Final answer:
Philip Zimbardo considers humans to be puzzling and complex creatures, as demonstrated by the behaviors observed in the Stanford Prison Experiment.
Step-by-step explanation:
Phillip Zimbardo considers human behavior to be a puzzling and complex creature. He conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971, where participants were randomly assigned to the roles of prisoners or guards. The experiment demonstrated the power of social roles and norms in influencing human behavior, as the participants fully immersed themselves in their assigned roles, leading to extreme and abusive behavior from the guards and helplessness from the prisoners. Zimbardo later acknowledged that he himself got caught up in the role as the prison superintendent and lost his objectivity as a research psychologist.
Philip Zimbardo views humans as puzzling and complex creatures, a perspective that is especially evident in his work surrounding the Stanford Prison Experiment. In the experiment, random assignment of roles showcased how quickly individuals could adopt extreme behaviors aligned with those roles, reflecting on the complexity of human psychology in response to social situations. The participants' compliance with assigned roles of guards and prisoners, and their subsequent behaviors, indicates a deep psychological transformation that puzzled even Zimbardo himself, leading him to reflect on the moral and ethical implications of the experiment.