Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin, FRS (/ˈdɑrwɪn/;[1] 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist and geologist,[2] best known for his contributions to evolutionary theory.[I] He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors,[3] and in a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding.[4] Darwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, overcoming scientific rejection of earlier concepts of transmutation of species.[5][6] By the 1870s the scientific community and much of the general public had accepted evolution as a fact. Biography Early life and education Painting of seven-year-old Charles Darwin in 1816. Voyage of the Beagle Death and funeral Works
Leo Strauss Leo Strauss (September 20, 1899 – October 18, 1973) was a German–American political philosopher and classicist who specialized in classical political philosophy. He was born in Germany to Jewish parents and later emigrated to the United States. He spent most of his career as a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, where he taught several generations of students and published fifteen books.[1] Early life[edit] Leo Strauss was born in the small town of Kirchhain in Hessen-Nassau, a province of the Kingdom of Prussia (part of the German Empire), on September 20, 1899, to Hugo Strauss and Jennie Strauss, née David. Education[edit] After attending the Kirchhain Volksschule and the Protestant Rektoratsschule, Leo Strauss was enrolled at the Gymnasium Philippinum (affiliated with the University of Marburg) in nearby Marburg (from which Johannes Althusius and Carl J. Later years[edit] Philosophy[edit] For Strauss, politics and philosophy were necessarily intertwined.
Muzafer Sherif Muzafer Sharif (born Muzaffer Şerif Başoğlu; July 29, 1906 – October 16, 1988) was a Turkish-American social psychologist. He helped develop social judgment theory and realistic conflict theory. Sherif was a founder of modern social psychology, who developed several unique and powerful techniques for understanding social processes, particularly social norms and social conflict. Many of his original contributions to social psychology have been absorbed into the field so fully that his role in the development and discovery has disappeared. Other reformulations of social psychology have taken his contributions for granted, and re-presented his ideas as new. Personal life[edit] Muzafer Sherif grew up in a fairly wealthy family that included five children, of whom he was the second born.[2] Sherif received a B.A. at the Izmir American College in Turkey in 1926,[3] and an M.A. at the University of Istanbul in 1928.[4] Sherif then went to America, earning an M.A. from Harvard University.
Carl Hovland Biography[edit] Early life[edit] Carl Iver Hovland was born in Chicago on June 12, 1912.[1] As a youngster in Chicago, he attended the Lloyd School and then completed high school at the Luther Institute. He entered Northwestern University at the age of 16, receiving his B.A. in 1932, and an M.A. the following year. He then transferred to Yale, where he obtained the Ph.D. in 1936. Except for a three-year research stint in Washington during World War II, Hovland remained associated with Yale the rest of his life, rising rapidly through the academic ranks to a Sterling Professorship at the age of 36. As a child, Hovland had a deep interest in music. Career[edit] Hovland's first opportunity to work intensively in the underdeveloped area of social psychology arose during World War II, when he took a leave of absence from Yale for over 3 years to serve as a senior psychologist in the War Department. Psychological research was Hovland's intellectual joy however. Death[edit] Further reading[edit]
Lewis H. Morgan Lewis Henry Morgan (November 21, 1818 – December 17, 1881) was a pioneering American anthropologist and social theorist who worked as a railroad lawyer. He is best known for his work on kinship and social structure, his theories of social evolution, and his ethnography of the Iroquois. Interested in what holds societies together, he proposed the concept that the earliest human domestic institution was the matrilineal clan, not the patriarchal family; the idea was accepted by most pre-historians and anthropologists throughout the late nineteenth century. Also interested in what leads to social change, he was a contemporary of the European social theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who were influenced by reading his work on social structure and material culture, the influence of technology on progress. Morgan was a Republican member of the New York State Assembly (Monroe Co., 2nd D.) in 1861, and of the New York State Senate in 1868 and 1869. Biography[edit] The American Morgans[edit]
Hippolyte Taine Portrait of Hippolyte Taine. Taine had a profound effect on French literature; the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica asserted that "the tone which pervades the works of Zola, Bourget and Maupassant can be immediately attributed to the influence we call Taine's." Early years[edit] Title page of 1880 edition of Taine's Voyage aux Pyrénées, first published in 1855. Politics[edit] Taine was criticized, in his own time and after, by both conservatives and liberals; his politics were idiosyncratic, but had a consistent streak of skepticism toward the left; at the age of 20, he wrote that "the right of property is absolute Some of the workmen are shrewd Politicians whose sole object is to furnish the public with words instead of things; others, ordinary scribblers of abstractions, or even ignoramuses, and unable to distinguish words from things, imagine that they are framing laws by stringing together a lot of phrases.[13] Title page of edition of Un Séjour en France, 1872. Race, milieu and moment[edit]
Gustave Le Bon Gustave Le Bon (7 May 1841 – 13 December 1931) was a French social psychologist, sociologist, anthropologist, inventor, and amateur physicist. He is best known for his 1895 work The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. His writings incorporate theories of national traits, racial superiority, herd behavior and crowd psychology. Le Bon began his writing career working in the new field of anthropology. Le Bon's physical theories generated some mild controversy in the physics community. Life[edit] Le Bon was born in Nogent-le-Rotrou, France (near Chartres), and died in Marnes-la-Coquette. In 1902, Le Bon began a series of weekly luncheons (les déjeuners du mercredi) to which prominent people of many professions were invited to discuss topical issues. Influence[edit] Scipio Sighele’s book, “La Folla Delinquente” was published in Italian in 1891 and in French under the title, “La Foule Criminelle,” the same year. Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, was influenced by Le Bon and Trotter.
