Richard Stanley Crutchfield (June 20, 1912 – July 19, 1977) was an American

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a ...

personality Personality is the characteristic sets of behaviors, cognitions, and emotional patterns that are formed from biological and environmental factors, and which change over time. While there is no generally agreed-upon definition of personality, m ...

and

social Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...

psychologist who, in the 1930s, was instrumental in moving psychology from a tradition of single-factor experiments to an

experimental design The design of experiments (DOE, DOX, or experimental design) is the design of any task that aims to describe and explain the variation of information under conditions that are hypothesized to reflect the variation. The term is generally associ ...

based on

analysis of variance Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is a collection of statistical models and their associated estimation procedures (such as the "variation" among and between groups) used to analyze the differences among means. ANOVA was developed by the statistician ...

and

covariance In probability theory and statistics, covariance is a measure of the joint variability of two random variables. If the greater values of one variable mainly correspond with the greater values of the other variable, and the same holds for the ...

. Crutchfield co-authored two influential texts with

David Krech David Krech (March 27, 1909 – July 14, 1977) was a Polish-born American experimental and social psychologist who lectured predominately at the University of California, Berkeley. Throughout his education and career endeavors, Krech was with man ...

. The first is the very successful social psychology

textbook A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textbook ...

''Theory and Problems of Social Psychology'' (1948). The second was an introductory psychology text, first published in 1958, ''Elements of Psychology'', which has been widely used and has numerous editions and derivatives. In the 1950s, Crutchfield's work helped to establish the linkage between cognitive-perceptual processes and significant facets of

. His best-known research was a series of investigations of the nature of conformity in interpersonal sphere of

social psychology Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the ...

, which were published during the height of what is known in psychological circles as the 'conformity era' in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. In the late 1950s and 1960s, Crutchfield collaborated with several colleagues to develop a programme of automated instruction in productive thinking. Crutchfield was known as an excellent teacher. He was a student of Edward Tolman.

References

20th-century American psychologists Experimental psychologists 1912 births 1977 deaths {{US-psychologist-stub

See also

References