One-on-one with Philip Zimbardo
gerald deo photo/the ubyssey
Thursday, November 26th, 2009
The Ubyssey sat down with famous psychologist and author Dr Philip Zimbardo for a quick chat after his lecture at UBC last Friday.
Ubyssey: You’re most known amongst the general public for the Stanford Prison Experiment. Your study concluded that behaviour is triggered by the situation rather than the personality, or what psychologists call situational attribution. Can you explain how this applies to current events today?
Zimbardo: The Stanford Prison Experiment was one of the early studies to highlight the power of situations to corrupt good people. Now, we’re not saying that personality’s not important…[but psychologists] ignore what we call the behavioural context—how you’re dressed, where the action is, who else is there, is there an audience. So my research is really a corrective to the exclusive focus on ‘It’s all about the person.’…When you hear about somebody who does something, either heroic or evil, instead of saying ‘tell me about the person,’ the first question should be ‘tell me about the situation.’
The new line of research I’m focusing on is what makes ordinary people do heroic acts, do good…challenge unjust authorities, in injustice or unfairness.
U: Can you give me a current event as an example?
Z: Canadian troops being aware of torture in Afghanistan. There was somebody…who became aware of it and blew the whistle…and instead of being a hero, apparently today’s paper said the Tories are trying to dishonour him. Whistleblowers always get discredited because whistleblowers are challenging the system. And the system has ways of protecting itself…but in general, it’s really about, ‘what does every society need to do to promote heroism, to have young children think of themselves as heroes in waiting?’
U: The 2010 Olympics is coming to Vancouver in less than 100 days. What are your thoughts about the actions of security and the BC government regarding human rights?
Z: It’s a big, big problem, the security at any international event, that all you need is some tragic event, all you need is some terrorist to blow up some venue and then it ruins the whole thing. So the people who protect the system have to err in the direction of being overly-conservative…So again, from the point of view of citizens, it looks like, ‘hey, this is a fascist state,’…but I think they really have to err in the direction of putting into place operating procedures to minimize the likelihood of a terrorist attack…anything that is going to interfere with any venue at the Olympics because it’s instantly going to go around the world.
U: Along the same lines, what do you think about the situation regarding prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, the War in Iraq, Afghanistan?
Z: It’s a disgrace. I’ve been an opponent of the Bush administration’s creation of Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, et cetera. It’s really a violation of basic human rights, because the American Military Commissions Act says that the American government has the right to label anyone as an enemy combatant, and that means you’re not a civilian and you’re not a soldier…that’s the worst totalitarian [system] imaginable….Obama campaigned that he’s going to shut [Guantanamo] down but you can’t do it because there’s a system, there’s a lot of systems working against him.
U: Your website says you are a ’socio-political activist.’ What do you mean by that?
Z: That means I take action. I sign petitions, I petition against the government….I’m willing to take social action, political action for things that I think are unfair, unjust and immoral. And I could be wrong, but so far I have not been.
U: On a lighter note, you retired a few years ago. What have you been doing?
Z: I have never worked harder in my life [laughs]. I answer hundreds of e-mails every day, mostly from students around the world. I am doing lots of research on the psychology of time perspective….I’m doing research and creating this Heroic Imagination Foundation, which we hope to be launching soon. So I’m busy. And I’m going around the world giving lectures.
U: Do you have any advice for students who want to go into research in psychology?
Z: The main reason to become a psychology student is to get involved with the professor who is doing research. Because research is exciting, research is adding to knowledge. Most students simply are collecting knowledge…but to be in a school like UBC where teachers are doing pioneering research, to be in a research project where you are contributing to the creation of knowledge.
If you want to go to graduate school, there’s nothing better on your resume than saying that you have been a research assistant on a major research project. So go research.
Jack Dec 1
I must agree with the part about how the system has its ways of dealing with whistle blowers.
Less than a few decades ago in taiwan, when the Sun Yat Sen and his KMT party arrived from China after being ousted by the communists, and decided to take over Taiwan, any native Taiwanese that opposed them were branded Chinese spies and were imprisoned or killed. My grandfather was imprisoned by the government for speaking against the slaughtering of the native Taiwanese.
Even today, the KMT runs almost all of the government in Taiwan. Other parties do exist and play a small role in the politics of Taiwan, but each party is worse than the other.
The politics and government of Taiwan is plagued with corruption. Every single “president” and the poltical parties in Taiwan has had has embezzled millions to billions of dollars, hoarded in offshore accounts. Many are not caught due to convenient policies passed by the corrupt government, such as where foreign money is not taken into account when calculating tax. This is not the case in most developed countries.
Even if some of the poltical figures are found embezzling funds, the evidence are ignored and belittled if they are in the KMT party, the party that governs almost all of Taiwan. Those that were caught, that are not in the KMT party, were jailed immediately and killed.
Former president Chen, from the DDP party, was linked to the embezzlement of funds, stored in Swiss and other offshore accounts. He was put under “detention” for a few months before officially arrested. Again, in many countries, this would display a lack of human rights. Apprehendhing a suspect for months without solid evidence.
The current president Ma, from the KMT party, turned a blind eye when warned about the recent hurricane in August. Even US naval forces near Taiwan offered assistance, but president Ma adamantly refused. The hurricane that hit Taiwan this summer, affected the most of the southern area, where the majority of Taiwanese natives live. During the first few days after the hurricane, no rescue teams were sent by the president. He was apparently busy attending weddings and enjoying himself. It was not until many complaints that he finally decided to act. When accused of imcompetence, he responded with a statement that we must wait until the water clears before we can start searching for survivors.
Many other members of the government made similar poor excuses, some even acted as if they were doing everyone a big favor by helping with the rescue stating “I skipped my breakfast for this” angrily.
The lack of care for the native Taiwanese is overwhelming, the KMT government is complacement to sit idly while many native Taiwanese die. Apparently the lives of native Taiwanese are worth nothing to the KMT.
It pains me to see so much corruption and lack of human rights in poltics of Taiwan. I hope one day someone will change the injust system. This is highly unlikely though, since the KMT as well as many other minor parties wish to continue with the money laundering, and will easily jail or pay gangs to assasinate any opposing figures.
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Kino Dec 6
It’s a long way to go, but at least we’re starting right now.
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