Tag: Psychologist

On This Day … 20 August [2022]

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People (Births)

  • 1913 – Roger Wolcott Sperry, American neuropsychologist and neurobiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1994).

People (Deaths)

  • 1985 – Donald O. Hebb, Canadian psychologist and academic (b. 1904).

Roger Wolcott Sperry

Roger Wolcott Sperry (20 August 1913 to 17 April 1994) was an American neuropsychologist, neurobiologist and Nobel laureate who, together with David Hunter Hubel and Torsten Nils Wiesel, won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for his work with split-brain research.

A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Sperry as the 44th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.

Donald O. Hebb

Donald Olding Hebb FRS (22 July 1904 to 20 August 1985) was a Canadian psychologist who was influential in the area of neuropsychology, where he sought to understand how the function of neurons contributed to psychological processes such as learning.

He is best known for his theory of Hebbian learning, which he introduced in his classic 1949 work The Organisation of Behaviour. He has been described as the father of neuropsychology and neural networks. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Hebb as the 19th most cited psychologist of the 20th century. His views on learning described behaviour and thought in terms of brain function, explaining cognitive processes in terms of connections between neuron assemblies.

On This Day … 18 August [2022]

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People (Births)

  • 1914 – Lucy Ozarin, United States Navy lieutenant commander and psychiatrist (d. 2017).

People (Deaths)

  • 1990 – B.F. Skinner, American psychologist and philosopher, invented the Skinner box (b. 1904).

Lucy Ozarin

Lucy Dorothy Ozarin (18 August 1914 to 17 September 2017) was a psychiatrist who served in the United States Navy.

She was one of the first women psychiatrists commissioned in the Navy, and she was one of seven female Navy psychiatrists who served during World War II.

B.F. Skinner

Burrhus Frederic Skinner (20 March 1904 to 18 August 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviourist, author, inventor, and social philosopher. He was a professor of psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974.

Considering free will to be an illusion, Skinner saw human action as dependent on consequences of previous actions, a theory he would articulate as the principle of reinforcement: If the consequences to an action are bad, there is a high chance the action will not be repeated; if the consequences are good, the probability of the action being repeated becomes stronger.

Skinner developed behaviour analysis, especially the philosophy of radical behaviourism, and founded the experimental analysis of behaviour, a school of experimental research psychology. He also used operant conditioning to strengthen behaviour, considering the rate of response to be the most effective measure of response strength. To study operant conditioning, he invented the operant conditioning chamber (aka the Skinner box), and to measure rate he invented the cumulative recorder. Using these tools, he and Charles Ferster produced Skinner’s most influential experimental work, outlined in their 1957 book Schedules of Reinforcement.

Skinner was a prolific author, publishing 21 books and 180 articles. He imagined the application of his ideas to the design of a human community in his 1948 utopian novel, Walden Two, while his analysis of human behaviour culminated in his 1958 work, Verbal Behaviour.

Skinner, John B. Watson and Ivan Pavlov, are considered to be the pioneers of modern behaviourism. Accordingly, a June 2002 survey listed Skinner as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century.

On This Day … 16 August [2022]

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People (Births)

  • 1832 – Wilhelm Wundt, German physician, psychologist, and physiologist (d. 1920).

Wilhelm Wundt

Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (16 August 1832 to 31 August 1920) was a German physiologist, philosopher, and professor, known today as one of the fathers of modern psychology.

Wundt, who distinguished psychology as a science from philosophy and biology, was the first person ever to call himself a psychologist. He is widely regarded as the “father of experimental psychology”. In 1879, at the University of Leipzig, Wundt founded the first formal laboratory for psychological research. This marked psychology as an independent field of study. By creating this laboratory he was able to establish psychology as a separate science from other disciplines. He also formed the first academic journal for psychological research, Philosophische Studien (from 1881 to 1902), set up to publish the institute’s research.

A survey published in American Psychologist in 1991 ranked Wundt’s reputation as first for “all-time eminence” based on ratings provided by 29 American historians of psychology. William James and Sigmund Freud were ranked a distant second and third.

On This Day … 14 August [2022]

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People (Births)

  • 1840 – Richard von Krafft-Ebing, German-Austrian psychologist and author (d. 1902).

