Fritz Heider
Fritz Heider ( born February 19, 1896 in Vienna, † February 1, 1988 in Lawrence, Kansas, United States) was an Austrian psychologist of Gestalt psychology, who lived and worked since 1930 in the USA.
Heider was known in German-speaking countries, especially the essay " thing and media." He is considered the founder of attribution theory and the POX - balance theory and explored naive - psychological views.
Life
Heider was born in 1896 as the son of Maurice and Eugenie in Vienna. When he was six months old, the family moved to Graz, the then capital of the province of Styria. There his father was an architect in the provincial government. As Heider was six years old, the parents decided against attending a public school because of its sensitive and nervous mind. Instead he got home private lessons from a teacher. At age nine, he attended a public preparatory class for future high school students and high school students. 1906 Heider injured while playing with a squib in the left eye. His retina was injured by an explosion in front of his face, which led to blindness of the left eye. This circumstance saved him later from military service in World War 1. At ten he first stepped on to the secondary school, but changed a short time later on to a private school, which was also attended by his older brother Edward. Later he decided to go with two classmates on the state high school, as this promised a higher standard of teaching.
After high school he began to study architecture, but broke off this study. Then he began the study of law, but which he also broke off. This was followed by another four years studying psychology and philosophy in Graz. In March 1920, he received his PhD with a thesis on Alexius Meinong causality. From 1921 he lived in Munich and Berlin, where he worked with Max Wertheimer. In 1927 he became an assistant to William Stern in Hamburg. From the autumn of 1930 he worked with Kurt Koffka at Smith College in Northampton (Massachusetts ). Just three months after his arrival he married at Christmas 1930 Grace Moore, a co-worker, with whom he later Kurt Lewin translated "Principles of topological psychology " into English. With her he had three sons: John, Charles and Stephen. In 1947 he was appointed to the University of Kansas. In 1958 his main work " The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations." In 1965 he was appointed " University Distinguished Professor ". The following year, 1966, he retired.
Work
Heider maintained relationships with important psychologists of the 20th century, including Charlotte and Karl Buhler, William Stern, the Gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Köhler, Kurt Koffka, Max Wertheimer and Kurt Lewin and especially. In 1944 he wrote an essay on social perception. Heider applies his groundbreaking research on the psychology of interpersonal relationships as a pioneer of a " psychology of everyday life".