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The line between good and evil is movable and it's permeable.

Philip Zimbardo

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Philip Zimbardo
Age: 91
Born: 1933
Born: March 23
Non-Fiction Writer
Psychologist
Social Psychologist
University Teacher
New York City
New York
Philip George Zimbardo
Philip G. Zimbardo
Permeable
Movable
Line
Lines
Evil
Good

More quotes by Philip Zimbardo

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Research shows that the deciscions of a group as a whole are more thoughtful and creative when there is minority dissent than when it is absent.
Philip Zimbardo
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The first time I spoke publicly about the Stanford Prison Experiment, Stanley Milgram told me: Your study is going to take all the ethical heat off of my back. People are now going to say yours is the most unethical study ever, and not mine.
Philip Zimbardo
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Fear is the State's psychological weapon of choice to frighten citizens into sacrificing their basic freedoms and rule-of-law protections in exchange for the security promised by their all-powerful government.
Philip Zimbardo
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As a result of the prison study, I really became more aware of the central role of power in our lives. I became more aware of the power I have as a teacher. I started consciously doing things to minimize the negative use of power in the classroom. I encouraged students to challenge me.
Philip Zimbardo
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Academic success depends on research and publications.
Philip Zimbardo
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What troubles me is the Internet and the electronic technology revolution. Shyness is fueled in part by so many people spending huge amounts of time alone, isolated on e-mail, in chat rooms, which reduces their face-to-face contact with other people.
Philip Zimbardo
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At North Hollywood High School, I was shunned by everyone. I would sit down in the cafeteria, and students would get up from the table and walk away. They thought I was from the Mafia...
Philip Zimbardo
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After doing psychology for half a century, my passion for all of it is greater than ever.
Philip Zimbardo
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Coming from New York, I know that if you go by a delicatessen, and you put a sweet cucumber in the vinegar barrel, the cucumber might say, No, I want to retain my sweetness. But it's hopeless. The barrel will turn the sweet cucumber into a pickle. You can't be a sweet cucumber in a vinegar barrel.
Philip Zimbardo
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Time matters because we are finite, because time is the medium in which we live our lives.
Philip Zimbardo
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Many cults start off with high ideals that get corrupted by leaders or their board of advisors who become power-hungry and dominate and control members lives. No group with high ideals starts off as a cult they become one when their errant ways are exposed.
Philip Zimbardo
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Heroes are Ordinary People whose social action is Extra-Ordinary/ who ACT when others are passive, who give up EGO-centrism for SOCIO-centrism.
Philip Zimbardo
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The most dramatic instances of directed behavior change and mind control are not the consequence of exotic forms of influence, such as hypnosis, psychotropic drugs, or brainwashing, but rather the systematic manipulation of the most mundane aspects of human nature over time in confining settings.
Philip Zimbardo
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If you want to change a person, you've got to change the situation.
Philip Zimbardo
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There are no limits to what I would do to make my classes exciting, interesting, unpredictable.
Philip Zimbardo
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I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures. Why do good people sometimes act evil? Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things?
Philip Zimbardo
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The Stanford prison experiment came out of class exercises in which I encouraged students to understand the dynamics of prison life.
Philip Zimbardo
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In one sense, the Stanford prison study is more like a Greek drama than a traditional experiment, in that we have humanity, represented by a bunch of good people, pitted against an evil-producing situation. The question is, does the goodness of the people overwhelm the bad situation, or does the bad situation overwhelm the good people?
Philip Zimbardo
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I've always been curious about the psychology of the person behind the mask.
Philip Zimbardo
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Where can you find purpose? Like success and happiness, our purpose exists in the present, and we constantly strive toward the future to maintain it. What it is for which we strive is up to each of us. The important thing is that we strive toward something.
Philip Zimbardo