My early childhood prepared me to be a social psychologist. I grew up in a South Bronx ghetto in a very poor family. From Sicilian origin, I was the first person in my family to complete high school, let alone go to college.
Interpretation
Early life experiences shape one's career and perspectives, especially in understanding social psychology.
Philip Zimbardo reflects on how his challenging upbringing in the South Bronx and his family background molded him into a social psychologist. His unique journey from poverty to achieving educational milestones highlights the impact of environment and determination in pursuing a career that helps understand societal behaviors.
In practice
This quote can be used during a graduation speech to inspire students from underprivileged backgrounds.
Before I knew that a man could kill a man, because it happens all the time. Now I know that even the person with whom you've shared food, or whom you've slept, even he can kill you with no trouble. The closest neighbor can kill you with his teeth: that is what I have Learned since the genocide, and my eyes no longer gaze the same on the face of the world.
Boys' brains are being digitally rewired for change, novelty, excitement and constant arousal. That means they're totally out of sync in traditional classes, which are analog, static, interactively passive.
Evil is knowing better, but willingly doing worse.
Time perspective is one of the most powerful influences on all of human behavior. We're trying to show how people become biased to being exclusively past-, present- or future-oriented.
Many cults start off with high ideals that get corrupted by leaders or their board of advisors who become power-hungry and dominate and control members' lives. No group with high ideals starts off as a 'cult'; they become one when their errant ways are exposed.
Heroes are Ordinary People whose social action is Extra-Ordinary/ who ACT when others are passive, who give up EGO-centrism for SOCIO-centrism.
Man is endogenous, and education is his unfolding. The aid we have from others is mechanical, compared with the discoveries of nature in us. What is thus learned is delightful in the doing, and the effect remains.
Usually kids who are talented have the brashness to think they can do anything, but they don't often get the chance to see how close they can come.
Watching a child makes it obvious that the development of his mind comes through his movements.
And read… read all the time… read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of life.
We don't need lists of rights and wrongs, tables of do's and don'ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever.
No book, however good, can survive a hostile reading.
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