Obituary: Robert R. Zimmermann (1930-2009).

Obituary [Robert R. Zimmermann; 1930-2009]. Robert R. Zimmermann, coauthor with Harry Harlow of “Affectional Responses,” the influential article on “mother love” published in the August 1959 issue of Science, died of esophageal cancer on November 3, 2009, in Lansing, Michigan. A member of the American Psychological Association for more than 50 years, Zimmermann published 70 articles, book chapters, and reviews; was the principal investigator on numerous federal, state, and local grants; and directed nearly 20 doctoral dissertations and master’s theses. Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, on April 3, 1930, he was the son of William and Daisy Zimmermann. He is survived by his wife Marian Shaffer, two sisters, seven children, and seven grandchildren. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: Robert W. White (1904-2001).

Memorializes Robert W. White for his major contribution to the holistic personologic tradition in psychology. He also played a signal role in replacing the narrow drive-reduction conception of human motivation characteristic of both neobehaviorism and psychoanalysis with perspectives that include provision for intrinsic motivation with human agency. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: James J. Gibson (1904-1979).

Presents the obituary of James J. Gibson (1904-1979). Gibson was a perception psychologist who was also the creator and leader of an epistemological movement. His claim that perception is direct, requiring no inferential steps and no processing of information, presents a radical alternative to prevailing views of the nature of knowledge. Gibson's life and career are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Robert Bruce Ammons (1920-1999): Obituary.

Presents an obituary for Robert Bruce Ammons. Ammons was a researcher, professor, and founder of Perceptual and Motor Skills and Psychological Reports. He dedicated his life to encouraging scientific originality. He was a licensed clinician, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Sigma Xi, and several divisions of the American Psychological Association (Experimental Psychology, Experimental Analysis of Behavior, Clinical Psychology, and History of Psychology), and he was a member of more than 30 national and international professional organizations. He held numerous offices in the Montana Psychological Association from 1958 to 1985, including being the president and secretary of the Montana Psychological Association's Internal Certification Board. His teaching centered on the history of psychology as a modern science, the psychology of the scientist, techniques of research strategy and theory construction, child development, and aesthetics. Ammons passed away in 1999. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: W. Horsley Gantt (1892-1980).

This item presents an obituary for W. Horsley Gantt (1892-1980). He first studied medicine at the University of North Carolina and received his medical degree in 1920 from the University of Virginia. John Dewey was especially influential in helping Horsley obtain a position at the Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore in 1929, where he immediately started the first Pavlovian laboratory in the US. physiology. In 1950, while still at Hopkins, he started a second Pavlovian laboratory at the Veterans Administration Hospital at Perry Point, Maryland; he continued as director there until 1974. Horsley continued as professor emeritus at Hopkins, where, until three weeks before his death, he lectured, attended conferences, and participated in symposia. He was also a professor of psychiatry at the University of Maryland Medical School, where he taught each spring semester. Simultaneously, he was research professor at the Performance Research Laboratory of the University of Louisville, collecting data until two months before he died. Horsley was widely honored for the research and theories he developed over the past 50 years, and he personally regarded his theories of schizokinesis and autokinesis as his most important contributions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Robert Ward Leeper (1904-1986).

Robert Ward Leeper grew up near Braddock, Pennsylvania, a steel town where most of his classmates and friends were from the families of recent immigrants from many European countries. From childhood on, Leeper assumed that he was to contribute to the world's welfare. He chose his graduate school as carefully as he had chosen work experiences and entered Clark University in 1927. He received his MA degree in 1928 and his PhD in 1930. In 1930, at the depth of the Great Depression, Leeper was successful in finding a position at the University of Arkansas, where he spent the next three years. In 1933- 1934 he worked with Karl Lashley in Chicago on a National Research Council fellowship. In 1937, Leeper settled down at the University of Oregon, where he was to remain for the rest of his life. His contributions to psychology included ideas that were precursors of the cognitive learning theories that prevail today and a continuing attack on the concept of emotion as disorganized behavior. In addition, Leeper served as president of the Oregon Psychological Association, the Western Psychological Association, Division 1 of the American Psychological Association, and as a member of various committees and boards. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: Nathaniel N. Wagner (1930-1978).

