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Julian Rotter

Julian Rotter
Born October 22, 1916
Brooklyn, New York
Died January 6, 2014(2014-01-06) (aged 97)
Mansfield, Connecticut
Nationality American
Fields Psychology
Institutions University of Connecticut
Alma mater Indiana University
Known for social learning theory, Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank and Locus of Control
Influences Kurt Lewin, Alfred Adler, Kenneth Spence, Clark Hull, B.F. Skinner, Edward Tolman and George Kelly
Influenced Walter Mischel

Julian B. Rotter (October 22, 1916 – January 6, 2014) was an American psychologist known for developing influential theories, including social learning theory and locus of control. He was a faculty member at The Ohio State University and then the University of Connecticut. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Rotter as the 64th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.

Rotter was born in 1916 in Brooklyn, New York, United States, as the third son of Jewish immigrant parents. In the years of elementary and secondary schools, he became interested with psychology and philosophy through readings. Rotter attended Brooklyn College in 1933, where he earned his undergraduate degree. He majored in Chemistry even though he found psychology to be more fascinating due to the fact that there were more opportunities to make money, while the economy was failing. While studying in Brooklyn College, Wood and Solomon Asch, teachers at the college, influenced his development as psychologist. Wood inspired him by his lectures on the scientific method. Asch was intensely involved in the controversy between Gestalt and Thorndykian views of learning and thus he influenced Rotter's interest in psychology. He then earned a master's degree at the University of Iowa, studying there under Kurt Lewin.

After he earned his master's degree at the University of Iowa, he was able to obtain an internship at the Worcester State Hospital. At the time it may have been the only formal internship in psychology. While at Worcester State Hospital, David Shakow, Saul Rosenzweig, and Elliot Rodnick provided stimulation and training in research and practice in clinical psychology. At Worcester was also where he met Clara Barnes, another intern whom he later married. Through his work with Kurt Lewin, he became interested with a level of aspiration. At Worcester was where he had designed and built the Level of Aspiration Board as an individual personality measure. He continued his work at the Indiana University where he encountered success and failure using the level of aspiration paradigms at Indiana University; he earned a doctorate at Indiana in 1941. Through his education, Rotter was influenced by Alfred Adler, Clark Hull, B.F. Skinner, and Edward Tolman. He was influenced by Wendell Johnson, a general semanticist, who impressed on him the need for careful definitions in psychology and the myriad of pitfalls involved in poorly defined and poorly operationalized constructs In 1963, Rotter moved to the University of Connecticut, and became the director of clinical training. The Interpersonal Trust Scale, a research measure of the stable individual difference in personality, was developed by Rotter around that time.


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