

His first wife, Rose A. Zimbardo (b. May 19, 1932), was a literary critic and wrote about, among other subjects, J.R.R. Tolkien, George Bernard Shaw, and satire in Restoration England.

Has a son, Adam, b. 1962. Adam Zimbardo grew up to become a Marriage and Family Therapist in San Francisco.

Ideas for my first experiments in human aggression came from discussions we had in a research seminar about William Golding's Lord of the Flies.