Charles E. Osgood

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Charles Egerton Osgood (born November 20, 1916 in Somerville , ( Massachusetts ), † September 15, 1991 ) was an American psychologist . He became known for his u. a. test methods developed by him to measure emotionally conditioned conceptual secondary meanings, the semantic differential .

Life

Charles Egerton was 1940-1946 research assistant with Robert R. Sears (1908-1989) at Yale University , New Haven, Connecticut. There he received his Ph.D. for psychology in 1945. 1946–1949 he was a lecturer at the University of Connecticut at Storrs . 1949–1984 Osgood was a professor of psychology and 1957–1984 director of the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign . 1962–1963 he was president of the APA . The APA recognized him with the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award (1960) and the Kurt Lewin Award (1971). In 1964 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1972 to the National Academy of Sciences .

Services

At the height of the Cold War in 1962, Osgood proposed a psychologically founded strategy, known as GRIT , which was intended to de-escalate the international conflict.

Osgood's scientific achievements in the narrower psychological sense mainly relate to the above-mentioned method of the semantic differential. In doing so, he formulated an approach that considers terms to be fundamentally ambiguous. U. perceived as contrary, cf. in addition the term of the opposition word . Osgood speaks of a semantic space in which there are several dimensions of meaning. In this way Osgood proved to be a representative of behaviorism , but he also included cognitive elements to explain complex linguistic and conceptual phenomena in his work ( psycholinguistics ). The systems-theoretical contrast between gestalt psychology and association psychology on the one hand and behaviorism on the other hand was defused by Osgood (1953). He introduced both the concept of insight and learning through insight (cognitive learning) used by the gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Köhler , as well as the model notion of learning based on success or the stimulus-response model based on previous experiences, which is shaped by association psychology and behaviorism back, see also the description of the system-theoretical contrast using the example of isomorphism . In z. The theories developed or represented by him, such as the mediation theory and the consistency theory in the sense of the transition to neo-behaviorism, are to be understood in a somewhat similar direction .

Works

  • Method and Theory in Experimental Psychology . Oxford University Press , 1953.
  • Charles E. Osgood, George Suci, Percy Tannenbaum: The Measurement of Meaning . University of Illinois Press , 1957. ISBN 0-252-74539-6 .
  • Verbal Behavior by BF Skinner . Language in the objective mode. In: Contemporary Psychology. 3, Baltimore 1958, ISSN  0010-7549 .
  • Suggestions for Winning the Real War with Communism. In: Journal of Conflict Resolution , Vol. 3 (1959), pp. 295-325.
  • Reciprocal initiative. In: The Liberal Papers , Doubleday / Anchor, 1962.
  • An Alternative To War Or Surrender. University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1962.
  • Charles E. Osgood, Murray S. Miron (Eds.): Approaches to the Study of Aphasia . University of Illinois Press, 1963.
  • Perspective in Foreign Policy . Palo Alto: Pacific Books, 1966.
  • Charles E. Osgood, William S. May, Murray S. Miron: Cross Cultural Universals of Affective Meaning . University of Illinois Press, 1975. ISBN 0-252-00426-4 .
  • Focus on Meaning: Explorations in Semantic Space . Mouton Publishers, 1979.
  • Psycholinguistics, Cross-Cultural Universals, and Prospects for Mankind . Praeger Publishers, 1988. ISBN 0-03-059433-2 .
  • Charles E. Osgood, Oliver Tzeng (Eds.): Language, Meaning, and Culture: The Selected Papers of CE Osgood . Praeger Publishers, 1990. ISBN 0-275-92521-8 .

literature

  • Osgood, CE (1980). Charles E. Osgood . In: G. Linzey (Ed.), A History of Psychology in Autobiography. Vol. VII (pp. 334-393). San Francisco: WH Freeman and Company.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Charles E. Osgood: Reciprocal Initiative. In: James Roosevelt (Ed.), The Liberal Papers , Anchor Books, Garden City, NY 1962, pp. 155-228.
  2. ^ Charles E. Osgood: An Alternative To War Or Surrender. University of Illinois Press, Urbana 1962.
  3. ^ Charles E. Osgood: The Nature and Measurement of Meaning . Psychol. Bull., 1952, 49, pp. 197-237.
  4. ^ Charles E. Osgood, George Suci , & Percy Tannenbaum , The Measurement of Meaning . University of Illinois Press , 1957. ISBN 0-252-74539-6 .
  5. ↑ Peter R. Hofstätter (Ed.): Psychology . The Fischer Lexicon, Fischer-Taschenbuch, Frankfurt a. M. 1972, ISBN 3-436-01159-2 ; Pp. 164, 210 f., 219.
  6. ↑ a b Arnold, Wilhelm et al. (Ed.): Lexicon of Psychology . Bechtermünz, Augsburg 1996, ISBN 3-86047-508-8 ; (a) on taxation “Mediation Theory”: Col. 2478 f .; (b) Re. “Consistency” (of behavior): Col. 1126
personal data
SURNAME Osgood, Charles E.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Osgood, Charles Egerton (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American psychologist
DATE OF BIRTH November 20, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Somerville, Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH September 15, 1991