R<>ichard J. Gerrig is a professor of psychology at Stony Brook University. Before joining the Stony Brook faculty, Gerrig taught at Yale University, where he was awarded the Lex Hixon Prize for teaching excellence in the social sciences. Gerrig's research on cognitive psychological aspects of language use has been widely published. One line of work examines the mental processes that underlie efficient communication. A second research program considers the cognitive and emotional changes readers experience when they are transported to the worlds of stories. His book
Experiencing Narrative Worlds was published by Yale University Press. Gerrig is a Fellow of both the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science. He is also an associate editor of
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. Gerrig is the proud father of Alexandra, who at age 16 provides substantial and valuable advice about many aspects of psychology and life in the 21st century. Life on Long Island is greatly enhanced by the guidance and support of Timothy Peterson.
Philip G. Zimbardo is an emeritus professor of psychology at Stanford University, where he has taught since 1968, after earlier teaching at Yale University, New York University, and Columbia University. He also continues to teach at the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey. Zimbardo is internationally recognized as the "voice and face of contemporary psychology" through his widely seen PBS-TV series, Discovering Psychology, his media appearances, best-selling trade books on shyness, and his classic research, The Stanford Prison Experiment. His current research interests are in the domain of experimental social psychology, with a scattered emphasis on everything interesting to study from shyness to time perspective, persuasion, cults, madness, violence, vandalism, political psychology, and terrorism. Zimbardo has been a prolific, innovative researcher across a number of fields in social and general psychology, with more than 300 professional articles and chapters and 50 books to his credit. To recognize the breadth of his research achievements, the American Psychological Association presented Zimbardo with the Ernest Hilgard Award for lifetime contributions to general psychology. He has also won the Vaclav Havel Foundation Award for his body of research on the human condition. Zimbardo has been President of the Western Psychological Association (twice), President of the American Psychological Association, Chair of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP), and now Chair of the Western Psychological Foundation and Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Policy, Education, and Research on Terrorism. He is most excited about the publication of his new trade book in March 2007 (Random House), which he has been working on intensely for the past several years. Its domain is the psychology of evil; its provocative title: "The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil."