Becoming Heroes and Overcoming Poverty - Dr. Philip Zimbardo
[00:00:00] Steve Gatena: Heroes help people in need. Their conscience helps them understand the difference between right and wrong. They stand up and speak out when they witness injustices. They protect the weak and vulnerable, and they treat everyone with respect, grace, love, acceptance, forgiveness, empathy, and compassion.
[00:00:32] To be a hero you don't need extraordinary superpowers like Superman or Batman. You just have to show up to act with moral courage and to not allow the enemy and fear to cripple you. God knows that we can all be heroes, and he gave us one of the best examples we could ever hope to have in Jesus. Jesus showed us what it looks like to have courage in the face of evil.
[00:01:09] He showed us how to take care of people in need, how to speak out and stand up to injustices, how to go against popular opinions, and how to do the right thing. God understands this isn't always easy. That fear can hold our tongues and keep our hands closed, which is why he wants us to rely on him for guidance and support.
[00:01:46] He reminds us that he always walks with us and that there is nothing to fear, because He is with us. This week on Relentless Hope I have the honor and privilege to welcome Dr philip Zimbardo, world renowned American psychologist and professor.
[00:02:12] Dr Zimbardo teaches us about becoming heroes, about taking heroic action in our everyday lives, and how we can live with moral courage. Dr Zimbardo, who has spent more than 50 years teaching, researching and writing in more than 40 domains, shares personal stories. From his life that shaped his understanding of heroism. We learn about his harrowing experience being quarantined for six months in a hospital when he was just five years old and later how he organized one of the first teachings in the US to protest the Vietnam War. As Dr Zimbardo also teaches us, leaders have a moral conscious and possess moral courage, which is the ability to stand up for what they believe in, to share their ideas, and to transform compassion and empathy, the highest personal virtues into action that changes the world.
[00:03:31] We also get to learn about the Heroic Imagination Project, which Dr Zimbardo started in 2014, which inspires and teaches people how to become effective heroes and leaders, transforming passive bystanders into active heroes, transforming biases and prejudice, into understanding and acceptance, and really helping people change from a narrow fixed mindset to a dynamic growth mindset.
[00:04:06] Dr Zimbardo also reveals to us how he hopes to be remembered for the good work that he's done as a teacher, as an original researcher, and as a writer. And we learn that of the 60 books and 600 articles that he's published throughout his career. That he believes the most important work he's done is on heroism.
[00:04:30] As Dr Zimbardo explains, we live during a time when leadership and moral courage is being challenged. But it's also a call to action that Dr Zimbardo urges each of us to respond to by becoming everyday heroes, by speaking out and standing up to injustices, to protecting the vulnerable and weak, and helping those in need.
[00:04:59] We stand up to the enemy and to the faces of evil, and that's how we can help God change this world. Our takeaway for today that I want you to think about as you listen to this episode is knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right.
[00:05:29] In 1938, at the age of five, Phillip Zimbardo was quarantined and isolated from the public.
[00:05:40] Philip Ziombardo: And it was 1938-39, and of course, penicillin and sulfa drugs had not yet been invented. So there was no medicine, no treatment at all for any of the ailments that we had. Uh, I was very, very sick with, uh, I could hardly breathe with double pneumonia and whooping cough, which meant it was difficult for me even to eat.
[00:06:00] I, I lost an enormous amount of weight. Um, uh, and of course you lay in bed and did nothing. In those days, they didn't even have the concept of exercising while you're in bed or stretching. So we never got out of bed
[00:06:16] Steve Gatena: On part one of this three part series, Dr Philip Zimbardo, a world renowned psychologist and professor, widely known for his Stanford prison experiment explains growing up in the 1930s, we learn what it was like growing up in the ghettos of New York, being quarantined as a young child and how praying brought him hope.
[00:06:45] Philip Ziombardo: I was born March 23rd, 1933, and my first major, uh, life threatening experience was when I was six years old in 1938-39. The second one came when I was 16 years old, uh, in, in high school. And the third one came, uh, and my first job at New York University when I was about 34 years old. So let's start at the beginning.
[00:07:09] I grew up in the South Bronx, a ghetto in New York City at that time, uh, and in any ghetto in the world, uh, it's toxic. Uh, the air is toxic. There's asbestos, there's in those days, um, uh, manure in the streets, uh, and um, and people live in close proximity. A consequence of that climate was many children developed all kinds of contagious diseases.
[00:07:34] I developed whooping cough, which was a contagious disease along with double pneumonia. Uh, and I was ordered to go to a, to be quarantined, uh, to go to a hospital called Willard Parker Hospital with children with contagious diseases. In this hospital, on the e, on East River. In Manhattan were hundreds of children with every known, uh, uh, contagious disease.
[00:08:00] Uh, children as young as two, I guess up to, I don't know, teenagers. Um, and it was 1938-39, and of course, penicillin and sulfa drugs had not yet been invented. So there was no medicine, no treatment at all for any of the ailments that we had. Uh, I was very, very sick with, uh, I could hardly breathe with double pneumonia and whooping cough, which meant it was difficult for me even to eat. I, I lost an enormous amount of weight. Um, uh, and of course you lay in bed and did nothing. In those days, they didn't even have the concept of exercising while you're in bed or stretching. So we never got out of bed. Um, and, and what happened, of course, is children died all the time.
[00:08:46] Curiously, uh, it seemed as if children died during the night. From my perspective as a little five, six year old, when I awoke, I tell the nurse, where's Billy? And she said, he went home. Where's Mary? She, the nurse said she went home. Why didn't they say goodbye? Well, they were in a hurry to leave and they, they left their goodbyes, uh, with me to tell you.
[00:09:06] Well, it was a conspiracy of denial between the nurses and our, the patients us, because we knew they were dead, but we couldn't admit that because then we'd have no hope.
[00:09:17] My hope came mostly from praying. Uh, I was, as I said, uh, five and a half years old, and I began to pray every morning when I woke up pray to Jesus Christ to make me strong and brave and healthy, uh, and um, be able to go home as soon as possible.
[00:09:34] Um, and, um, I also use this time, I was there for six months. I used this time creatively, I learned to read and write from comic books. Uh, that's the only because it was a contagious ward and our families were poor. The only thing we had, the only goods, we had, commodities, were comic books, and that was the start, in 1938-39, of superhero comic books, captain Marvel I guess, Superman.
[00:10:03] Um, and, uh, I would ask the older boy in the next bed, what, what is this? These word, these symbols. W o w, exclamation point. Wow. Well, in comic books there's a lot of wows, but I would, I would. You know, relate to the sound to, to the image, and I would write it down.
[00:10:22] So, uh, during the six months I was there, I began to read and write. So that was a positive thing. The other thing I did positively is I had a good imagination and I would make up games that the kids in our unit, our vicinity would play. Like, um, uh, our, our beds were really uh, rafts and we're going down the Nile River, which I guess I had heard about in search of the great white crocodile.
[00:10:50] Uh, and each of us would have to be looking for the crocodile, but also there's also dangers, uh, and I would organize these games, uh, for, for my buddies, uh, and. And it was really exciting, a very exciting adventure. Uh, uh, I made it into an exciting adventure, uh, and fortunately, and then, but again, since kids seem to die at night, I doubled my chances of success by praying to the devil at night saying, please don't take me, devil, um, you know, I'm a good boy. I'm not the, I'm not the kind of bad kid that you, you want down in hell. Uh, and then clearly what I had done was learn self-hypnosis. I pulled a sheet over my head. Next thing I knew it was morning. So I learned self-hypnosis, which I actually later used in my teaching and research and, and, uh, many personal, um, uh, medical, uh, experiences.
[00:11:41] I, I survived. I got home, um, April 1939. Much the worst for wear. Very skinny, very uh, um, um, sickly still. And it took a long time for me to recover. Uh, one of the things I did to gain my, um, physical strength is, um, uh, when I was at gad when I was 11, I joined the Boy Scouts and, with a friend, we used to go hiking in New Jersey in Teaneck, Cresskill, uh, Tenafly every weekend, just my friend uh, I think Dominic and I are carrying big nap sacks, uh, and sleeping out, uh, you know, walking a lot and sleeping out.
[00:12:22] And so I used that experience to help me, uh, develop physically, um, uh, to get, to get, to be, uh, strong. Uh, the other thing was because I was sickly, I was always you know, never chosen for the stickball games and stuff.
[00:12:38] And I, I, I learned what it meant to be a leader. I looked around to see what, what did kids do, who were the leader. Uh, and I, and I decided my life was not to be a follower. Followers are boring. Leaders make things happen like I did in the hospital. So leaders are creative, come up with good ideas. Uh, and I had other principles, which I'll talk about, uh, in our next series where we talk about leadership.
[00:13:03] So I became a leader, meaning I was a captain of the, uh, team, um, uh, president of my class. And then in 19, um, oh, I guess when I was a high school junior, I guess it was, I don't remember now, what year that was, 1947. My family moved from the Bronx to North Hollywod, California because my father's family was all there.
