Harrison G. Gough (1921–2014) was an American

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...

and pioneer of personality assessment. Over the course of his career he developed more than 30

personality test A personality test is a method of assessing human personality constructs. Most personality assessment instruments (despite being loosely referred to as "personality tests") are in fact introspective (i.e., subjective) self-report questionnaire ( ...

s and instruments, including the

California Psychological Inventory The California Psychological Inventory (CPI) is a self-report inventory created by Harrison G. Gough and currently published by Consulting Psychologists Press. The text containing the test was first published in 1956, and the most recent revision w ...

.Gough, Harrison G. The California Psychological Inventory. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc, 1990."In Memory Of... Harrison Gough".
''FABBS Foundation''. Gough published over 200 research papers, books, chapters, manuals and reviews, and received numerous awards, including the

Bruno Klopfer Award The Bruno Klopfer Award is an award for lifetime achievement in personality psychology managed by the Society for Personality Assessment. It is the Society's most prestigious award and is named after the Society's founder Bruno Klopfer. It was fi ...

in 1987, in his lifetime. Gough received a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...

in 1942, his Master's in 1947, and his Ph.D. in 1949, all from 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 ...

. His Ph.D. advisor was

Paul E. Meehl Paul Everett Meehl (3 January 1920 – 14 February 2003) was an American clinical psychologist, Hathaway and Regents' Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, and past president of the American Psychological Association. A ''Revie ...

. After the completion of his Ph.D., Gough served on the Department of Psychology faculty at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, until his retirement in 1986. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Gough served in the U.S. military as an armed forces psychologist, where he was assigned to the Air Crew Selection Program. It was here that Gough learned of the utility of psychological assessment tools. After developing the California Psychological Inventory assessment in 1956, Gough remarked that his primary goal was to meet the aviation selection program's high psychometric standards. Later in his armed forces tenure he was assigned to a military hospital as a clinical psychologist."In honor of... Dr. Harrison Gough"
''CPP''.

Personal life

He married Kathryn Whittier in January 1943. They had one daughter.

References

1921 births 2014 deaths Psychometricians 20th-century American psychologists University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts alumni People from Buffalo, Minnesota Personality psychologists {{US-scientist-stub