Nathaniel N. Wagner was born in Brooklyn, New York, on January 31, 1930. He received a BA from Long Island University in 1951 and completed his MA and PhD at Columbia University. From 1956 to 1962, Wagner held various short-term and part-time appointments: Clinical psychologist in the U.S. Army and instructor at the University of Georgia, Pennsylvania State University, Dutchess Community College in New York, and Bard College. His main position during this period was as a clinical psychologist at the Astor Home for Children. In 1962 Wagner came to the University of Washington, where he served as professor of psychology and obstetrics/gynecology and as director of the Clinical Psychology Training Program from 1970 until his death. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: Felix E. Goodson II (1922-2007).

Provides an obituary for Felix E. Goodson II, a psychologist who focused mainly on evolutionary psychology and who passed away on May 17, 2007. In his teaching and writing, Felix emphasized the historical and theoretical roots of psychology, as can be seen in the four chapters he wrote for Theories in Contemporary Psychology (2nd ed., 1976), co-authored with Melvin Marx. His book The Evolutionary Foundations of Psychology: A Unified Theory (1973) grew out of almost two decades of seminars and empirical studies with DePauw students and colleagues. However, his magnum opus, 30 years in the making, was The Evolution and Function of Cognition (2003), published when Felix was 81 years old, 18 years after his formal retirement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: Gardner Lindzey (1920–2008).

Presents an obituary for Gardner Lindzey, who was a major influence on the discipline of psychology in at least four different areas: social psychology, personality psychology, behavior genetics, and the history of psychology in autobiography. He conceptualized each of these fields in ways that stimulated their growth for over four decades and that provide challenges for contemporary psychologists. Gardner Lindzey was born on November 27, 1920, in Wilmington, Delaware, and died in Palo Alto, California, on February 4, 2008. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: Helmut E. Adler (1920-2001).

Memorializes Helmut E. Adler, known for his research on spatial orientation in birds and for his writings on the history of psychology. In the 1960s with the help of his son Barry, he used computer simulations to study bird migration patterns, a highly innovative technique for the time. His most notable work in the field of the history of psychology was his translation of Volume 1 of Fechner's Elemente der Psychophysik in 1966. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Robert Campbell Davis (1925–1999).

Presents an obituary for Robert Campbell Davis. Davis was known for his role in helping to organize APA's Division of the History of Psychology, and serving as its delegate to the APA Council in the early 1970s. During his lifetime, he served as a conscientious objector to U.S. involvement in World War II, tested treatments for malaria at the Illinois State Penitentiary, earned degrees in sociology and social psychology, and carried out an early influential study of evolving public attitudes toward science. He taught sociology and criminology, and directed research in sociology of science, at Case Institute of Technology, which later became Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland. After assuming emeritus status in 1992, he focused his historical interests on the antebellum Black elite of New York City. Davis died in 1999. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: Alison Turtle (1939-2006).

Presents an obituary for Alison Turtle, the first scholar to write detailed historiographies of Australian psychology. Ms. Turtle was always interested in the socio-cultural context of psychology, recognizing that neither psychology specifically nor science generally are conducted in a cultural vacuum, hence her studies in cross-cultural psychology. She was a good feminist, a defender of animal rights, and an activist in the local academic union. As a unionist, she had particular concerns with superannuation questions and with women's rights and conditions of employment. Ms. Turtle died from the effects of cancer in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, on April 26, 2006. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: Ivan Steiner (1917-2001).

I. D. Steiner died in Arden, North Carolina, on December 1, 2001, at the age of 84--and social psychology lost one of its major theorists and researchers. Although Steiner's broad conceptual interests led him to write on a variety of theoretical topics throughout his career--for example, interpersonal behavior, and social perception, authoritarianism, perceived freedom, responses to inconsistency, the attribution of choice, heuristic models of groupthink--small-group performance remained his principle focus and the primary engine of his fame. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: Edwin E. Ghiselli (1907-1980).