[00:13:27] And I went into high school and it was the most beautiful, incredibly gorgeous high school with palm trees and everything. An amazing thing happened. I'm greeting everybody. Hi, I'm Philip Zimbardo, and I was shunned, meaning not a single person talked to me, not a single person sat down next to me, when I went to the cafeteria and sat down and kids around would get up and walk away, and I just didn't understand.
[00:13:50] And this happened every day, day after day. And it was the contrast of being a popular kid in the Bronx and being, you know, uh, ignored, shunned, uh, in North Hollywood. Uh, and I developed psychosomatic asthma as a consequence. Um, and I really, really sick and, and since we were poor, we didn't have money from medication.
[00:14:10] And so ultimately my sickness was the excuse that my family could use for us to go back to the Bronx at the end of the year. Uh, I should say that the whole experience with my family was really not very good. My father didn't have, get the job that was promised to him. Uh, and we were even poorer, uh, in this wonderland of North Hollywood, California than we had been in the Bronx.
[00:14:33] But we came back to the Bronx and curiously, uh, I, I went to James Monroe High School, um, in the Bronx. And in three months I was elected, um, most popular boy in the senior class, uh, vice president of the, of the senior class, uh, I got a, a girlfriend, uh, and suddenly it was the same me only, you know, now I was just in a different environment and it turned out the reason kids were shunning me amazingly, they thought because I was an Italian from New York, I must have mafia connections and therefore I was dangerous.
[00:15:11] And so they felt threatened and they were avoiding me, uh, so that I wouldn't, you know, sig, you know, put the, put the mark on them. Uh, and sadly nobody told me that until, um, oh, was I guess the end of the year. I was on the, I made the, the junior varsity baseball team, and I was, I asked some kid, uh, another player, you know, why were people treating me so badly?
[00:15:35] He said, they're afraid of you.
[00:15:36] And I was so upset that nobody had mentioned that because I said, you know, my family is Italian, but we're not mafia, you know, we're anti mafia, so that was the second terrible thing. And the last thing that happened was, uh, I got my first job at New York University in the Bronx.
[00:15:52] Uh, and I worked really hard, I was publishing, I published many, uh, many journal articles. I was doing lots of original research and also I also, at the same time, it was 19, early 1960s, I got involved in anti-Vietnam War activities. Uh, I organized one of the first teachings in the whole country at New York University in the Bronx.
[00:16:13] A teaching was something that went from 10 o'clock at night to eight o'clock in the morning. We brought, uh, soldiers, you know, um, uh, rebellious soldiers, uh, Buddhist monks, other people talking about why we should be against the war, why the war is illegal and immoral. Uh, and then finally, uh, NYU gave, um, an honorary degree to Robert McNamara, who's secretary of war, and he was the architect of that immoral illegal war, which he later admitted to.
[00:16:40] Uh, and I had organ, I organized a walkout. Soon as they mentioned his name. Hundreds of students, faculty, and parents got up at the graduation, simply walked out. It was very respectful, but it made the New York Times the next day.
[00:16:54] Instead of being that, being positive, it worked against me with the administration at NYU. I was supposed to come up for tenure, uh, with, with a raise in salary, and instead the chairman of the department said I needed time to mellow, I was too brash. And they didn't link it to the, to the anti-war activities, but it was clear that's what, what it was.
[00:17:14] So I was really, really depressed, partly because, it wasn't the status, I needed the money that, that getting promoted to the next level, uh, would bring me, uh, had a child Adam who was young, who had a lot of um, um, uh, pro, medical problems, which required a lot of money in those days. Um, and um, and so I was really depressed about not getting promoted.
[00:17:39] What happened was suddenly I get invited to go to Europe to be part of the, uh, first European, uh, Social Psychology Summer School, and I'm the youngest one there. Everybody else is a famous, uh, professor American and European, and my group did the, the best work, which was published, we did an experiment in, in one month, uh, in Levine, Belgium.
[00:18:05] Uh, and soon as I got back, I get an offer from Stanford University to, to become a full professor in, in the Stanford Psych Department, which was the best in the world. So these were three experiences, all of which were initially devastating, but uh, I was able to work through them and work around them to make me physically stronger, psychologically stronger. And, uh, and essentially to, uh, promote my, my own sense of, of personal value, my own personal worth, uh, and also, uh, my, my, my vision of me as a leader, which I will talk about in our next section.
[00:18:47] I wanna tell a brief story about a healthy, engaged community. Uh, that we had in the South Bronx, in the ghetto of the South Bronx back in 1945 when I was 10 years old. Uh, uh, my favorite uncle was Uncle Norman. Uh, he was about six years older than me, uh, and I idolized him, uh, for for many reasons.
[00:19:11] He was handsome. He was strong. Uh, he was, he was talented and, and very, very friendly. Uh, uh, my uncle Norman fell in love with a, a woman who lived, um, on our street, a few block, a block up. I know her name was Sylvia Skolosky. Now, when Norman wanted to get in touch with Sylvia, uh, nobody had telephones in their apartment because it, uh, it was too expensive and we were all poor.
[00:19:38] So what he would do is he would call Charlie's Candy Store. Charlie's candy store was across the street from where I lived. I lived in 920 Avenue, St. John and Charlie's Candy Store had the only phone booth on the block. So Norman would call Charlie's candy store and say could someone contact Sylvia, uh, and tell Sylvia that Norman uh, uh, is waiting to talk to her?
[00:20:05] Um, Charlie knew that I was his cousin. So Charlie would get someone to ring my bell, uh, in my apartment, and I was on the fifth floor, I had to rundown. Uh, and then I would walk up the block and ring Sylvia's bell, doorbell, uh, because her mother didn't want her to be going out with an Italian guy. And I would simply say there's a phone call for, for Sylvia, I'm not sure who is from. Sylvia then would walk down with me to the Charlie's candy store, make the phone call with Norman, and at the end would give me 5 cents. I would take the 5 cents and I would buy a 2 cent, a 2 cents special, which is a selsa, but I could then add, uh, two cherries to make it a 5 cents special.
[00:20:53] Uh, and this is the way our neighborhood went. This was a special case. Uh, this was 1945, uh, just after the war, um, where, uh, we had an engaged community. We, we knew each other, we cared for each other. Uh, and you don't get that now, partly because people are affluent, everybody has not only their own phone but a cell phone.
[00:21:17] Uh, and, um, people are not as socially connected, uh, as, uh, they should be or as they, we were back in the good old days of 1945 in the South Bronx ghetto where I grew up.
[00:21:33] Steve Gatena: On part two of this three part series, we learn about leadership from an American psychologist, Dr Philip Zimbardo. He explains how leaders are sociocentric. We hear what it was like leading during the Great Depression and how to use compassion and empathy to become a leader.
[00:22:02] Philip Ziombardo: When I was a child, um, I, as I mentioned earlier, I was very sickly having recovered from, um, um, severe, uh, medical problems. Um, and I was skinny and, and weak, and I realized that, um, I had a phy, so I built myself up physically to be stronger, but then I noticed, I, I just enough to make the, make the stick ball team.
[00:22:26] Uh, so I, I noticed that I had to, um, build my, um, athletic abilities, which I did by practicing endlessly hitting a ball against a wall and catching and running, uh, which I did. Uh, and so that was the, the physical component. But then I noticed whenever there was a meeting of the stickball team or the local gang, uh, on East 151st Street in the South Bronx, uh, there was always a few kids who were the leaders.
[00:22:53] I mean, they, they, they set the agenda, they told us what things that we should do, things that we could do, um, and, and then every, and everybody else mostly ended up agreeing. And at that time, I guess I was 10 to 12, I realized that the world is filled with a few leaders and many followers, and it's just seemed much better to me to be a leader because you set the agenda and you don't have to follow somebody else's agenda which may not be, um, to your liking or, uh, fit your skillset.
[00:23:25] Um, so I noticed that leaders did the following things. Uh, they often were the first to speak up in a group meeting. They often had some creative ideas, things that we other people hadn't thought about. Uh, they had a good sense of humor. They, they cracked jokes. Um, uh, they had some vision of things. We c very concrete things where we could begin to do and clearly we could achieve, uh, uh, in small steps uh, the plan that they set out.
[00:23:54] Also, uh, they often had a big, a big guy to bang them, back them up. Uh, meaning, um, when somebody disagreed that they had their "henchman", who could, who could stifle the opposition. Uh, and lastly, leaders tended to be physically taller than than average. So that's the only thing I had going for me. I was taller than average, uh, for my age, uh, always.
[00:24:22] So with those, um, with that thing, I began to practice being the first to talk up. Uh, always having a creative idea, uh, uh, breaking the ice with telling, telling jokes. Uh, again, it helped, um, smiling, uh, smiling, uh, embracing uh, people with different ideas, uh, and I very quickly became "a leader".
[00:24:47] I was always the president of the class, uh, captain of the team, whether it was a track team at Brooklyn College, uh, president of my fraternity at Brooklyn College. Later I was president of the Western Psychological Association twice, and even president of the American Psychological Association. And to top it off, I was president of the council of all scientific society presidents, which is president of all the presidents.
