Joy Paul Guilford

Joy Paul Guilford (born March 7, 1897 in Marquette (Nebraska) ; † November 26, 1987 in Los Angeles ) was a factor-analytical personality and intelligence researcher, with whose name the "Structure of Intellect" model described below is associated becomes.

In 1919, when he was only 22 years old, he became director of the Psychology Clinic. He stayed that way until 1921 and gained his first practical experience as a psychologist. In 1927 he received his doctorate from Cornell University under EB Titchener . In the following years, Guilford studied Charles Spearman's model of intelligence and tried to expand it. In his book "Psychometric Methods" published in 1936, Spearman's influence on Guilford is clearly visible. In 1940 Guilford was appointed professor at the University of Southern California and a year later as director of the "Psychological Research at Santa Ana Army Air Base". In this position, he finally has the ways his theory that the "Structure of Intellect" model is a departure from the Spearman and Philip E. Vernon is postulated hierarchical intelligence models to develop and empirically to soldiers of the Santa Ana Army Air Base to to verify.

In 1949 he became president of the APA (American Psychological Association) , arguably the most important psychological organization in the USA. In 1954 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences . Guilford's particular merit during this time lies in bringing the long-neglected creativity of humans back into the focus of psychological research and thus giving decisive impulses for creativity research.

In 1967 Guilford published his theory Structure of Intellect , which radically opposes any hierarchy in the structuring of intelligence and rather regards intelligence as a composition of different "clusters", each resulting from three factors. Due to the strong criticism of this model, Guilford revised his model of intelligence in 1982 and gave space to a certain hierarchy.

literature

• B. Brocke: Intelligence - Structure and Process. In: Werner Sarges (Hrsg.): Management Diagnostik. 3. Edition. Hogrefe, Göttingen 2000, pp. 225-232.
• R. Kail, JW Pellegrino: The Psychometric Approach. In: R. Kail, JW Pellegrino: Human intelligence. Spektrum der Wissenschaft, Heidelberg 1989, pp. 16-52.
• M. Amelang, D. Bartussek: Intelligence. In: M. Amelang, D. Bartussek: Differential Psychology and Personality Research. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2001, pp. 190-233.
• J. Funke: Intelligence: The Psychological Perspective. Lecture on the occasion of the graduate conference of the Cusanuswerk "Intelligence & Creativity". Heidelberg 2003.

Web links

• Literature by and about Joy Paul Guilford in the catalog of the German National Library