Richard von Krafft-Ebing

Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing (full name Richard Fridolin Joseph Freiherr Krafft von Festenberg auf Frohnberg, genannt von Ebing; 14 August 1840 to 22 December 1902) was a German psychiatrist and author of the foundational work Psychopathia Sexualis (1886).

Krafft-Ebing was born on 14 August 1840 in Mannheim, Germany. He studied medicine at the University of Heidelberg, where he specialised in psychiatry. He later practised in psychiatric asylums. After leaving his work in asylums, he pursued a career in psychiatry, forensics, and hypnosis.

He died in Graz on 22 December 1902. He was recognised as an authority on deviant sexual behaviour and its medico-legal aspects.

On This Day … 13 August [2022]

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People (Deaths)

  • 1995 – Jan Křesadlo, Czech-English psychologist and author (b. 1926).

Jan Kresadlo

Václav Jaroslav Karel Pinkava (09 December 1926 to 13 August 1995), better known by his pen name Jan Křesadlo, was a Czech psychologist who was also a prizewinning novelist and poet.

An anti-communist, Pinkava emigrated to Britain with his wife and four children following the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet-led armies of the Warsaw pact. He worked as a clinical psychologist until his early retirement in 1982, when he turned to full-time writing. His first novel “Mrchopěvci” (GraveLarks) was published by Josef Škvorecký’s emigre publishing house 68 Publishers, and earned the 1984 Egon Hostovský prize.

He chose his pseudonym (which means firesteel) partly because it contains the uniquely Czech sound ř; in addition, he was fond of creating more pseudonyms such as Jake Rolands (an anagram), J.K. Klement (after his grandfather, for translations into English), Juraj Hron (for his Slovak-Moravian writings), Ferdinand Lučovický z Lučovic a na Suchým dole (for his music), Kamil Troud (for his illustrations), Ἰωάννης Πυρεῖα (for his Astronautilia), and more.

Pinkava was also active in choral music, composing (among others) a Glagolitic Mass. As well, he worked in mathematical logic, discovering the many-valued logic algebra which bears his name.

A polymath and polyglot, Pinkava was fond of setting intense goals for himself, such as translating Jaroslav Seifert’s interwoven sonnet cycle about Prague, ‘A Wreath of Sonnets’. He published a collection of his own poems in seven languages. Perhaps his most staggering achievement is ΑΣΤΡΟΝΑΥΤΙΛΙΑ Hvězdoplavba, a 6575-line science fiction epic poem, an odyssey in classical Homeric Greek, with its parallel hexameter translation into Czech. This was published shortly after his death, in a limited edition. (ISBN 80-237-2452-5) Only his first, prize-winning novel has been published in English translation, as GraveLarks in a bilingual edition in 1999 (ISBN 9788086013817) and in a revised edition in 2015 (ISBN 9780993377303).

He is the father of film director Jan Pinkava who received an Oscar for Geri’s Game in 1998 and also illustrated GraveLarks.

On This Day … 09 August [2022]

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People (Births)

  • 1890 – Eino Kaila, Finnish philosopher and psychologist, attendant of the Vienna circle (d. 1958).
  • 1896 – Jean Piaget, Swiss psychologist and philosopher (d. 1980).
  • 1949 – Jonathan Kellerman, American psychologist and author.

People (Deaths)

  • 1949 – Edward Thorndike, American psychologist and academic (b. 1874).

Eino Kaila

Eino Sakari Kaila (09 August 1890 to 31 July 1958) was a Finnish philosopher, critic and teacher.

He worked in numerous fields including psychology (sometimes considered to be the founder of Finnish psychology), physics and theatre, and attempted to find unifying principles behind various branches of human and natural sciences.

Jean Piget

Jean William Fritz Piaget (09 August 1896 to 16 September 1980) was a Swiss psychologist known for his work on child development. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called “genetic epistemology”.

Piaget placed great importance on the education of children. As the Director of the International Bureau of Education, he declared in 1934 that “only education is capable of saving our societies from possible collapse, whether violent, or gradual”. His theory of child development is studied in pre-service education programmes. Educators continue to incorporate constructivist-based strategies.