[00:25:13] Uh, so it worked out. Um, and, um, and I, I was, I was always a well like leader, so it was, I, I never led by, by might uh, of force. It was always, um, with a smile, with always being gracious, always um, also being aware of, uh, what, what challenges were to my points of view, uh, and trying to bridge the gap, uh, in, in various ways.
[00:25:40] Um, and, um, my hero when I was a kid was FDR. Uh, uh, FDR was Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the president of the United States coming out of the Great Depression of the 1930s. That's when I was born in 1933. Uh, he was my hero because he was handicapped. He had, he had polio, but he did the best he could, uh, to conceal it from the public because he didn't want, he didn't want sympathy. He wanted people to believe in his ideas, and he had brilliant ideas.
[00:26:13] Uh, coming out of the Great Depression. He had the, something he called the New Deal, how to get people, jobs and work, uh, how to get um, artists in involved, uh, how to get, um, uh, various projects working and different parts of the country that had different, different, uh, demands. Uh, and he, he, he was very personally effective. Uh, he started, um, uh, I guess it was weekly or monthly um, fireside chats where he would talk to the people personally.
[00:26:47] So this is the first time a president used, uh, in those days, the media of the radio, uh, to make personal contact to say what, what he was doing, why he was doing it, and how it could help America. And it was always putting America first in a positive way.
[00:27:01] So it seemed to me that, uh, what leaders do is, uh, they have a moral conscience uh, and, uh, a moral courage to stand up for what they believe in. Uh, they share their ideas. They make it clear that they care about other people. Leaders are socio-centric, uh, not ego-centric. It's always, even in the language, it's always us. It's always we, it's never, I, it's never me. Uh, and essentially what leaders do, what heroes do is they transform compassion and empathy, which are the highest private virtues into heroic action.
[00:27:39] It's action that changes the world.
[00:27:42] And so I started the Heroic Imagination Project, uh, 10 years ago. It's a nonprofit, uh, foundation in San Francisco, and I am again, the president as well, who's the founder of the Heroic Imgination Project. What we do is we use, um, so please visit www.HeroicImagination.org.
[00:28:01] Uh, and you see, what we do is, uh, we develop, um, lessons based on social psychology and cognitive psychology, uh, to, uh, teach not only inspire young people, high school students, college students, and now business people, how to become effective heroes, how to become effective leaders. Uh, and our programs are, for example, how to transform passive bystanders into active heroes.
[00:28:27] How to transform, uh, bias and h how to transform bias and prejudice into understanding acceptance of others, how to change having a narrow fixed mindset into a dynamic growth mindset.
[00:28:38] So, uh, so we have these programs, which we license for a small fee, and then we do training. I actually, I and a small team of master trainers go around the world.
[00:28:48] Our program is in a dozen countries, uh, as dispersed as, uh, Iran in Tehran, Iran, and Bali. Uh, in, um, and, um, oh, let's see. Um, in Poland, in Sicily, in, uh, um, Budapest, in, uh, Prague and Bratislavia and just, uh, many, many places around the world. Uh, and essentially it's just using psychology to teach people how to be wise and effective, uh, leaders.
[00:29:20] Uh, it's these days it's difficult to be a leader because they're very extreme. Uh, there's extreme opposition more than ever. Uh, there are challenges and everything has gotten very political. I mean, every, it's now the right wing versus the left wing. Uh, uh, so there, there's opposition, uh, that a leader has to learn how to reconcile, how to integrate, uh, uh, points of view of, different points of view.
[00:29:47] Uh, and sometimes it's hard because some of those different points of views are, are alien, uh, to, to some leaders' beliefs. Uh, and clearly now political leaders around the world are having a big problem. Where, former, former democracies that that came out of the Second World War where, uh, where the allies defeated the axis, uh, of, of fascism, uh, uh, and democracy ruled.
[00:30:15] Democracy was, uh, uh, uh, embodied freedom of the, of the people encouraging individual initiative. Uh, and now there's been a movement around the world toward right wing nationalism, um, uh, against, against, against integrating migrants into, uh, any country. And of course, this is ridiculous in America because every single person in America is a migrant that has, comes, has mi, their family has migrated from someplace in Europe, some places in South America, in the Middle East, in Asia.
[00:30:50] Uh, America is great because, uh, it is, has had been the melting pot, uh, uh, of, of all these different countries, uh, people from different countries, and now it goes beyond the melting pot that is, uh, we are, we are the, um, uh, the, the crossword puzzle, if you will, that put all these people together into, to make a great America.
[00:31:13] So it's hard to be a, a leader, but we need strong, effective leaders, not only political leaders. We need lead, lead, local, local community leaders. Uh, uh, every team needs a, a leader who can inspire others to, again, a leader inspires others to be their best, do their best, to work hard, uh, uh, have the, the moral courage to do what, uh, is right.
[00:31:37] Uh, and also to make a clear distinction between to the moral consciences make explicit what, what is right and what is wrong, uh, and why, uh, your followers should help you, help you and them do the right thing.
[00:31:54] We started a shyness clinic to help people, um, who were shy, uh, who were inhibited. Uh, and we are al almost a hundred percent effective because we know how to treat shyness. And that clinic is still continuing this day in, in, um, 2018 in Palo Alto University.
[00:32:15] And I wrote popular books, shyness, what it is, what to do about it, uh, which was, uh, very popular. Sold, I think 500,000 copies. So this is the combination of getting an original idea, uh, turning it into research, turning the research into treatment, and then, uh, sharing these ideas with the general public.
[00:32:38] Steve Gatena: On part three of this three part series on Relentless Hope, Dr. Philip Zimbardo talks about his studies and how good people turn evil, what to do about shyness, and the time perspective theory.
[00:32:56] From worldwide psychology conferences to TED talks, to authoring prominent books in psychology, he plans to leave a memorable and helpful legacy of education.
[00:33:12] Philip Ziombardo: I am a teacher, I'm an educator, I'm a researcher, I'm a writer. Those are my three definitions. So I've been a, uh, educator for, uh, almost 60 years now. Uh, I taught at New York University, at Columbia University, uh, at Stanford University, at Barnard University, uh, many universities overseas, uh, in Europe, um, uh, so I'm a teacher.
[00:33:38] Uh, I teach, uh, I work very hard at being an effective good teacher. Uh, I, uh, model what is best in teaching. I teach courses in how to be an effective teacher for, for graduate students. In addition to my in-class teaching, which I must say, uh, was legendary at Stanford University. Uh, I also, uh, took three years to develop.
[00:34:03] Uh, a program, uh, called Discovering Psychology, uh, for high school students and really the general public. It is, uh, it, I did it 20 years ago and I updated it, and it's still available online through Annenberg CPB Project. Uh, discovering Psychology is a 26. Um, 26 episodes each 30 minutes that I created and narrated, covering all of psychology.
[00:34:32] Um, uh, and it's probably maybe one of my most enduring, um, Assets, uh, to the field of psychology. Uh, I, secondly, I'm an original researcher. I've worked in 40, more than 40 different domains. So I'm a journalist. Uh, when I get an idea that's interesting, I follow it up with research. Uh, for me, uh, the magic word is "I wonder what would happen if", and then I do the research to answer that question.
[00:35:02] Um, uh, so in my research I've done dramatic research like the Stanford Prison Experiment, which is almost 50 years old and is still the subject of lots of controversy and, uh, and sets examples of, um, what, what truly dramatic research, uh, can be like. Uh, my most important area that my original research in the psychology of shyness, what makes people shy and what they can do to overcome it.
[00:35:32] Um, I was the pioneering research in that area, uh, way starting way back in 1972. Um, I started this Stanford Shyness Research Project, which we, we did all kinds of, uh, original research on shyness. We started a shyness clinic to help people, um, who were shy, uh, who were inhibited, uh, and we are. Al almost a hundred percent effective because we know how to treat shyness.
[00:35:59] And that clinic is still continuing this day in, in, um, 2018 in Palo Alto University. And I wrote popular books, shyness and what it is, what to do about it, uh, which was, uh, very popular, sold I think, 500,000 copies. So this is the combination of getting an original idea, uh, turning it into research, turning the research into treatment, and then, uh, sharing these ideas with the general public.
[00:36:27] And we still have a website, which people visit shyness.com. And a lot of my work, ha, was with Dr. Lynn Henderson and she's transformed the idea of shyness into social fitness. So her treatment's called Social Fitness Therapy in the same way, we all wanna be physically fit, we all wanna be socially fit, and we can do so, um, by following the path that she outlines.
[00:36:51] Um, uh, the other thing I I started is the whole do domain of psychology of time perspective, uh, how, how people divide their personal experiences into temporal categories of past, present, future. And I developed the, the, an original scale, the Zimbardo time perspective inventory ZTPI, which measures, uh, the degree to which people live in a positive or negative, past positive and negative future, present negative present.
