Philip Zimbardo, the renowned psychologist whose controversial Stanford Prison Experiment explored how social situations influence individual behavior, has died at the age of 91.
Stanford University, where Zimbardo was a professor emeritus of psychology, announced his death on Oct. 18. An obituary on his personal website stated that he died peacefully at his San Francisco home on Oct. 14, surrounded by his wife and children.
During a career spanning more than five decades, Zimbardo researched a wide range of topics including why people are shy, why people choose to be bystanders in the face of wrongdoing, and how cult leaders exert mind-control over followers….