Stanford Prison Experiment: Why the lead psychologist defended his infamous study to the end
The fallout from the 1971 study led to tighter ethical standards for human studies.
A world-first shyness clinic, an analysis of sexist Reader’s Digest jokes and perhaps the most infamous study ever all emerged from one man’s mind: Emeritus Professor Philip Zimbardo.
The psychologist died last month at his home in San Francisco, California, aged 91.
He wrote hundreds of papers spanning cults, hypnosis, altruism and the psychology of evil.
In 1974, he concluded that most of 1000 Reader’s Digest jokes were anti-woman, demonstrating how non-conscious sexist beliefs were maintained.
