Ernest Hilgard
Ernest Hilgard Ropiequet ( born July 25, 1904 in Belleville, Illinois; † 22 October 2001 in Palo Alto ) was an American psychologist. He worked from 1933 to 1979 at Stanford University, including from 1938 to 1969 as a professor, and dealt in particular with the theory of learning as well as with the investigation and the use of hypnosis. In 1948 he published under the title Introduction to Psychology is a textbook which has since appeared in over ten editions, and is now published as Atkinson and Hilgard 's Introduction to Psychology. Ernest Hilgard is regarded as one of the leading hypnosis researchers and counts due to its long and varied academic activities of the most outstanding American psychologists of the 20th century.
Life
Ernest Hilgard was born in 1904 in Belleville in the U.S. state of Illinois, the son of a doctor. He studied chemical engineering at the University of Illinois, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1924. He then completed a degree in psychology, from which he graduated in 1930 from Yale University with a thesis on conditioning. At Yale University, he met his future wife, who holds a doctorate in developmental psychology and with whom he was married from 1931. After he initially remained as a lecturer at Yale University, he moved in 1933 to Stanford University, where his wife began to study medicine and later taught in the Department of Psychiatry.
Ernest Hilgard received at Stanford University a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Faculty of Education, and in 1938 was appointed full professor. He spent his entire academic career at Stanford University, where he served from 1942 to 1951 as Head of the Psychology Department and from 1951 to 1955 as Dean of the Graduate School. During his tenure as dean was created at the University of the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences. After his return from his administrative duties in the active teaching and research activities, he turned his interests from new and took over, apart from an introductory course, only lectures which he had not previously held. He became professor emeritus in 1969, but was still another ten years active as head of the Laboratory of Hypnosis Research in research.
Ernest Hilgard was considered politically liberal and supported, among others, consumer associations, peace initiatives, teachers' unions, educational projects for prison inmates and the American Civil Liberties Union. His wife, with whom he had a son and a daughter, died in 1989. He died in 2001 at the age of 97 years in Palo Alto due to a cardiac arrest. His legacy is preserved in the Archives of the History of American Psychology at the University of Akron.
Scientific work
The focus of research by Ernest Hilgard were the investigation of learning processes and after his time as dean at Stanford University hypnosis. Especially in the field of hypnosis research, he became one of the leading international scientists. He developed from the late 1950s, the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scales as a benchmark, which allowed the comparability and reproducibility of results of different research groups and presented the research on hypnosis on a quantitative basis. In the therapeutic use of hypnosis, he devoted himself mainly to the application for analgesia. Among his pupils were, among others, Charles Tart one of the founders of transpersonal psychology and the social psychologist and pollsters Angus Campbell.
Most of his published books are considered standard works. His textbook Introduction to Psychology appeared since its first publication in 1948 in over ten editions, and is now published under the title Atkinson and Hilgard 's Introduction to Psychology. It was commercially so successful that the publisher Hilgard offered to transfer any book written by him. In addition to his monographic works Ernest Hilgard published more than 100 scientific publications and more than 100 Hypnosis Research Memoranda, in which he especially methods, preliminary results and incidental findings described.
Ernest Hilgard also took on leadership roles in several professional associations. He served in 1949 as president of the American Psychological Association ( APA) from 1973 to 1979 as President of the International Society of Hypnosis and from 1979 until 1981. President of the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis
Awards
Ernest Hilgard was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences, and ten years later in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1969 in the American Philosophical Society in 1948. He was a member of the National Academy of Education and an honorary member of the International Association for the Study of Pain. He received in 1940 the Warren Medal of the Society of Experimental Psychologists, the 1969 Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the APA, 1978, the Gold Medal of the American Psychological Foundation, 1979 with the three-yearly awarded Benjamin Franklin Gold Medal, the highest award of the International Society of Hypnosis and 1984 NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing. From Centre College, Colgate University, Kenyon College, Northwestern University and the University of Oslo him an honorary doctorate was awarded. The journal American Psychologist in 1991 counted him among the ten most important contemporary psychologists.
Named after Ernest Hilgard Ernest R. Hilgard are the Award, which is awarded by the APA since 1994 for outstanding contributions to general psychology, and in 1997 awarded by the International Society of Hypnosis Ernest R. Hilgard Award for Scientific Excellence.
Works (selection)
- Conditioning and Learning. New York and London 1940
- Theories of Learning. New York 1948
- Introduction to Psychology. New York 1953
- Hypnotic Susceptibility. New York 1965
- Hypnosis in the Relief of Pain. Los Angeles 1975
- Divided Consciousness: Multiple Controls in Human Thought and Action. New York 1977
- Psychology in America: A Historical Survey. San Diego 1987