Biographical Memoirs Volume 64 (1994) / Chapter Skim
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Theodore Mead Newcomb
Theodore Mead Newcomb
Pages 320-339
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From page 321... ...
empirical contributions to the new area of social psychology. These included work on autism and social communication; the first ambitious tracing of the evolution of political attitudes over the aclult life course; a careful eluciciation of the basic principles of cognitive balance; studies of the primary forces shaping interpersonal attraction; and, in a closely related way, the growth of mainstream ant!
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From page 322... ...
to "serious" magazines otherwise unknown in the community, en cl the family spent much time reading books, often aloud. There were even moments of ostracism for the family as the father took up locally unpopular positions from the pulpit, attacking the Ku Klux Klan or supporting pacifism.
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He recallecl particular fascination with exegesis of the OIct Testament from Julius Bewer; progressive education, as taught by William Kilpatrick at Columbia Teachers College; educational psychology with Goodwin Watson, also at Teachers College; general psychology with Gardner Murphy at Columbia, with whom he would later develop a most fruitful collaboration; and ethics with Harry Ward at the Seminary, who dealt more in current issues than in Bible studies. ~He and h~s closest hi~h school Ironically, Newcomb's two years at Union convinced him that he might prefer to be a psychologist in acacleme rather than a Christian missionary.
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PROFESSIONAL CAREER Newcomb took his first academic position in the psychology department at Lehigh University in the fall of 1929. In part because of his exposure to eclucational issues at Teachers College, the fledgling instructor was asked to prepare an analysis of some of the university's operating policies.
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Despite the implausible setting, Newcomb plunged into an array of milcITy radical political activities, including the organization of student political groups on the one hand, and a teachers' union at the college on the other. These considerable distractions notwithstanding, he save c3 his main energies for his research and writing, and in this period} he became a nationally established scholar.
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, some of the clearest findings tied change closely to the college experience itself. Not only die!
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Not only was the longitudinal design novel for the period, but the study contained numerous innovative ways of capturing the interplay between indiviclual clispositions and group process. And, of course, the careful clemonstration of the potent shaping of individual responses by factors of group context gave empirical reassurance for some of the most central assumptions motivating the study of social psychology.
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Soon thereafter he was on his way to Washington, D.C., to join a growing cadre of middle-agec social scientists drawn into various forms of research associated with the war effort. He served with the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service and the Office of Strategic Services, and, late in the war, spent time in Europe helping to carry out the U.S.
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Although his own primary background had also been in psychology, Newcomb's definition of the field welded in a richer complement of basic sociological concepts, including social roles, social norms, and other essentials of social structure. In this same general period Newcomb extended his Bennington studies by joining with W
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From page 330... ...
In his later years Newcomb turned his lifelong fascination with the useful integration of "living and learning" to some practical institutional consequence at the University of Michigan. He was one of the central figures in the design and creation of a small, informal residential college within the university.
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Over the course of his career, Newcomb served his two parent disciplines of psychology and sociology in a variety of roles. He was president of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues in 1945-46 and president of the Division of Personality and Social Psychology of the American Psychological Association in 1948-49.
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of the American Psychological Association ~1976~; anct the Cooley-Mead Award of the American Sociological Association (19801. TED NEWCOMB, THE PERSON It remains to us to capture the essence of Tect Newcomb as a most lively colleague, mentor, en cl friencl.
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become obstructions as well, an outcome he was not prepared to tolerate. Incleed, in his memorial service remembrance of Ted, William Gamson credited him with "a certain cleliberate obtuseness about obstacles." His instinct was always "Why not?
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clescenclec! on Ann Arbor to interrogate suspected Communist sympathizers on the University of Michigan faculty.
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. The other was "Remembering Ted Newcomb: A Biographical Sketch and Remembrances from a Memorial Service for Theodore M
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1952 Attitude development as a function of reference groups: The Bennington study. In Readings in Social Psychology, eds.
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(Presidential Address to American Psychological Association, September 1956)
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1971 Dyadic balance as a source of clues about interpersonal attraction In Theories of Attraction and Love, ed. Bernard I
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