Piaget created the International Centre for Genetic Epistemology in Geneva in 1955 while on the faculty of the University of Geneva, and directed the centre until his death in 1980. The number of collaborations that its founding made possible, and their impact, ultimately led to the Centre being referred to in the scholarly literature as “Piaget’s factory”.

According to Ernst von Glasersfeld, Piaget was “the great pioneer of the constructivist theory of knowing”. However, his ideas did not become widely popularised until the 1960s. This then led to the emergence of the study of development as a major sub-discipline in psychology. By the end of the 20th century, Piaget was second only to B.F. Skinner as the most-cited psychologist of that era.

Jonathan Kellerman

Jonathan Seth Kellerman (born 09 August 1949) is an American novelist, psychologist, and Edgar- and Anthony Award–winning author best known for his popular mystery novels featuring the character Alex Delaware, a child psychologist who consults for the Los Angeles Police Department.

Born on the Lower East Side of New York City, his family relocated to Los Angeles when Jonathan was nine years old.

Kellerman graduated from the University of Southern California (USC) with a doctor of philosophy degree in psychology in 1974, and began working as a staff psychologist at the USC School of Medicine, where he eventually became a full clinical professor of paediatrics. He opened a private practice in the early 1980s while writing novels in his garage at night.

His first published novel, When the Bough Breaks, appeared in 1985, many years after writing and having works rejected. He then wrote five best-selling novels while still a practicing psychologist. In 1990, he quit his private practice to write full-time. He has written more than 40 crime novels, as well as nonfiction works and children’s books.

Thomas Thorndike

Edward Lee Thorndike (31 August 1874 to 09 August 1949) was an American psychologist who spent nearly his entire career at Teachers College, Columbia University.

His work on comparative psychology and the learning process led to the theory of connectionism and helped lay the scientific foundation for educational psychology. He also worked on solving industrial problems, such as employee exams and testing. He was a member of the board of the Psychological Corporation and served as president of the American Psychological Association in 1912. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Thorndike as the ninth-most cited psychologist of the 20th century. Edward Thorndike had a powerful impact on reinforcement theory and behaviour analysis, providing the basic framework for empirical laws in behaviour psychology with his law of effect. Through his contributions to the behavioural psychology field came his major impacts on education, where the law of effect has great influence in the classroom.

On This Day … 04 August [2022]

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People (Births)

  • 1941 – Ted Strickland, American psychologist and politician, 68th Governor of Ohio.

Ted Strickland

Theodore Strickland (born 04 August 1941) is an American politician who was the 68th governor of Ohio, serving from 2007 to 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served in the United States House of Representatives, representing Ohio’s 6th congressional district (1993-1995, 1997-2007).

Strickland was born in Lucasville, Ohio, the son of Carrie (Carver) and Charles Orville Strickland. He was one of nine children. A 1959 graduate of Northwest High School, Strickland went on to be the first member of his family to attend college. Strickland received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history with a minor in psychology from Asbury College in 1963. In 1966, he received a Master of Arts degree in guidance counselling from the University of Kentucky and a Master of Divinity (M.Div.) from the Asbury Theological Seminary in 1967. He then returned to the University of Kentucky to earn his Ph.D. in counselling psychology in 1980. He is married to Frances Strickland, an educational psychologist.

Strickland worked as a counselling psychologist at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. He was an administrator at a Methodist children’s home and was a professor of psychology at Shawnee State University. Strickland is an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church. He was a minister at a Methodist church in Portsmouth, Ohio.

In the 2006 gubernatorial election, Strickland was elected to succeed term-limited Republican incumbent Bob Taft, receiving 60% of the vote and defeating Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. He was narrowly defeated for re-election in the 2010 gubernatorial election by former US Representative John Kasich.

In April 2014, Strickland became president of the Centre for American Progress Action Fund, a progressive public policy research and advocacy organisation. Strickland left that position in February 2015, and on 25 February 2015, he announced his intention to run for the United States Senate against incumbent Rob Portman. Strickland lost by 20 points. As of 2022, he is the last Democrat to serve as Governor of Ohio.

