Gunnar Borg

Gunnar Anders Valdemar Borg (born November 28, 1927 in Stockholm ; † February 2, 2020 ) was a Swedish psychologist and psychophysicist . He is considered to be the inventor of perceptometry .

Life

After graduating from high school, Borg studied philosophy at Stockholm University (candidate examination 1951; Lic. 1957), Dr. phil. University of Lund (Diss .: Physical performance and perceived exertion , 1962). At the same time, he studied psychology at the Military Psychology Institute in Stockholm from 1951 to 1957 . He then studied physiology at the Medical School in Umeå (1962–1964) and was initially a lecturer in psychology and pedagogy and from 1964 lecturer . In 1966 he was appointed Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at the newly founded University of Umeå , and from 1968 he was also the dean of the Graduate School of Social Work and Public Administration at Umeå University. In 1968 he was appointed to the Chair of Applied Psychology at Stockholm University, which he held until 1980. In 1987 the Chair of Perception and Psychophysics in the Psychological Institute of Stockholm University was created for him . For this he created the term perceptometry . Borg was also visiting professor in the USA, Canada, Japan and various European countries.

Scientific importance

The sports fan Borg examined the perception of exertion. The Swedish sports physiologist Per-Olof Åstrand had shown experimentally that with the right motivation in the laboratory, the performance could be postponed further and further until voluntarily aborting on the ergometer . This meant that it was no longer the absolute performance that mattered, but rather its subjective perception. Borg tried to capture these on an interval-scaled basis and to have qualitative, subjective, ordinal-scaled perception expressed quantitatively. The Borg scale he developed at the end of the 1950s was the first beginning. Borg initially applied the scale to standardizable physical performance (e.g. on the ergometer) and to sport. While the following German tradition of Iwan Petrowitsch Pawlow assumed a stable relationship between stress and strain (during interval training the pulse values ​​were determined by Herbert Reindell , later the lactate values by Joseph Keul ), Gösta Olander left the Fartlek to the athletes in the Swedish tradition the stress intensity and was based on their perception of the stress. The procedures assume that the mind, as a place of perception, can influence not only the control of psychophysical processes, but also their strength. The effectiveness of the placebo can also be better explained using methods developed by Borg. Borg is one of the most cited Scandinavian scientists. ^Receipt?

Honors

• 1998 honorary member of the International Association for Applied Psychology
• 1998 Medal of Honor from the Nordic Ergonomic Society
• 2000 The Gunnar Borg Symposium on Psychophysical Scaling
• 2000 honorary member of the Swedish Society for Lung Medicine
• 2000 honorary member of the Swedish Society of Sports Medicine
• 2002 Medal of Honor from Swedish Sports Science
• 2009 Dr. med. hc University of Umeå

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Svenska Dagbladet 2020-02-09
2. ↑ http://runeberg.org/vemarvem/norr68/0073.html
3. ↑ BORG, G. (1998) Borg's perceived exertion and pain scales. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
4. ↑ BORG, G. (1982) Psychophysical bases of perceived exertion. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 14 (5), pp. 377-381
5. ↑ Arnd Krüger : Many roads lead to Olympia. The changes in training systems for medium and long distance runners (1850–1997). In: N. Gissel (Hrsg.): Sporting performance in change. Czwalina, Hamburg 1998, pp. 41-56.
6. ^ Jiri Wackermann (2008). Beyond the psychophysical duality: reality of mind. In MF Peschl & A. Batthyany (eds.), Spirit as a cause? Mental causation in interdisciplinary discourse (pp. 189–221). Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.