Donald Gildersleeve Paterson (January 18, 1892 – October 4, 1961) was an American psychologist known for pioneering applied psychology, in particular vocational counseling, industrial/organizational psychology, and

differential psychology Differential psychology studies the ways in which individuals differ in their behavior and the processes that underlie it. This is a discipline that develops classifications (taxonomies) of psychological individual differences. This is distingui ...

in the United States. He was a professor of psychology at the Department of Psychology at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

from 1921 to 1960.

Biography

Paterson was born in

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...

, the youngest of five children. His father and mother were both completely

deaf Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an Audiology, audiological condition. In this context it ...

as a result of childhood illness. Paterson obtained his undergraduate and graduate training at

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

. He became an instructor in psychology at the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...

, where he met his wife, Margaret Young. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

he served as Chief Psychological Examiner and a captain in the Sanitary Corp of the

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

. After the war he joined the Scott Company, an early type of psychological consulting organizations. In 1921 Paterson joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota, where he worked until his retirement in 1960. Paterson had two children, Philip Paterson and Mrs. Robert C. Becker. Paterson was a founder and president of the

American Association for Applied Psychology ''For the American Association of Retired Persons, see AARP'' The American Association for Applied Psychology (AAAP) was founded in 1937 as a national organization for clinical, consulting, educational, and business/industrial psychologists. It l ...

, which lasted for 8 years from 1937 to 1945, until it was merged with the

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...

(APA). In that sense, it served as the precursor to the multiple divisions of applied psychology within the APA, including clinical, consulting, educational, industrial/organizational, and military psychology. Paterson was secretary of the

for six years. He was the primary doctoral advisor to 88 doctoral students during his time at the University of Minnesota.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Paterson, Donald G. 1892 births 1961 deaths 20th-century American psychologists