Michael Matthew Wertheimer (March 20, 1927 – December 23, 2022) was a German-born American psychologist and Professor Emeritus at the
University of Colorado Boulder. His research focused on
cognition
Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
,
psycholinguistics
Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind ...
, and the
history of psychology, among other areas.
Early life and education
Wertheimer was born on March 20, 1927, in
Berlin, Germany. He emigrated to the United States with his family in September 1933 and became a
naturalized citizen of the United States
Citizenship of the United States is a legal status that entails Americans with specific rights, duties, protections, and benefits in the United States. It serves as a foundation of fundamental rights derived from and protected by the Constituti ...
in April 1939. He graduated from
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeduca ...
in 1947 with a
BA in
psychology with high honors. He received his
MA from
Johns Hopkins University in psychology in 1949 and his
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to:
* Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification
Entertainment
* '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series
* ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic
* Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group
** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...
in
experimental psychology
Experimental psychology refers to work done by those who apply experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ human participants and animal subjects to study a great many topics, in ...
from
Harvard University in 1952.
Career
Wertheimer first became a professor of psychology at the
University of Colorado Boulder in 1955, and he retained this title until his retirement in 1993.
He was a member of the
Condon Committee. He served as president of the
Society for the Teaching of Psychology and the
Rocky Mountain Psychological Association. His awards included American Psychological Foundation Distinguished Teaching Award in 1983, the APA Distinguished Career Contributions to Education and Training in Psychology Award in 1990, and the American Psychology Association's (APA) Award for Outstanding Contributions to Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology in 2009. He was inducted to
PSI CHI International Honor Society for Psychology. He published numerous books and articles, concluding with his personal memoir
Facets of an Academic's Life(2020).
Personal life
Wertheimer was the son of
Max Wertheimer, one of the founders of
Gestalt psychology.
His mother, Anni (née Caro), came from a family of doctors, including her father and an uncle,
Ludwig Pick. Wertheimer's parents divorced in 1942, when he was 15. Wertheimer married Nancy MacKaye in 1950; they had three children together before their divorce in January 1965. He married Marilyn Schuman in September 1970.
References
External links
Faculty page
1927 births
2022 deaths
20th-century American psychologists
21st-century American psychologists
German emigrants to the United States
University of Colorado Boulder faculty
Swarthmore College alumni
Johns Hopkins University alumni
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
People from Berlin
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