Tamara Dembo

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Tamara Dembo ( Russian Тамара Вульфовна Дембо Tamara Vul'fovna Dembo , born May 28, 1902 in Baku ; † October 17, 1993 in Worcester , Massachusetts ) was a gestalt psychologist who, after emigrating to the USA , did research in the field made a name for rehabilitation psychology.

life and work

Dembo was the daughter of the Panevėžys merchant Wulf Isaakowitsch Dembo and his wife Sofja Wulfowna Woltschkina. Dembo studied at the Berlin University from 1921 to 1928 under the Gestalt psychologists Wolfgang Köhler , Max Wertheimer and above all Kurt Lewin , who initiated and supervised her dissertation on "Anger as a dynamic problem", which is still widely cited today. Before graduating, she did a research stay at the Groningen Physiological Institute with FJJ Buytendijk in Holland, where she carried out a series of animal psychological research.

After her doctorate in 1930, she went to the United States at the invitation of Kurt Koffka to work as his research assistant at Smith College . This was followed by further research engagements at the University of Iowa , which she reunited with Kurt Lewin and his American colleagues Roger G. Barker, Leon Festinger , Beatrice Ann Wright and others. The studies on frustration and regression (1941 with Kurt Lewin and Roger G. Barker) and on the level of aspiration (1944 with Kurt Lewin, Pauline Sears and Leon Festinger) that arose during this period became classics in social psychological literature.

From 1953 Dembo worked as a professor at Clark University , where rehabilitation psychology became the main area of ​​her research and teaching work until her retirement and beyond. Clark University also awarded her an honorary doctorate. She was instrumental in setting up a separate division for rehabilitation psychology in the American Psychological Association (APA) (Division 22) and was its president from 1968 to 1969. In 1980 she received the APA's Distinguished Service Award for her pioneering work in the field of rehabilitation psychology, and in 1981 she received the Kurt Lewin Memorial Award from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.

Selected publications

  • 1930: Purposeful behavior of rats in a free situation. Archives Neéerlandaises de l'Homme et des Animaux, 15 , 402-412.
  • 1931: Anger as a dynamic problem. In: Psychological Research. 15, pp. 1-144.
  • 1936: with Eugenia Hanfmann: The patient's psychological situation upon admission to a mental hospital. American Journal of Psychology, 47, 381-408.
  • 1941: with Roger Barker & Kurt Lewin: Frustration and regression: An experiment with young children. University of Iowa Studies in Child Welfare.
  • 1944: with Kurt Lewin, Leon Festinger and P. Sears: Level of Aspiration. In: JM Hunt (Ed.), Personality and the behavior disorders , Oxford: Ronald Press (pp 333-378).
  • 1948: with RK White & Beatrice A. Wright: Studies in adjustment to visible injuries: evaluation of curiosity by the injured. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol 43 (1), 13-28.
  • 1956: with G. Leviton & Beatrice A. Wright: Adjustment to misfortune: A problem of social psychological rehabilitation. Artificial Limbs, 3, 4-62.
  • 1969: Rehabilitation psychology and its immediate future: A problem of utilization of psychological knowledge. Rehabilitation Psychology, 16, 63-72.
  • 1982: Some Problems in Rehabilitation as Seen by a Lewinian. Journal of Social Issues, 38 (1), 131-139.
  • 1993: Thoughts on qualitative determinants in psychology: A methodological study. Journal of Russian and East-European Psychology, 31, 15-70.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sandra Hodgson, Biography of Tamara Dembo , accessed October 8, 2013; Lück, Helmut E. (2011): Tamara Dembo: In search of concepts for a better life. In: Important female psychologists of the 20th century , Berlin: Springer, pp. 179–191; Woodward, WR (2010): Russian women emigrées in psychology: Informal Jewish networks. History of Psychology, 13 , 111-137.
  2. ↑ R. van der Veer 2000: Tamara Dembo's European Years: Working with Lewin and Buytendijk , Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 36 (2), 109–126.
  3. ↑ see Katharina Sternek (2014), Tamara Dembo (1902-1993): A life for emotion research and rehabilitation psychology , Phenomenal, 6 (2), 49-58.
  4. ↑ see "Dembo, Tamara", entry in the Dorsch Lexikon der Psychologie , written by Helmut E. Lück .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Dembo, Tamara
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American Gestalt psychologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 28, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Baku
DATE OF DEATH 17th October 1993
Place of death Worcester , Massachusetts