[00:37:20] Uh, and that scale is being used around the world. Uh, there are hundreds of researchers who now study this concept of time perspective in many different ways. And we have annual, biannual international conferences, uh, every two years, uh, starting eight years ago in Colibra, Portugal, and then also Poland, then Copenhaggen in Denmark, and this, this last month we were in Nons, France, and in, in two more years, our next fifth biannual conference will be in, uh, Cologne, Germany.
[00:37:54] Uh, the current research I'm doing, uh, is, is, I call it man disconnected or man interrupted, and I'm focusing why young boys and men are getting addicted to video games and online pornography.
[00:38:07] Uh, I've done the original research in that area. I've written, as I said, several books, uh, about this, uh, uh, concept and now the addiction to video games and pornography is now a clinically valid, um, depiction of, of addiction. And in my book I described the phenomena, was the first to, uh, clearly identify both of those.
[00:38:30] And then we have, uh, we propose a number of solutions. So the prison study as a dramatic kind of research, shyness area, time perspective, uh, and, and, uh, addiction to pornography and video game. And lastly, uh, probably my most important contribution, I think is in the area of heroism.
[00:38:52] So, uh, 10 years ago I started this Heroic Imagination Project in San Francisco.
[00:38:58] We're a nonprofit foundation, um, uh, that not only inspires, but trains ordinary people how to become everyday heroes. Everyday heroes of people who stand up, speak out and take wise and effective action in challenging situations in their lives. Uh, they, they oppose, uh, the evil of, of inaction, meaning passivity in, in the face of doing nothing when people should be doing something.
[00:39:25] And also the evil of action, uh, like bullying and other hostile social actions. Um, and, um, so I, I formed this foundation. Uh, we have an active, we've had an active board of directors. Um, we, um, we have, uh, again, our website, HeroicImagination.org shares, uh, information that that we have learned, uh, with the general public.
[00:39:51] Um, our lessons are combined, uh, basic social psychology, cognitive psychology in, in, in really unique ways. So our lessons are used, as I said in high school, colleges and now in businesses. Uh, and what makes the lessons special is they're all organized around provocative videos. And, and we give the teachers or the, uh, business, uh, business, uh, center, um, a presenters guide with all the videos, with all the background research, uh, and, and, and then we lead them through how, how to, how to deliver this, these materials in a very efficient and effective and, and interesting, as I said, provocative ways.
[00:40:33] Um, uh, and so we license our lessons for re relatively minimal fee. Um, um, and then, but in order to use the lessons, uh, I or one of our master trainers has to go to the school, to the, the business, the center, and train people how to, how to be effective heroic imagination leaders.
[00:40:54] Our program now is in more than a dozen countries around the world, uh, most of which I, I have, have gone, uh, to do the training, and I visit, I go back and visit regularly.
[00:41:07] Uh, so, so our most, uh, ambitious program is in Budapest, Hungary. Uh, and now we're in more than a thousand high school throughout all of Hungary. So I usually go there every year or every other year, and we are all over Poland in Warsaw, Krakoff, and other places. Uh, we're in the Ghetto in, in, uh, Sicily in, in Palermo.
[00:41:29] Um, and we're working with African migrant youth, uh, not only, uh, teaching them our lessons, but getting them to be the trainers, uh, of Italian high school kids the same age, only now because they are the teacher, they get new respect. Uh, and um, it's been transformative for many of these, uh, uh, young African, uh, boys and girls.
[00:41:54] Uh, so. So legacy means what? What are you remembered for? So it's, it's will be mostly for all that research. Uh, uh, as I said, also, I'm, I'm a writer. I published 60 books, uh, and more than 600 articles. Uh, I, I published, uh, introductory textbooks like Psychology and Life, uh, I did many, many editions uh, which has been used literally around the world.
[00:42:23] Uh, Core Concepts, which is an up, upgraded, updated, uh, version of psychology in life. Uh, my most important book, from my point of view, is, The Looser Effect, Understanding how Good People turn Evil. And it summarizes what I learned, not only from the prison study, but the work I did with defending, um, an American prison guard in Abugrade Prison.
[00:42:47] Also my research on, um, genocides in Rwanda and um, and again in Nazi Germany. Um, and, but then it also ends with positive notions. What is it we can do to prevent good people turning evil? How can we get ordinary people to be inspired to be heroes? And out of that last chapter of that book, uh, I came to, um, to think about the Heroic Imagination Project.
[00:43:13] Uh, in addition to, uh, writing, um, uh, all those books, uh, I'm also, I I've also been, um, a frequent, uh, orator on, uh, the Ted, Ted.com conference. I've given several lectures that have gone viral, seen by, um, oh, millions of people. Uh, probably the most traumatic one was, uh, the Psychology of Evil. Um, uh, but then also I did a four minute version on the Dissent of Guys, and the Rise of Gals.
[00:43:47] Now, that's the first time I had an idea about, um, boys getting addicted to video games. Uh, and even though it was limited to four minutes. So I've given the shortest Ted Talk four minutes, and the psychology of evil was like 21 minutes, one of the longest ever. Um, both of them went viral and I still seen by, uh, millions of people.
[00:44:08] So my legacy, uh, I'd like to be remembered for the good work I've done as a good teacher, as a good researcher, as a good writer, uh, sharing psychology, giving it away to the general public, in forms that they can use it. Um, the, uh, uh, I wanna be seen as an honest, generous, humble man. Uh, a self-made man.
[00:44:30] I emerged from poverty, the son of a second generation uneducated Sicilian parents, who migrated to the United States, um, in, you know, it was grandparents migrated to the United States at the turn of the century, um, and became educated through public education. I never spent one dime on all of my education from kindergarten, I didn't have to from first grade through graduate school. Um, and, um, wanna be seen as reliable, as talented, as generous, as I said, humble, uncompromising, uh, and, so of course, and really what's important is, uh, being a good family man, uh, good husband to my wife, Christina, good, uh, father to my children, Adam Zimbardo, Tanya and Zara Zimbardo and my grandchildren, uh, little Philip Panda Zimbardo and Little Bunny Victoria Lee Zimbardo. Um, and last, or not least, to be seen as a good employer of the, the, uh, people who work as my assistants, currently Taylor Langley and before her Carol Keen and before her Nikita Duncan Kulong
[00:45:42] uh, so good father, good husband, and ideally good boss. And with that I hope I do have some legacy that endures. Ciao.
[00:45:54] Steve Gatena: God knows that we will face evil. He knows that the enemy will try to tempt us to fill our hearts with fear, so we turn away from God and from love, and God knows that we will face moral dilemmas where we might have to go against the crowd. Fortunately, God gifted us with so many tools to help us in the battle between good and evil, and He knows that inside each of us is a hero.
[00:46:25] He gifted us with a mighty conscience that shows up and shows us right and wrong. He gave us His word so that we may turn to it for strength, inspiration, and hope. He gave us these scriptures that show us examples of true heroes, Jesus being the ultimate hero, and he's given us His son Jesus. So that we may have a path to God, so that we may have a relationship with God, so that we may know God walks with us in every moment, especially the ones when we are called to act as heroes.
[00:47:18] This week on Relentless Hope, Dr Philip Zimbardo, world renowned American psychologist and professor, taught us what it means to become an every day hero. He taught us how to lead with moral courage and to find hope through prayer. Dr Zimbardo whose career spans more than 50 years and is known for original research in a variety of subjects, shared powerful stories from his childhood, to his first job teaching, which shaped his views on heroism.
[00:47:57] We hear about Dr Zimbardo's first teaching job at New York University and his involvement in anti-Vietnam war activities, including organizing one of the first ever teachings in the country and a peaceful walkout during a graduation ceremony when Robert McNamara was given an honorary degree.
[00:48:21] We learned that heroic leaders lead with moral courage and they have a moral conscience, which is the ability to stand up for what they believe in. We also learned that heroic leaders share their ideas. They make it clear that they care about people and they make a clear distinction between what is right and what is wrong.
[00:48:48] As Dr Zimbardo explained, heroic leaders also inspire others to be their best, to do their best, to work hard, and to have moral courage too. Dr Zimbardo taught us that heros take wise and effective action in challenging situations, they oppose the evil of inaction in the face of doing nothing when people should be doing something.
[00:49:19] Heroes oppose the evil of action too, like bullying or taking other hostile social actions. Heroes don't entertain those types of behaviors. We also learned from Dr Zimbardo that of the more than 60 books and 600 articles and more than 40 different domains that he has researched, written and published, he believes his most important contribution to the world is in the area of heroism, including launching the Heroic Imagination Project, which inspires and trains ordinary people to become everyday heroes.
[00:50:11] God never said that being a hero or acting with moral courage would be easy, but He promises us that we're never alone, that in the face of evil, that when we bear witness to situations, that we know are wrong, God is beside us loving, supporting, and lending us the courage that we need so that we will act according to his will.
[00:50:42] Doing the right thing isn't always easy. In fact, sometimes it's real hard. But just remember that doing the right thing is always right, and if you know someone that needs a little bit of hope, the right thing to do is to share this podcast with them, so that you too can be an everyday hero.
[00:51:19] So give this podcast a share if you enjoyed Dr Philip Zimbardo this week on Relentless Hope.
