Jacob Cohen (psychologist)

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Jacob Cohen ( 1923 - January 20, 1998 ) was an American psychologist and university professor. He made a crucial contribution to statistics in the behavioral sciences . One of the most commonly used measures of effect size , Cohen's d , goes back to him. He also introduced the common measure of diagnostic agreement, Cohen's Kappa , among others.

Live and act

Cohen graduated from Townsend Harris High School, New York, and entered City College of New York at age 15 . There he was not very active at first - apart from playing ping-pong - he applied to the US Army intelligence service and spent the last year of the Second World War in France. After returning to the United States, however, he continued his psychology studies, graduating in 1947 and receiving his doctorate in clinical psychology from New York University in 1950 . The subject of his dissertation was the factor structure of the Wechsler intelligence test in patients and comparison groups. He conducted his first research at the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, where he rose from employed psychologist to director of research. During this time, when he was teaching part time, he developed Cohen's Kappa .

From 1959 until his retirement in 1993 he was a professor at the Institute of Psychology at New York University. In 1969 he became president of the Society for Multivariate Experimental Psychology . He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Psychological Association in 1997.

His most influential contribution was the development of rough norms for small, medium, and large effect sizes as well as easier-to-use methods for estimating the statistical power required for planned studies. His book, Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences , became a classic in the field.

Another important contribution was the introduction of new techniques for applying multiple regression analysis as a general method of explaining variance . In his final years, he challenged the tradition of null hypothesis testing and suggested more modern techniques to avoid the weaknesses of significance testing .

He died on January 20, 1998 after a long illness.

Works

  • Jacob Cohen: The statistical power of abnormal-social psychological research: A review. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 65, 1962, pp. 145-153.
  • Jacob Cohen: Multiple regression as a general dataanalytic system. Psychological Bulletin 70 (6), 1968, pp. 426-443.
  • Jacob Cohen: Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences . 1969, 1988, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Jacob Cohen & Patricia Cohen: Applied multiple regression / correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences. 2nd ed. 1983. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Jacob Cohen: Things I Have Learned (So Far). American Psychologist 45 (12), 1990, pp. 1304-1312.
  • Jacob Cohen: A Power Primer. Psychological Bulletin 112 (1), 1992, pp. 151-159.
  • Jacob Cohen: The earth is round (p <.05). American Psychologist 49 (12), 1994, pp. 997-1003.

Literature on Jacob Cohen

  • Patrick E. Shrout: Jacob Cohen (1923-1998). American Psychologist 56 (2), 2001, p. 166.
  • Patricia Cohen: Cohen, Jacob. (PDF; 34 kB) In: Encyclopedia of Statistics in Behavioral Science. John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0-470-86080-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Carl J Huberty: A History of Effect Size Indices. Educational and Psychological Measurement 62; 2002, pp. 227-240, doi : 10.1177 / 0013164402062002002
  2. ^ Wolfgang Saxon: Jacob Cohen, 74, Psychologist And Pioneer in Statistical Studies. New York Times , February 7, 1998 (accessed December 11, 2012).
personal data
SURNAME Cohen, Jacob
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cohen, Jack
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American psychologist
DATE OF BIRTH 1923
DATE OF DEATH January 20, 1998