Margaret Singer Margaret Thaler Singer (1921–2003) was a clinical psychologist and opponent of new religious movements (which she called "cults"). Singer's main areas of research included schizophrenia, family therapy, brainwashing and coercive persuasion. In the 1960s she began to study the nature of new religious movements and mind control, and sat as a board member of the American Family Foundation and as an advisory board member of the Cult Awareness Network. She is the co-author of the book Cults in Our Midst. From 1983 to 1986, Singer oversaw the production of a report for the American Psychological Association on her theories of coercive persuasion. Education[edit] Singer was born in Denver, Colorado and received her PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Denver in 1943.[1] After obtaining her PhD, Singer worked at the University of Colorado’s School of Medicine, in their department of psychiatry for eight years.[1] Career[edit] An article by J. DIMPAC task force[edit] Death[edit]
Solomon Asch Solomon Eliot Asch (September 14, 1907 – February 20, 1996) was an American Gestalt psychologist and pioneer in social psychology. He created seminal pieces of work in impression formation, prestige suggestion, conformity, and many other topics in social psychology. His work follows a common theme of Gestalt psychology that the whole is not only greater than the sum of its parts, but the nature of the whole fundamentally alters the parts. Early life[edit] Asch was born in Warsaw, Poland on September 14, 1907 to a Jewish family. In 1920 Asch emigrated at the age of 13 with his family to the United States. Education[edit] Asch was shy when he moved to the United States and did not speak English fluently. Asch went on to pursue his graduate degree at Columbia University. Asch was exposed to Gestalt psychology through Gardner Murphy, then a young faculty member at Columbia. Family life[edit] Asch met Florence Miller in a library on East Broadway on the lower East Side in New York City.
Stanley Milgram Stanley Milgram (August 15, 1933 – December 20, 1984) was an American social psychologist. He conducted various studies and published articles during his lifetime, with the most notable being his controversial study on obedience to authority, conducted in the 1960s during his professorship at Yale.[1] Milgram was influenced by the events of the Holocaust, specifically the trial of Adolf Eichmann, in developing this experiment. His small-world experiment while at Harvard would lead researchers to analyze the degree of connectedness, most notably the six degrees of separation concept. Biography[edit] Early life[edit] Stanley Milgram was born in 1933 to a Jewish family in New York City,[2] the child of a Romanian-born mother, Adele (née Israel), and a Hungarian-born father, Samuel Milgram.[3][4] Milgram's father worked as a baker to provide a modest income for his family until his death in 1953 (upon which Stanley's mother took over the bakery). Professional life[edit] References in media[edit]
Irving Janis Irving Lester Janis (May 26, 1918 – November 15, 1990) was a research psychologist at Yale University and a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley most famous for his theory of "groupthink" which described the systematic errors made by groups when making collective decisions.[1][2] Early years[edit] Irving Janis was born on May 26, 1918 in Buffalo, New York.[2] He received a bachelor of science degree from the University of Chicago in 1939, then received a doctorate from Columbia University.[3] Career[edit] During his career, Janis studied decisionmaking in areas such as dieting and smoking. This work described how people respond to threats, as well as what conditions give rise to irrational complacency, apathy, hopelessness, rigidity, and panic. Janis also made important contributions to the study of group dynamics. He retired from Yale University in 1985, and in 1986 was appointed Adjunct Professor of Psychology Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley.[3]