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.

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