On This Day … 31 July [2022]

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People (Deaths)

  • 1958 – Eino Kaila, Finnish philosopher and psychologist, attendant of the Vienna circle (b. 1890).

Eino Kaila

Eino Sakari Kaila (09 August 1890 to 31 July 1958) was a Finnish philosopher, critic and teacher. He worked in numerous fields including psychology (sometimes considered to be the founder of Finnish psychology), physics and theatre, and attempted to find unifying principles behind various branches of human and natural sciences.

In the 1920s he worked in the field of literary criticism and psychology as a professor at the University of Turku and is said to have been the first to introduce gestalt psychology to Finland.

Despite being greatly influenced by the logical positivists and critical of unempirical speculation, an aspect common to all of Kaila’s work was in strive for a holistic, almost pantheistic understanding of things. He also maintained a more naturalist approach to psychology. His book Persoonallisuus (1934, Personality) was a psychological study with philosophical dimensions, in which emphasized the biological nature of psychological phenomena. During the last years of his life he attempted to construct a theory of everything in Terminalkausalität Als Die Grundlage Eines Unitarischen Naturbegriffs, but this, what was meant to be the first installment in a more extensive study, was not met with much enthusiasm outside of Finland.

Though he withdrew his support of the National Socialists before the end of the Second World War, he wrote about the differences between “western” and “eastern” thought and claimed that the homogeneity of the people was a necessity for a functioning democracy.

On This Day … 27 July [2022]

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People (Births)

  • 1906 – Herbert Jasper, Canadian psychologist and neurologist (d. 1999).

People (Deaths)

  • 1931 – Auguste Forel, Swiss neuroanatomist and psychiatrist (b. 1848).

Herbert Jasper

Herbert Henri Jasper OC GOQ FRSC (27 July 1906 to 11 March 1999) was a Canadian psychologist, physiologist, neurologist, and epileptologist (an adult/paediatric neurologist who specialises in the treatment of epilepsy).

Born in La Grande, Oregon, he attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon and received his PhD in psychology from the University of Iowa in 1931 and earned a Doctor of Science degree from the University of Paris for research in neurobiology.

From 1946 to 1964 he was Professor of Experimental Neurology at the Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University and then from 1965 to 1976 he was Professor of Neurophysiology, Université de Montréal. He did his most important research with Wilder Penfield at McGill University. He was a member of the American Academy of Neurology and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was also a member of the Canadian Neurological Society and the Royal Society of Medicine. He wrote more than 350 scientific publications.

Auguste Forel

Auguste-Henri Forel (01 September 1848 to 27 July 1931) was a Swiss myrmecologist (studies ants), neuroanatomist, psychiatrist and eugenicist, notable for his investigations into the structure of the human brain and that of ants.

For example, he is considered a co-founder of the neuron theory. Forel is also known for his early contributions to sexology and psychology. From 1978 until 2000 Forel’s image appeared on the 1000 Swiss franc banknote.

On This Day … 24 July [2022]

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People (Deaths)

  • 2007 – Albert Ellis, American psychologist and author (b. 1913).
  • 2013 – Virginia E. Johnson, American psychologist and sexologist (b. 1925).

Albert Ellis

Albert Ellis (27 September 1913 to 24 July 2007) was an American psychologist and psychotherapist who founded rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT). He held MA and PhD degrees in clinical psychology from Columbia University, and was certified by the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP). He also founded, and was the President of, the New York City-based Albert Ellis Institute. He is generally considered to be one of the originators of the cognitive revolutionary paradigm shift in psychotherapy and an early proponent and developer of cognitive-behavioural therapies.

Based on a 1982 professional survey of US and Canadian psychologists, he was considered the second most influential psychotherapist in history (Carl Rogers ranked first in the survey; Sigmund Freud was ranked third). Psychology Today noted that, “No individual—not even Freud himself—has had a greater impact on modern psychotherapy.”

Virginia E. Johnson

Virginia E. Johnson (born Mary Virginia Eshelman; 11 February 1925 to 24 July 2013) was an American sexologist and a member of the Masters and Johnson sexuality research team.

Along with her partner, William H. Masters, she pioneered research into the nature of human sexual response and the diagnosis and treatment of sexual dysfunctions and disorders from 1957 until the 1990s.