This obituary describes the career and contributions to industrial and personnel psychology of Edwin E. Ghiselli, who was born and grew up in San Francisco and received his undergraduate and graduate education at the University of California, Berkeley. His contributions included the emergence of the University of California, Berkeley, as an internationally recognized center for applied psychology, which was due in part to Ghiselli's personal talents as a scientist and an educator. Notwithstanding his considerable gifts as a teacher and administrator, his most important and enduring contributions were made as a research scientist. These included the publication, singly or in collaboration with various associates, of more than 100 research reports that appeared in a wide range of professional journals. His first book was written with C. W. Brown; published in 1948 with the title Personnel and Industrial Psychology, it became the most widely used work in the field. A second collaborative effort with Brown led to publication of The Scientific Method in Psychology in 1955. Writing alone, Ghiselli completed his volume Theory of Psychological Measurement in 1964 and Validity of Occupational Tests in 1966. The latter year also saw publication of Managerial Thinking: An International Study, of which Mason Haire and Lyman Porter were coauthors. In 1971, Ghiselli brought out yet another influential book, Explorations in Managerial Talent. Ghiselli's scientific contributions brought recognition and rewards at national and international levels. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: Florence Halpern (1900-1981).

This article describes the career and contributions to psychology of Florence Halpern, born January 5, 1900. She was the "grandmother of psychology" in New York and raised many generations of professional psychologists who today are among the senior members and leaders of the profession. She was not only an outstanding clinician, a stimulating and respected teacher, and a concerned and aware professional; she was at the same time a wife, a mother of two children (now both successful professionals), an involved grandmother, a woman of broad cultural interests, and an inspired hostess who loved to do her own cooking and entertaining. Highlights are provided of her academic career, her contributions to the professionalization of psychology, her activities at the national level in psychology, and her scholarship. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: Patricia Cain Smith (1917-2007).

Provides the obituary for one of the field of industrial-organizational (I/O) psychology's most eminent scholars and practitioners, Patricia Cain Smith, professor emerita of psychology, Bowling Green State University, who passed away on October 26, 2007. Pat is remembered for her sense of humor, her passion for clarity in thinking and writing, and her contagious enthusiasm for discovery and the achievement of true understanding. She has left a lasting legacy that has made the world, and especially the world of work, a better place. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: Jacquelin R. Goldman (1934–2008).

Presents an obituary for Jacquelin R. Goldman, professor emeritus in the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology and the Department of Psychology at the University of Florida, died November 3, 2008, at the age of 74 in Gainesville, Florida. She spent her entire career of 35-plus years at the University of Florida. She mentored 24 doctoral students, authored and edited three psychology textbooks, and published more than 40 professional articles and book chapters. She was an active contributor to university governance and was involved in teaching, research, clinical supervision, and the provision of clinical services to children. She was also an active contributor to the profession, having served as president of the Florida State Board of Examiners of Psychology (1975–1977), chair of the Southeastern Regional Board of the American Board of Professional Psychology (1983–1993), and president of the American Board of Professional Psychology (1990–1991), among other professional involvements. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: Joseph Banks Rhine (1895-1980).

This item presents an obituary for Joseph Banks Rhine (1895-1980). During more than 50 years of research and related activities, Rhine made a sustained effort to develop psychical research into an experimental, academically based science and to win acceptance for it from the scientific community. The terms 'parapsychology' and 'extra-sensory perception', which he introduced in 1934 to denote, respectively, the new field devoted to the experimental study of psychic abilities and the abilities themselves, have become standard terms and testify to Rhine's importance for the field. Although Rhine's critics were able to score some minor points against his statistical techniques, he and his colleagues were able to demonstrate that their evaluative methods were basically sound, and they received support from the president of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. The APA was subsequently willing to consider parapsychology seriously to the extent of appointing a committee of APA members to advise the "Journal of Parapsychology". The Duke parapsychology group, in turn, published their most ambitious survey of the field in 1940 in their book "Extra-Sensory Perception After Sixty Years", hoping to win the support of behavioral scientists. In the ensuing decades, however, parapsychology did not succeed in developing an academic network much beyond what it possessed in 1940. Rhine was recognized both within and without parapsychology as the founder and most authoritative spokesperson of the field. Only months before his death, in October 1979, he was elected president of the Society for Psychical Research in London. Rhine was a man of striking appearance and strong personality. The latter was important to the maintenance of his values and goals in the face of the hostility and ridicule that continued, sporadically, until the very end of his life. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)