"We think heroism is trainable, we’re trying to make people aware that most heroes are ordinary people."

http://qz.com/119836/you-can-train-humans-to-be-good-people/

"(...) Zimbardo spent years studying how certain situations can give rise to evil. He appeared as an expert witness in an Abu Ghraib guard’s trial and wrote an acclaimed book called The Lucifer Effect. As he finished his book manuscript, though, he realized the strain of focusing on the worst in human nature was getting to him. He thought about Christina Maslach, the psychologist who would eventually become his wife, and how she had interceded during the Stanford Prison Experiment, telling him what he was doing to his subjects was terrible. He knew it had taken courage for Maslach to speak up, and he pondered why some people step forward to help others even at personal risk, while most are content to remain on the sidelines. Inspired, he decided to devote himself to studying and promoting heroism, and he founded his own nonprofit, the San Francisco-based Heroic Imagination Project (HIP). 'We think heroism is trainable,' he says. 'We’re trying to make people aware that most heroes are ordinary people.'

At first glance, Zimbardo’s career shift might seem like a dramatic turnabout, but it’s actually a very logical follow-on to his earlier work."