Philip Zimbardo and the Heroic Age of Social Psychology

This article explores Phil Zimbardo’s heroic contributions to social psychology within a framework that I call The Heroic Age of Social Psychology. This heroic era roughly spanned the years from social psychology’s inception in the early 1930s to the 1980s, during which Zimbardo conducted much of his most groundbreaking research. Zimbardo’s heroic influence can be attributed to research and service that transcended his famous prison experiment. Most notable were his contributions to teaching psychology to students and to the general public. Zimbardo demonstrated a lifetime of personal generosity and service to the discipline and to others outside the field of social psychology.