The Heroic Imagination Project (HIP) is a

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

research and education

organization An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived fro ...

dedicated to promoting

heroism A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or a main fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or strength. Like other formerly gender-specific terms (like ''actor''), ''hero ...

in everyday life. HIP started as the controversial

Stanford Prison Experiment The Stanford prison experiment (SPE) was a psychological experiment conducted in the summer of 1971. It was a two-week simulation of a prison environment that examined the effects of situational variables on participants' reactions and behav ...

by founder and director

Philip Zimbardo Philip George Zimbardo (; born March 23, 1933) is an American psychologist and a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He became known for his 1971 Stanford prison experiment, which was later severely criticized for both ethical and scien ...

in 1971 that later became a collective

social experiment A social experiment is a type of psychological or sociological research for testing people's reactions to certain situations or events. The experiment depends on a particular social approach where the main source of information is the point of v ...

. It conducts trainings and workshops that tackle

bullying Bullying is the use of force, coercion, hurtful teasing or threat, to abuse, aggressively dominate or intimidate. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception (by the bully or by others) of an i ...

, police oversight,

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

sexism Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers prima ...

for businesses and schools across the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

and other nations around the world. It works with several governmental agencies like the Police Orientation and Preparation Program to better understand the impact of

bias Bias is a disproportionate weight ''in favor of'' or ''against'' an idea or thing, usually in a way that is closed-minded, prejudicial, or unfair. Biases can be innate or learned. People may develop biases for or against an individual, a group ...

on oversight strategies, profiling tendencies and safety protocol. As of 2011, the

project A project is any undertaking, carried out individually or collaboratively and possibly involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a particular goal. An alternative view sees a project managerially as a sequence of even ...

is collecting data from former American

gang A gang is a social group, group or secret society, society of associates, friends or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over Territory (animal), territory in a communi ...

members Member may refer to: * Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon * Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set * In object-oriented programming, a member of a class ** Field (computer science), entries in ...

and individuals with former ties to

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

for comparison, in an attempt to better understand how

individuals An individual is that which exists as a distinct entity. Individuality (or self-hood) is the state or quality of being an individual; particularly (in the case of humans) of being a person unique from other people and possessing one's own need ...

change

violent behavior Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened ...

. This

research Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness t ...

portion of the project is co-headed by Rony Berger, Yotam Heineburg, and Leonard Beckum. He published an article contrasting heroism and

altruism Altruism is the moral principle, principle and moral courage, moral practice of concern for the welfare and/or happiness of other human kind, human beings or animals, resulting in a quality of life both material and spirituality, spiritual. It ...

in 2011 with Zeno Franco and Kathy Blau in the

Review of General Psychology ''Review of General Psychology'' is the quarterly scientific journal of the American Psychological Association Division 1: The Society for General Psychology. The journal publishes cross-disciplinary psychological articles that are conceptual, the ...

.Franco, Z., Blau, K. & Zimbardo, P. (2011). Heroism: A conceptual analysis and differentiation between heroic action and altruism. Review of General Psychology, 5(2), 99-113. According to their website, HIP is a leader in giving people new skills through groundbreaking scientific research, experiential training workshops and social

hackathons A hackathon (also known as a hack day, hackfest, datathon or codefest; a portmanteau of hacking and marathon) is an event where people engage in rapid and collaborative engineering over a relatively short period of time such as 24 or 48 hours. Th ...

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official website
Moral psychology Non-profit organizations based in the United States Positive psychology