| Abstract: | Presents an obituary for Barbara Wallston. Wallston graduated from Cornell University in 1965 with a major in mathematics. In 1966 she obtained an MA in Counseling and Guidance from the University of Connecticut, and in 1972 she received her PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Wisconsin. She spent all of her 15-year career as an academic researcher at George Peabody College for Teachers of Vanderbilt University. For most of her professional life, much of Wallston's work focused on the development and utilization of the health locus of control scale that she devised with her colleague and former husband, Kenneth Wallston. The scale is now used throughout the world to measure people's beliefs about who or what controls their health status. She also worked in the areas of dual careerism, stereotyping, helping behavior, differential perceptions of women and men, and feminist methodology in psychology. Wallston's scholarly contributions to psychology were rivaled only by her record of service. She assumed a variety of leadership roles in several divisions of the American Psychological Association, and she was the recipient of the Carolyn Wood Sherif Lectureship Award for her achievements in and commitment to feminist scholarship, teaching, and mentoring and to professional leadership in feminist psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
