APA Dictionary of Psychology

zombie

Updated on 11/15/2023

in West African and Haitian folk belief, a corpse that is reanimated by witchcraft. Origins of the term reflect the brutality and inhumanity experienced by African slaves in Haiti in the 17th and 18th centuries: in folklore, slaves who died by suicide would not be allowed to enter the freedom of the afterlife in Africa, but would instead be condemned for eternity to be wandering their plantations as soulless undead. Zombie legends in Haitian voodoo were long surmised to have been based on a real practice of keeping living persons in a trancelike state by means of certain powerful drugs; this notion is now regarded as discredited. Zombies continue to captivate the imagination, however, particularly as menacing, living-dead stalkers in horror movies and other pop-culture genres.
in philosophy of mind, the hypothetical being at the heart of the zombie argument. Also called philosophical zombie (p-zombie). See also zimbo.
a colloquial term for the drug PCP.

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