Eckhard Hess

Eckhard Heinrich Hess (born September 27, 1916 in Bochum , † February 21, 1986 in Cambridge (Maryland) ) was an American psychologist and ethologist .

Life

Eckhard Hess grew up in East Prussia and Bochum until his family emigrated to the USA in 1927, where he became a US citizen in 1943. In Maryland he attended Blue Ridge College and initially studied chemistry for a year, but after reading the book The Animal Mind by psychologist Margaret Floy Washburn , he shifted his major to psychology, in which he also passed his bachelor's degree in 1941. He had also met his wife Dorle in college, whom he married in 1942.

From 1941 he worked as an industrial psychologist at the Seagram-Calbert Destilling Company , where he was in charge of quality control of the taste and smell of whiskey production. However, he was soon drafted into the US infantry as a rifleman and shipped to Italy for combat missions. As early as 1945, however, he was able to continue his academic training as the first student admitted to a new psychology program at Johns Hopkins University . By 1948 he obtained a master’s degree and finally a doctorate with studies on the visual perception of domestic chicken chicks. In the same year he became professor of psychology at the University of Chicago , which was also due to the fact that shortly after the end of the Second World War many US universities expanded the capacities of their courses and there were at times more vacancies than qualified applicants.

For more than 20 years his research focus at the University of Chicago was on the phenomenon of imprinting , which he had discovered as a worthwhile concept for himself, after first reading Konrad Lorenz's early work Der Kumpan in der Vogel Umwelt des Vogel, published in 1935, and the book The Study in 1951 of Instinct by Nikolaas Tinbergen . From the 1960s onwards, he also researched the reaction of the pupils to psychological processes.

Fonts (selection)

• Imprinting. An effect of early experience, imprinting determines later social behavior in animals. In: Science . Volume 130, No. 3368, 1959, pp. 133-141, doi: 10.1126 / science.130.3368.133 .
• Imprinting in birds. Research has borne out the concept of imprinting as a type of learning different from association learning. In: Science . Volume 146, No. 3648, 1964, pp. 1128-1139, doi: 10.1126 / science.146.3648.1128 .
• Imprinting: Early Experience and the Developmental Psychobiology of Attachment. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York 1973, ISBN 978-0-442-23391-4 .
  • German edition: Embossing. The early development of behavioral patterns in animals and humans. With a foreword by Konrad Lorenz . Kindler, Munich 1975, ISBN 978-3-463-00630-7 .
• The Tell-Tale Eye: How Your Eyes Reveal Hidden Thoughts and Emotions. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York 1975, ISBN 978-0-442-23390-7 .
  • German edition: The speaking eye. The pupil reveals hidden reactions. Kindler, Munich 1977, ISBN 978-3-463-00680-2 .

literature

• Who was Who in America, Volume IX

Web links

• NZZ Folio No. 12/2005: The Experiment. The pupil researcher and the pin-up girls. ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Jason Waite (December 1999): Eckhard Hess (1916–1986). ( Memento of October 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
2. ↑ Eckhard H. Hess Dead at 69; Behavioral Science Authority. ( Memento of May 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Obituary in the New York Times on February 26, 1986.
3. ^ Eckhard H. Hess: The Wild-Goose-Chase. In: Donald A. Dewsbury: Studying Animal Behavior. Autobiographies of the Founders. Chicago University Press, Chicago and London 1985, ISBN 978-0-226-14410-8 , pp. 182-191.
4. ↑ Eckhard H. Hess, The Wild-Goose-Chase , p. 185.
5. ↑ Konrad Lorenz : The friend in the environment of the bird. In: Journal of Ornithology. Volume 83, No. 2-3, 1935, pp. 137-215 and pp. 289-413, doi: 10.1007 / BF01905355 .
6. ↑ Nikolaas Tinbergen : The Study of Instinct. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1951.