Becoming Heroes and Overcoming Poverty - Dr. Philip Zimbardo
[00:00:00] Steve Gatena: Heroes help people in need. Their conscience helps them understand the difference between right and wrong. They stand up and speak out when they witness injustices. They protect the weak and vulnerable, and they treat everyone with respect, grace, love, acceptance, forgiveness, empathy, and compassion.
[00:00:32] To be a hero you don't need extraordinary superpowers like Superman or Batman. You just have to show up to act with moral courage and to not allow the enemy and fear to cripple you. God knows that we can all be heroes, and he gave us one of the best examples we could ever hope to have in Jesus. Jesus showed us what it looks like to have courage in the face of evil.
[00:01:09] He showed us how to take care of people in need, how to speak out and stand up to injustices, how to go against popular opinions, and how to do the right thing. God understands this isn't always easy. That fear can hold our tongues and keep our hands closed, which is why he wants us to rely on him for guidance and support.
[00:01:46] He reminds us that he always walks with us and that there is nothing to fear, because He is with us. This week on Relentless Hope I have the honor and privilege to welcome Dr philip Zimbardo, world renowned American psychologist and professor.
[00:02:12] Dr Zimbardo teaches us about becoming heroes, about taking heroic action in our everyday lives, and how we can live with moral courage. Dr Zimbardo, who has spent more than 50 years teaching, researching and writing in more than 40 domains, shares personal stories. From his life that shaped his understanding of heroism. We learn about his harrowing experience being quarantined for six months in a hospital when he was just five years old and later how he organized one of the first teachings in the US to protest the Vietnam War. As Dr Zimbardo also teaches us, leaders have a moral conscious and possess moral courage, which is the ability to stand up for what they believe in, to share their ideas, and to transform compassion and empathy, the highest personal virtues into action that changes the world.
[00:03:31] We also get to learn about the Heroic Imagination Project, which Dr Zimbardo started in 2014, which inspires and teaches people how to become effective heroes and leaders, transforming passive bystanders into active heroes, transforming biases and prejudice, into understanding and acceptance, and really helping people change from a narrow fixed mindset to a dynamic growth mindset.
[00:04:06] Dr Zimbardo also reveals to us how he hopes to be remembered for the good work that he's done as a teacher, as an original researcher, and as a writer. And we learn that of the 60 books and 600 articles that he's published throughout his career. That he believes the most important work he's done is on heroism.
[00:04:30] As Dr Zimbardo explains, we live during a time when leadership and moral courage is being challenged. But it's also a call to action that Dr Zimbardo urges each of us to respond to by becoming everyday heroes, by speaking out and standing up to injustices, to protecting the vulnerable and weak, and helping those in need.
[00:04:59] We stand up to the enemy and to the faces of evil, and that's how we can help God change this world. Our takeaway for today that I want you to think about as you listen to this episode is knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right.
[00:05:29] In 1938, at the age of five, Phillip Zimbardo was quarantined and isolated from the public.
[00:05:40] Philip Ziombardo: And it was 1938-39, and of course, penicillin and sulfa drugs had not yet been invented. So there was no medicine, no treatment at all for any of the ailments that we had. Uh, I was very, very sick with, uh, I could hardly breathe with double pneumonia and whooping cough, which meant it was difficult for me even to eat.
[00:06:00] I, I lost an enormous amount of weight. Um, uh, and of course you lay in bed and did nothing. In those days, they didn't even have the concept of exercising while you're in bed or stretching. So we never got out of bed
[00:06:16] Steve Gatena: On part one of this three part series, Dr Philip Zimbardo, a world renowned psychologist and professor, widely known for his Stanford prison experiment explains growing up in the 1930s, we learn what it was like growing up in the ghettos of New York, being quarantined as a young child and how praying brought him hope.
[00:06:45] Philip Ziombardo: I was born March 23rd, 1933, and my first major, uh, life threatening experience was when I was six years old in 1938-39. The second one came when I was 16 years old, uh, in, in high school. And the third one came, uh, and my first job at New York University when I was about 34 years old. So let's start at the beginning.
[00:07:09] I grew up in the South Bronx, a ghetto in New York City at that time, uh, and in any ghetto in the world, uh, it's toxic. Uh, the air is toxic. There's asbestos, there's in those days, um, uh, manure in the streets, uh, and um, and people live in close proximity. A consequence of that climate was many children developed all kinds of contagious diseases.
[00:07:34] I developed whooping cough, which was a contagious disease along with double pneumonia. Uh, and I was ordered to go to a, to be quarantined, uh, to go to a hospital called Willard Parker Hospital with children with contagious diseases. In this hospital, on the e, on East River. In Manhattan were hundreds of children with every known, uh, uh, contagious disease.
[00:08:00] Uh, children as young as two, I guess up to, I don't know, teenagers. Um, and it was 1938-39, and of course, penicillin and sulfa drugs had not yet been invented. So there was no medicine, no treatment at all for any of the ailments that we had. Uh, I was very, very sick with, uh, I could hardly breathe with double pneumonia and whooping cough, which meant it was difficult for me even to eat. I, I lost an enormous amount of weight. Um, uh, and of course you lay in bed and did nothing. In those days, they didn't even have the concept of exercising while you're in bed or stretching. So we never got out of bed. Um, and, and what happened, of course, is children died all the time.
[00:08:46] Curiously, uh, it seemed as if children died during the night. From my perspective as a little five, six year old, when I awoke, I tell the nurse, where's Billy? And she said, he went home. Where's Mary? She, the nurse said she went home. Why didn't they say goodbye? Well, they were in a hurry to leave and they, they left their goodbyes, uh, with me to tell you.
[00:09:06] Well, it was a conspiracy of denial between the nurses and our, the patients us, because we knew they were dead, but we couldn't admit that because then we'd have no hope.
[00:09:17] My hope came mostly from praying. Uh, I was, as I said, uh, five and a half years old, and I began to pray every morning when I woke up pray to Jesus Christ to make me strong and brave and healthy, uh, and um, be able to go home as soon as possible.
[00:09:34] Um, and, um, I also use this time, I was there for six months. I used this time creatively, I learned to read and write from comic books. Uh, that's the only because it was a contagious ward and our families were poor. The only thing we had, the only goods, we had, commodities, were comic books, and that was the start, in 1938-39, of superhero comic books, captain Marvel I guess, Superman.
[00:10:03] Um, and, uh, I would ask the older boy in the next bed, what, what is this? These word, these symbols. W o w, exclamation point. Wow. Well, in comic books there's a lot of wows, but I would, I would. You know, relate to the sound to, to the image, and I would write it down.
[00:10:22] So, uh, during the six months I was there, I began to read and write. So that was a positive thing. The other thing I did positively is I had a good imagination and I would make up games that the kids in our unit, our vicinity would play. Like, um, uh, our, our beds were really uh, rafts and we're going down the Nile River, which I guess I had heard about in search of the great white crocodile.
[00:10:50] Uh, and each of us would have to be looking for the crocodile, but also there's also dangers, uh, and I would organize these games, uh, for, for my buddies, uh, and. And it was really exciting, a very exciting adventure. Uh, uh, I made it into an exciting adventure, uh, and fortunately, and then, but again, since kids seem to die at night, I doubled my chances of success by praying to the devil at night saying, please don't take me, devil, um, you know, I'm a good boy. I'm not the, I'm not the kind of bad kid that you, you want down in hell. Uh, and then clearly what I had done was learn self-hypnosis. I pulled a sheet over my head. Next thing I knew it was morning. So I learned self-hypnosis, which I actually later used in my teaching and research and, and, uh, many personal, um, uh, medical, uh, experiences.
[00:11:41] I, I survived. I got home, um, April 1939. Much the worst for wear. Very skinny, very uh, um, um, sickly still. And it took a long time for me to recover. Uh, one of the things I did to gain my, um, physical strength is, um, uh, when I was at gad when I was 11, I joined the Boy Scouts and, with a friend, we used to go hiking in New Jersey in Teaneck, Cresskill, uh, Tenafly every weekend, just my friend uh, I think Dominic and I are carrying big nap sacks, uh, and sleeping out, uh, you know, walking a lot and sleeping out.
[00:12:22] And so I used that experience to help me, uh, develop physically, um, uh, to get, to get, to be, uh, strong. Uh, the other thing was because I was sickly, I was always you know, never chosen for the stickball games and stuff.
[00:12:38] And I, I, I learned what it meant to be a leader. I looked around to see what, what did kids do, who were the leader. Uh, and I, and I decided my life was not to be a follower. Followers are boring. Leaders make things happen like I did in the hospital. So leaders are creative, come up with good ideas. Uh, and I had other principles, which I'll talk about, uh, in our next series where we talk about leadership.
[00:13:03] So I became a leader, meaning I was a captain of the, uh, team, um, uh, president of my class. And then in 19, um, oh, I guess when I was a high school junior, I guess it was, I don't remember now, what year that was, 1947. My family moved from the Bronx to North Hollywod, California because my father's family was all there.
