Paul Meehl
| Paul E. Meehl | |
|---|---|
| Born | Paul Everett Meehl 3 January 1920 Minneapolis, Minnesota |
| Died | 14 February 2003 (aged 83) Minneapolis, Minnesota |
| Citizenship | American |
| Fields | Psychology, philosophy of science |
| Institutions | University of Minnesota |
| Alma mater | University of Minnesota |
| Doctoral advisor | Starke R. Hathaway |
| Doctoral students | Harrison G. Gough, William M. Grove, Dante Cicchetti, Donald R. Peterson, George Schlager Welsh |
| Known for | Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, Genetics of Schizophrenia, Construct Validity, Clinical v. Statistical Prediction, Philosophy of Science |
| Notable awards | National Academy of Sciences (1987), APA Award for Lifetime Contributions to Psychology (1996), James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award (1998), Bruno Klopfer Award (1979) |
Paul Everett Meehl (3 January 1920 – 14 February 2003) was a clinical psychologist and Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Meehl as the 74th most cited psychologist of the 20th century, in a tie with Eleanor J. Gibson. Throughout his nearly 60-year career, Meehl made seminal contributions to psychology, including contributions on construct validity, schizophrenia etiology, behavioral assessment and prediction, and philosophy of science.
Paul Meehl was born January 3, 1920 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Otto and Blanche Swedal. His family name "Meehl" was his stepfather's. When he was age 16, his mother died as the result of poor medical care which, according to Meehl, greatly affected his faith in the expertise of medical practitioners and diagnostic accuracy of clinicians. After his mother's death, Meehl lived briefly with his stepfather, then with a neighborhood family for one year so he could finish high school. He then lived with his maternal grandparents, who lived near the University of Minnesota.
Meehl started at the University of Minnesota in March 1938. He earned his Bachelor's degree in 1941 with Donald G. Paterson as his advisor, and took his PhD in psychology at Minnesota under Starke R. Hathaway in 1945. Meehl's graduate student cohort at the time included Marian Breland Bailey, William K. Estes, Norman Guttman, William Schofield, and Kenneth MacCorquodale. Upon taking his doctorate, Meehl immediately accepted a faculty position at the University that he held throughout his career, with appointments in psychology, law, psychiatry, neurology, philosophy, and as a fellow of the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science, founded by Herbert Feigl, Meehl, and Wilfrid Sellars. Meehl was chairman of the University of Minnesota Psychology Department at age 31, president of the Midwestern Psychological Association at 34, recipient of the American Psychological Association's Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Psychology at 38, and president of that association at age 42. He was promoted to the highest academic position at the University of Minnesota in 1968. He received the Bruno Klopfer Distinguished Contributor Award in personality assessment in 1979, and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1987.
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