What troubles me is the Internet and the electronic technology revolution. Shyness is fueled in part by so many people spending huge amounts of time alone, isolated on e-mail, in chat rooms, which reduces their face-to-face contact with other people.
The world is, was, will always be filled with good and evil, because good and evil is the yin and yang of the human condition.
Heroes are those who can somehow resist the power of the situation and act out of noble motives, or behave in ways that do not demean others when they easily can.
Bullies may be the perpetrators of evil, but it is the evil of passivity of all those who know what is happening and never intervene that perpetuates such abuse.
Coming from New York, I know that if you go by a delicatessen, and you put a sweet cucumber in the vinegar barrel, the cucumber might say, “No, I want to retain my sweetness.” But it’s hopeless. The barrel will turn the sweet cucumber into a pickle. You can’t be a sweet cucumber in a vinegar barrel.
Evil is knowing better, but willingly doing worse.
I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures. Why do good people sometimes act evil? Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things?
The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces.
To be a hero you have to learn to be a deviant – because you’re always going against the conformity of the group.
You are not the same person working alone as you are in a group; in a romantic setting versus an educational one; when you are with close friends or in an anonymous crowd; or when you are traveling abroad as when at home base.
Where can you find purpose? Like success and happiness, our purpose exists in the present, and we constantly strive toward the future to maintain it. What it is for which we strive is up to each of us. The important thing is that we strive toward something.
Prejudice and discrimination have always been a big part of my life. When I was 6, I got beat up and called dirty Jew boy because they thought I looked Jewish.
That human behavior is more influenced by things outside of us than inside. The situation is the external environment. The inner environment is genes, moral history, religious training.
Situational variables can exert powerful influences over human behavior, more so that we recognize or acknowledge.
One can’t live mindfully without being enmeshed in psychological processes that are around us.
Sticks and stones can break your bones, but names can kill you.
After doing psychology for half a century, my passion for all of it is greater than ever.