[00:13:27] And I went into high school and it was the most beautiful, incredibly gorgeous high school with palm trees and everything. An amazing thing happened. I'm greeting everybody. Hi, I'm Philip Zimbardo, and I was shunned, meaning not a single person talked to me, not a single person sat down next to me, when I went to the cafeteria and sat down and kids around would get up and walk away, and I just didn't understand.
[00:13:50] And this happened every day, day after day. And it was the contrast of being a popular kid in the Bronx and being, you know, uh, ignored, shunned, uh, in North Hollywood. Uh, and I developed psychosomatic asthma as a consequence. Um, and I really, really sick and, and since we were poor, we didn't have money from medication.
[00:14:10] And so ultimately my sickness was the excuse that my family could use for us to go back to the Bronx at the end of the year. Uh, I should say that the whole experience with my family was really not very good. My father didn't have, get the job that was promised to him. Uh, and we were even poorer, uh, in this wonderland of North Hollywood, California than we had been in the Bronx.
[00:14:33] But we came back to the Bronx and curiously, uh, I, I went to James Monroe High School, um, in the Bronx. And in three months I was elected, um, most popular boy in the senior class, uh, vice president of the, of the senior class, uh, I got a, a girlfriend, uh, and suddenly it was the same me only, you know, now I was just in a different environment and it turned out the reason kids were shunning me amazingly, they thought because I was an Italian from New York, I must have mafia connections and therefore I was dangerous.
[00:15:11] And so they felt threatened and they were avoiding me, uh, so that I wouldn't, you know, sig, you know, put the, put the mark on them. Uh, and sadly nobody told me that until, um, oh, was I guess the end of the year. I was on the, I made the, the junior varsity baseball team, and I was, I asked some kid, uh, another player, you know, why were people treating me so badly?
[00:15:35] He said, they're afraid of you.
[00:15:36] And I was so upset that nobody had mentioned that because I said, you know, my family is Italian, but we're not mafia, you know, we're anti mafia, so that was the second terrible thing. And the last thing that happened was, uh, I got my first job at New York University in the Bronx.
[00:15:52] Uh, and I worked really hard, I was publishing, I published many, uh, many journal articles. I was doing lots of original research and also I also, at the same time, it was 19, early 1960s, I got involved in anti-Vietnam War activities. Uh, I organized one of the first teachings in the whole country at New York University in the Bronx.
[00:16:13] A teaching was something that went from 10 o'clock at night to eight o'clock in the morning. We brought, uh, soldiers, you know, um, uh, rebellious soldiers, uh, Buddhist monks, other people talking about why we should be against the war, why the war is illegal and immoral. Uh, and then finally, uh, NYU gave, um, an honorary degree to Robert McNamara, who's secretary of war, and he was the architect of that immoral illegal war, which he later admitted to.
[00:16:40] Uh, and I had organ, I organized a walkout. Soon as they mentioned his name. Hundreds of students, faculty, and parents got up at the graduation, simply walked out. It was very respectful, but it made the New York Times the next day.
[00:16:54] Instead of being that, being positive, it worked against me with the administration at NYU. I was supposed to come up for tenure, uh, with, with a raise in salary, and instead the chairman of the department said I needed time to mellow, I was too brash. And they didn't link it to the, to the anti-war activities, but it was clear that's what, what it was.
[00:17:14] So I was really, really depressed, partly because, it wasn't the status, I needed the money that, that getting promoted to the next level, uh, would bring me, uh, had a child Adam who was young, who had a lot of um, um, uh, pro, medical problems, which required a lot of money in those days. Um, and um, and so I was really depressed about not getting promoted.
[00:17:39] What happened was suddenly I get invited to go to Europe to be part of the, uh, first European, uh, Social Psychology Summer School, and I'm the youngest one there. Everybody else is a famous, uh, professor American and European, and my group did the, the best work, which was published, we did an experiment in, in one month, uh, in Levine, Belgium.
[00:18:05] Uh, and soon as I got back, I get an offer from Stanford University to, to become a full professor in, in the Stanford Psych Department, which was the best in the world. So these were three experiences, all of which were initially devastating, but uh, I was able to work through them and work around them to make me physically stronger, psychologically stronger. And, uh, and essentially to, uh, promote my, my own sense of, of personal value, my own personal worth, uh, and also, uh, my, my, my vision of me as a leader, which I will talk about in our next section.
[00:18:47] I wanna tell a brief story about a healthy, engaged community. Uh, that we had in the South Bronx, in the ghetto of the South Bronx back in 1945 when I was 10 years old. Uh, uh, my favorite uncle was Uncle Norman. Uh, he was about six years older than me, uh, and I idolized him, uh, for for many reasons.
[00:19:11] He was handsome. He was strong. Uh, he was, he was talented and, and very, very friendly. Uh, uh, my uncle Norman fell in love with a, a woman who lived, um, on our street, a few block, a block up. I know her name was Sylvia Skolosky. Now, when Norman wanted to get in touch with Sylvia, uh, nobody had telephones in their apartment because it, uh, it was too expensive and we were all poor.
[00:19:38] So what he would do is he would call Charlie's Candy Store. Charlie's candy store was across the street from where I lived. I lived in 920 Avenue, St. John and Charlie's Candy Store had the only phone booth on the block. So Norman would call Charlie's candy store and say could someone contact Sylvia, uh, and tell Sylvia that Norman uh, uh, is waiting to talk to her?
[00:20:05] Um, Charlie knew that I was his cousin. So Charlie would get someone to ring my bell, uh, in my apartment, and I was on the fifth floor, I had to rundown. Uh, and then I would walk up the block and ring Sylvia's bell, doorbell, uh, because her mother didn't want her to be going out with an Italian guy. And I would simply say there's a phone call for, for Sylvia, I'm not sure who is from. Sylvia then would walk down with me to the Charlie's candy store, make the phone call with Norman, and at the end would give me 5 cents. I would take the 5 cents and I would buy a 2 cent, a 2 cents special, which is a selsa, but I could then add, uh, two cherries to make it a 5 cents special.
[00:20:53] Uh, and this is the way our neighborhood went. This was a special case. Uh, this was 1945, uh, just after the war, um, where, uh, we had an engaged community. We, we knew each other, we cared for each other. Uh, and you don't get that now, partly because people are affluent, everybody has not only their own phone but a cell phone.
[00:21:17] Uh, and, um, people are not as socially connected, uh, as, uh, they should be or as they, we were back in the good old days of 1945 in the South Bronx ghetto where I grew up.
[00:21:33] Steve Gatena: On part two of this three part series, we learn about leadership from an American psychologist, Dr Philip Zimbardo. He explains how leaders are sociocentric. We hear what it was like leading during the Great Depression and how to use compassion and empathy to become a leader.
[00:22:02] Philip Ziombardo: When I was a child, um, I, as I mentioned earlier, I was very sickly having recovered from, um, um, severe, uh, medical problems. Um, and I was skinny and, and weak, and I realized that, um, I had a phy, so I built myself up physically to be stronger, but then I noticed, I, I just enough to make the, make the stick ball team.
[00:22:26] Uh, so I, I noticed that I had to, um, build my, um, athletic abilities, which I did by practicing endlessly hitting a ball against a wall and catching and running, uh, which I did. Uh, and so that was the, the physical component. But then I noticed whenever there was a meeting of the stickball team or the local gang, uh, on East 151st Street in the South Bronx, uh, there was always a few kids who were the leaders.
[00:22:53] I mean, they, they, they set the agenda, they told us what things that we should do, things that we could do, um, and, and then every, and everybody else mostly ended up agreeing. And at that time, I guess I was 10 to 12, I realized that the world is filled with a few leaders and many followers, and it's just seemed much better to me to be a leader because you set the agenda and you don't have to follow somebody else's agenda which may not be, um, to your liking or, uh, fit your skillset.
[00:23:25] Um, so I noticed that leaders did the following things. Uh, they often were the first to speak up in a group meeting. They often had some creative ideas, things that we other people hadn't thought about. Uh, they had a good sense of humor. They, they cracked jokes. Um, uh, they had some vision of things. We c very concrete things where we could begin to do and clearly we could achieve, uh, uh, in small steps uh, the plan that they set out.
[00:23:54] Also, uh, they often had a big, a big guy to bang them, back them up. Uh, meaning, um, when somebody disagreed that they had their "henchman", who could, who could stifle the opposition. Uh, and lastly, leaders tended to be physically taller than than average. So that's the only thing I had going for me. I was taller than average, uh, for my age, uh, always.
[00:24:22] So with those, um, with that thing, I began to practice being the first to talk up. Uh, always having a creative idea, uh, uh, breaking the ice with telling, telling jokes. Uh, again, it helped, um, smiling, uh, smiling, uh, embracing uh, people with different ideas, uh, and I very quickly became "a leader".
[00:24:47] I was always the president of the class, uh, captain of the team, whether it was a track team at Brooklyn College, uh, president of my fraternity at Brooklyn College. Later I was president of the Western Psychological Association twice, and even president of the American Psychological Association. And to top it off, I was president of the council of all scientific society presidents, which is president of all the presidents.
[00:25:13] Uh, so it worked out. Um, and, um, and I, I was, I was always a well like leader, so it was, I, I never led by, by might uh, of force. It was always, um, with a smile, with always being gracious, always um, also being aware of, uh, what, what challenges were to my points of view, uh, and trying to bridge the gap, uh, in, in various ways.
[00:25:40] Um, and, um, my hero when I was a kid was FDR. Uh, uh, FDR was Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the president of the United States coming out of the Great Depression of the 1930s. That's when I was born in 1933. Uh, he was my hero because he was handicapped. He had, he had polio, but he did the best he could, uh, to conceal it from the public because he didn't want, he didn't want sympathy. He wanted people to believe in his ideas, and he had brilliant ideas.
[00:26:13] Uh, coming out of the Great Depression. He had the, something he called the New Deal, how to get people, jobs and work, uh, how to get um, artists in involved, uh, how to get, um, uh, various projects working and different parts of the country that had different, different, uh, demands. Uh, and he, he, he was very personally effective. Uh, he started, um, uh, I guess it was weekly or monthly um, fireside chats where he would talk to the people personally.
[00:26:47] So this is the first time a president used, uh, in those days, the media of the radio, uh, to make personal contact to say what, what he was doing, why he was doing it, and how it could help America. And it was always putting America first in a positive way.
[00:27:01] So it seemed to me that, uh, what leaders do is, uh, they have a moral conscience uh, and, uh, a moral courage to stand up for what they believe in. Uh, they share their ideas. They make it clear that they care about other people. Leaders are socio-centric, uh, not ego-centric. It's always, even in the language, it's always us. It's always we, it's never, I, it's never me. Uh, and essentially what leaders do, what heroes do is they transform compassion and empathy, which are the highest private virtues into heroic action.
[00:27:39] It's action that changes the world.
[00:27:42] And so I started the Heroic Imagination Project, uh, 10 years ago. It's a nonprofit, uh, foundation in San Francisco, and I am again, the president as well, who's the founder of the Heroic Imgination Project. What we do is we use, um, so please visit www.HeroicImagination.org.
[00:28:01] Uh, and you see, what we do is, uh, we develop, um, lessons based on social psychology and cognitive psychology, uh, to, uh, teach not only inspire young people, high school students, college students, and now business people, how to become effective heroes, how to become effective leaders. Uh, and our programs are, for example, how to transform passive bystanders into active heroes.
[00:28:27] How to transform, uh, bias and h how to transform bias and prejudice into understanding acceptance of others, how to change having a narrow fixed mindset into a dynamic growth mindset.
[00:28:38] So, uh, so we have these programs, which we license for a small fee, and then we do training. I actually, I and a small team of master trainers go around the world.
[00:28:48] Our program is in a dozen countries, uh, as dispersed as, uh, Iran in Tehran, Iran, and Bali. Uh, in, um, and, um, oh, let's see. Um, in Poland, in Sicily, in, uh, um, Budapest, in, uh, Prague and Bratislavia and just, uh, many, many places around the world. Uh, and essentially it's just using psychology to teach people how to be wise and effective, uh, leaders.
[00:29:20] Uh, it's these days it's difficult to be a leader because they're very extreme. Uh, there's extreme opposition more than ever. Uh, there are challenges and everything has gotten very political. I mean, every, it's now the right wing versus the left wing. Uh, uh, so there, there's opposition, uh, that a leader has to learn how to reconcile, how to integrate, uh, uh, points of view of, different points of view.
[00:29:47] Uh, and sometimes it's hard because some of those different points of views are, are alien, uh, to, to some leaders' beliefs. Uh, and clearly now political leaders around the world are having a big problem. Where, former, former democracies that that came out of the Second World War where, uh, where the allies defeated the axis, uh, of, of fascism, uh, uh, and democracy ruled.
[00:30:15] Democracy was, uh, uh, uh, embodied freedom of the, of the people encouraging individual initiative. Uh, and now there's been a movement around the world toward right wing nationalism, um, uh, against, against, against integrating migrants into, uh, any country. And of course, this is ridiculous in America because every single person in America is a migrant that has, comes, has mi, their family has migrated from someplace in Europe, some places in South America, in the Middle East, in Asia.
[00:30:50] Uh, America is great because, uh, it is, has had been the melting pot, uh, uh, of, of all these different countries, uh, people from different countries, and now it goes beyond the melting pot that is, uh, we are, we are the, um, uh, the, the crossword puzzle, if you will, that put all these people together into, to make a great America.
[00:31:13] So it's hard to be a, a leader, but we need strong, effective leaders, not only political leaders. We need lead, lead, local, local community leaders. Uh, uh, every team needs a, a leader who can inspire others to, again, a leader inspires others to be their best, do their best, to work hard, uh, uh, have the, the moral courage to do what, uh, is right.
[00:31:37] Uh, and also to make a clear distinction between to the moral consciences make explicit what, what is right and what is wrong, uh, and why, uh, your followers should help you, help you and them do the right thing.
[00:31:54] We started a shyness clinic to help people, um, who were shy, uh, who were inhibited. Uh, and we are al almost a hundred percent effective because we know how to treat shyness. And that clinic is still continuing this day in, in, um, 2018 in Palo Alto University.
[00:32:15] And I wrote popular books, shyness, what it is, what to do about it, uh, which was, uh, very popular. Sold, I think 500,000 copies. So this is the combination of getting an original idea, uh, turning it into research, turning the research into treatment, and then, uh, sharing these ideas with the general public.
[00:32:38] Steve Gatena: On part three of this three part series on Relentless Hope, Dr. Philip Zimbardo talks about his studies and how good people turn evil, what to do about shyness, and the time perspective theory.
[00:32:56] From worldwide psychology conferences to TED talks, to authoring prominent books in psychology, he plans to leave a memorable and helpful legacy of education.
[00:33:12] Philip Ziombardo: I am a teacher, I'm an educator, I'm a researcher, I'm a writer. Those are my three definitions. So I've been a, uh, educator for, uh, almost 60 years now. Uh, I taught at New York University, at Columbia University, uh, at Stanford University, at Barnard University, uh, many universities overseas, uh, in Europe, um, uh, so I'm a teacher.
[00:33:38] Uh, I teach, uh, I work very hard at being an effective good teacher. Uh, I, uh, model what is best in teaching. I teach courses in how to be an effective teacher for, for graduate students. In addition to my in-class teaching, which I must say, uh, was legendary at Stanford University. Uh, I also, uh, took three years to develop.
[00:34:03] Uh, a program, uh, called Discovering Psychology, uh, for high school students and really the general public. It is, uh, it, I did it 20 years ago and I updated it, and it's still available online through Annenberg CPB Project. Uh, discovering Psychology is a 26. Um, 26 episodes each 30 minutes that I created and narrated, covering all of psychology.
[00:34:32] Um, uh, and it's probably maybe one of my most enduring, um, Assets, uh, to the field of psychology. Uh, I, secondly, I'm an original researcher. I've worked in 40, more than 40 different domains. So I'm a journalist. Uh, when I get an idea that's interesting, I follow it up with research. Uh, for me, uh, the magic word is "I wonder what would happen if", and then I do the research to answer that question.
[00:35:02] Um, uh, so in my research I've done dramatic research like the Stanford Prison Experiment, which is almost 50 years old and is still the subject of lots of controversy and, uh, and sets examples of, um, what, what truly dramatic research, uh, can be like. Uh, my most important area that my original research in the psychology of shyness, what makes people shy and what they can do to overcome it.
[00:35:32] Um, I was the pioneering research in that area, uh, way starting way back in 1972. Um, I started this Stanford Shyness Research Project, which we, we did all kinds of, uh, original research on shyness. We started a shyness clinic to help people, um, who were shy, uh, who were inhibited, uh, and we are. Al almost a hundred percent effective because we know how to treat shyness.
[00:35:59] And that clinic is still continuing this day in, in, um, 2018 in Palo Alto University. And I wrote popular books, shyness and what it is, what to do about it, uh, which was, uh, very popular, sold I think, 500,000 copies. So this is the combination of getting an original idea, uh, turning it into research, turning the research into treatment, and then, uh, sharing these ideas with the general public.
[00:36:27] And we still have a website, which people visit shyness.com. And a lot of my work, ha, was with Dr. Lynn Henderson and she's transformed the idea of shyness into social fitness. So her treatment's called Social Fitness Therapy in the same way, we all wanna be physically fit, we all wanna be socially fit, and we can do so, um, by following the path that she outlines.
[00:36:51] Um, uh, the other thing I I started is the whole do domain of psychology of time perspective, uh, how, how people divide their personal experiences into temporal categories of past, present, future. And I developed the, the, an original scale, the Zimbardo time perspective inventory ZTPI, which measures, uh, the degree to which people live in a positive or negative, past positive and negative future, present negative present.
[00:37:20] Uh, and that scale is being used around the world. Uh, there are hundreds of researchers who now study this concept of time perspective in many different ways. And we have annual, biannual international conferences, uh, every two years, uh, starting eight years ago in Colibra, Portugal, and then also Poland, then Copenhaggen in Denmark, and this, this last month we were in Nons, France, and in, in two more years, our next fifth biannual conference will be in, uh, Cologne, Germany.
[00:37:54] Uh, the current research I'm doing, uh, is, is, I call it man disconnected or man interrupted, and I'm focusing why young boys and men are getting addicted to video games and online pornography.
[00:38:07] Uh, I've done the original research in that area. I've written, as I said, several books, uh, about this, uh, uh, concept and now the addiction to video games and pornography is now a clinically valid, um, depiction of, of addiction. And in my book I described the phenomena, was the first to, uh, clearly identify both of those.
[00:38:30] And then we have, uh, we propose a number of solutions. So the prison study as a dramatic kind of research, shyness area, time perspective, uh, and, and, uh, addiction to pornography and video game. And lastly, uh, probably my most important contribution, I think is in the area of heroism.
[00:38:52] So, uh, 10 years ago I started this Heroic Imagination Project in San Francisco.
[00:38:58] We're a nonprofit foundation, um, uh, that not only inspires, but trains ordinary people how to become everyday heroes. Everyday heroes of people who stand up, speak out and take wise and effective action in challenging situations in their lives. Uh, they, they oppose, uh, the evil of, of inaction, meaning passivity in, in the face of doing nothing when people should be doing something.
[00:39:25] And also the evil of action, uh, like bullying and other hostile social actions. Um, and, um, so I, I formed this foundation. Uh, we have an active, we've had an active board of directors. Um, we, um, we have, uh, again, our website, HeroicImagination.org shares, uh, information that that we have learned, uh, with the general public.
[00:39:51] Um, our lessons are combined, uh, basic social psychology, cognitive psychology in, in, in really unique ways. So our lessons are used, as I said in high school, colleges and now in businesses. Uh, and what makes the lessons special is they're all organized around provocative videos. And, and we give the teachers or the, uh, business, uh, business, uh, center, um, a presenters guide with all the videos, with all the background research, uh, and, and, and then we lead them through how, how to, how to deliver this, these materials in a very efficient and effective and, and interesting, as I said, provocative ways.
[00:40:33] Um, uh, and so we license our lessons for re relatively minimal fee. Um, um, and then, but in order to use the lessons, uh, I or one of our master trainers has to go to the school, to the, the business, the center, and train people how to, how to be effective heroic imagination leaders.
[00:40:54] Our program now is in more than a dozen countries around the world, uh, most of which I, I have, have gone, uh, to do the training, and I visit, I go back and visit regularly.
[00:41:07] Uh, so, so our most, uh, ambitious program is in Budapest, Hungary. Uh, and now we're in more than a thousand high school throughout all of Hungary. So I usually go there every year or every other year, and we are all over Poland in Warsaw, Krakoff, and other places. Uh, we're in the Ghetto in, in, uh, Sicily in, in Palermo.
[00:41:29] Um, and we're working with African migrant youth, uh, not only, uh, teaching them our lessons, but getting them to be the trainers, uh, of Italian high school kids the same age, only now because they are the teacher, they get new respect. Uh, and um, it's been transformative for many of these, uh, uh, young African, uh, boys and girls.
[00:41:54] Uh, so. So legacy means what? What are you remembered for? So it's, it's will be mostly for all that research. Uh, uh, as I said, also, I'm, I'm a writer. I published 60 books, uh, and more than 600 articles. Uh, I, I published, uh, introductory textbooks like Psychology and Life, uh, I did many, many editions uh, which has been used literally around the world.
[00:42:23] Uh, Core Concepts, which is an up, upgraded, updated, uh, version of psychology in life. Uh, my most important book, from my point of view, is, The Looser Effect, Understanding how Good People turn Evil. And it summarizes what I learned, not only from the prison study, but the work I did with defending, um, an American prison guard in Abugrade Prison.
[00:42:47] Also my research on, um, genocides in Rwanda and um, and again in Nazi Germany. Um, and, but then it also ends with positive notions. What is it we can do to prevent good people turning evil? How can we get ordinary people to be inspired to be heroes? And out of that last chapter of that book, uh, I came to, um, to think about the Heroic Imagination Project.
[00:43:13] Uh, in addition to, uh, writing, um, uh, all those books, uh, I'm also, I I've also been, um, a frequent, uh, orator on, uh, the Ted, Ted.com conference. I've given several lectures that have gone viral, seen by, um, oh, millions of people. Uh, probably the most traumatic one was, uh, the Psychology of Evil. Um, uh, but then also I did a four minute version on the Dissent of Guys, and the Rise of Gals.
[00:43:47] Now, that's the first time I had an idea about, um, boys getting addicted to video games. Uh, and even though it was limited to four minutes. So I've given the shortest Ted Talk four minutes, and the psychology of evil was like 21 minutes, one of the longest ever. Um, both of them went viral and I still seen by, uh, millions of people.
[00:44:08] So my legacy, uh, I'd like to be remembered for the good work I've done as a good teacher, as a good researcher, as a good writer, uh, sharing psychology, giving it away to the general public, in forms that they can use it. Um, the, uh, uh, I wanna be seen as an honest, generous, humble man. Uh, a self-made man.
[00:44:30] I emerged from poverty, the son of a second generation uneducated Sicilian parents, who migrated to the United States, um, in, you know, it was grandparents migrated to the United States at the turn of the century, um, and became educated through public education. I never spent one dime on all of my education from kindergarten, I didn't have to from first grade through graduate school. Um, and, um, wanna be seen as reliable, as talented, as generous, as I said, humble, uncompromising, uh, and, so of course, and really what's important is, uh, being a good family man, uh, good husband to my wife, Christina, good, uh, father to my children, Adam Zimbardo, Tanya and Zara Zimbardo and my grandchildren, uh, little Philip Panda Zimbardo and Little Bunny Victoria Lee Zimbardo. Um, and last, or not least, to be seen as a good employer of the, the, uh, people who work as my assistants, currently Taylor Langley and before her Carol Keen and before her Nikita Duncan Kulong
[00:45:42] uh, so good father, good husband, and ideally good boss. And with that I hope I do have some legacy that endures. Ciao.
[00:45:54] Steve Gatena: God knows that we will face evil. He knows that the enemy will try to tempt us to fill our hearts with fear, so we turn away from God and from love, and God knows that we will face moral dilemmas where we might have to go against the crowd. Fortunately, God gifted us with so many tools to help us in the battle between good and evil, and He knows that inside each of us is a hero.
[00:46:25] He gifted us with a mighty conscience that shows up and shows us right and wrong. He gave us His word so that we may turn to it for strength, inspiration, and hope. He gave us these scriptures that show us examples of true heroes, Jesus being the ultimate hero, and he's given us His son Jesus. So that we may have a path to God, so that we may have a relationship with God, so that we may know God walks with us in every moment, especially the ones when we are called to act as heroes.
[00:47:18] This week on Relentless Hope, Dr Philip Zimbardo, world renowned American psychologist and professor, taught us what it means to become an every day hero. He taught us how to lead with moral courage and to find hope through prayer. Dr Zimbardo whose career spans more than 50 years and is known for original research in a variety of subjects, shared powerful stories from his childhood, to his first job teaching, which shaped his views on heroism.
[00:47:57] We hear about Dr Zimbardo's first teaching job at New York University and his involvement in anti-Vietnam war activities, including organizing one of the first ever teachings in the country and a peaceful walkout during a graduation ceremony when Robert McNamara was given an honorary degree.
[00:48:21] We learned that heroic leaders lead with moral courage and they have a moral conscience, which is the ability to stand up for what they believe in. We also learned that heroic leaders share their ideas. They make it clear that they care about people and they make a clear distinction between what is right and what is wrong.
[00:48:48] As Dr Zimbardo explained, heroic leaders also inspire others to be their best, to do their best, to work hard, and to have moral courage too. Dr Zimbardo taught us that heros take wise and effective action in challenging situations, they oppose the evil of inaction in the face of doing nothing when people should be doing something.
[00:49:19] Heroes oppose the evil of action too, like bullying or taking other hostile social actions. Heroes don't entertain those types of behaviors. We also learned from Dr Zimbardo that of the more than 60 books and 600 articles and more than 40 different domains that he has researched, written and published, he believes his most important contribution to the world is in the area of heroism, including launching the Heroic Imagination Project, which inspires and trains ordinary people to become everyday heroes.
[00:50:11] God never said that being a hero or acting with moral courage would be easy, but He promises us that we're never alone, that in the face of evil, that when we bear witness to situations, that we know are wrong, God is beside us loving, supporting, and lending us the courage that we need so that we will act according to his will.
[00:50:42] Doing the right thing isn't always easy. In fact, sometimes it's real hard. But just remember that doing the right thing is always right, and if you know someone that needs a little bit of hope, the right thing to do is to share this podcast with them, so that you too can be an everyday hero.
[00:51:19] So give this podcast a share if you enjoyed Dr Philip Zimbardo this week on Relentless Hope.