Frank Jones Sulloway (born February 2, 1947) is an American psychologist and historian of science. [1] He is a visiting scholar at the Institute of Personality and Social Research at the University of California, Berkeley [2] and a visiting professor in the Department of Psychology. [3] After finishing secondary school at Moses Brown School in Providence, Rhode Island, [4] Sulloway studied at Harvard College and later earned a PhD in the history of science at Harvard. [5] He was a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [6]
He is known for his books, Freud, Biologist of the Mind (1979), which placed Freud and psychoanalysis in their historical and scientific contexts, and Born to Rebel (1996), which argued that birth order exerts large effects on personality. In Born to Rebel, Sulloway claimed that birth order had powerful effects on the Big Five personality traits. He argued that firstborns are more conscientious and socially dominant, less agreeable, and less open to new ideas than are laterborns, who were "born to rebel". [7] However, critics such as Fred Townsend, Toni Falbo, and Judith Rich Harris, dispute Sulloway's theories. A full issue of Politics and the Life Sciences, dated September, 2000 but not published until 2004 [8] due to legal threats from Sulloway, contains carefully and rigorously researched criticisms of Sulloway's theories and data. Subsequent large independent multi-cohort studies have revealed approximately zero-effect of birth order on personality. [9]
His grandfather was the tennis player and attorney Frank Sulloway (1883–1981). [10]
Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that examines personality and its variation among individuals. It aims to show how people are individually different due to psychological forces. Its areas of focus include:
Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies seen as originating from conflicts in the psyche, through dialogue between patient and psychoanalyst, and the distinctive theory of mind and human agency derived from it.
Alfred Adler was an Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and founder of the school of individual psychology. His emphasis on the importance of feelings of belonging, relationships within the family, and birth order set him apart from Freud and others in their common circle. He proposed that contributing to others was how the individual feels a sense of worth and belonging in the family and society. His earlier work focused on inferiority, coining the term inferiority complex, an isolating element which he argued plays a key role in personality development. Alfred Adler considered a human being as an individual whole, and therefore he called his school of psychology "Individual Psychology".
Harold Dwight Lasswell was an American political scientist and communications theorist. He earned his bachelor's degree in philosophy and economics and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He was a professor of law at Yale University. He served as president of the American Political Science Association, American Society of International Law, and World Academy of Art and Science.
A sibling is a relative that shares at least one parent with the other person. A male sibling is a brother, and a female sibling is a sister. A person with no siblings is an only child.
Birth order refers to the order a child is born in their family; first-born and second-born are examples. Birth order is often believed to have a profound and lasting effect on psychological development. This assertion has been repeatedly challenged. Recent research has consistently found that earlier born children score slightly higher on average on measures of intelligence, but has found zero, or almost zero, robust effect of birth order on personality. Nevertheless, the notion that birth-order significantly influences personality continues to have a strong presence in pop psychology and popular culture.
Robert Bolesław Zajonc was a Polish-born American social psychologist who is known for his decades of work on a wide range of social and cognitive processes. One of his most important contributions to social psychology is the mere-exposure effect. Zajonc also conducted research in the areas of social facilitation, and theories of emotion, such as the affective neuroscience hypothesis.
Judith Rich Harris was an American psychology researcher and the author of The Nurture Assumption, a book criticizing the belief that parents are the most important factor in child development, and presenting evidence which contradicts that belief. Harris was a resident of Middletown Township, New Jersey.
Wilhelm Fliess was a German otolaryngologist who practised in Berlin. He developed the pseudoscientific theory of human biorhythms and a possible nasogenital connection that have not been accepted by modern scientists. He is today best remembered for his close friendship and theoretical collaboration with Sigmund Freud, a controversial chapter in the history of psychoanalysis.
An only child is a person with no siblings, by birth or adoption.
Darwinian literary studies is a branch of literary criticism that studies literature in the context of evolution by means of natural selection, including gene-culture coevolution. It represents an emerging trend of neo-Darwinian thought in intellectual disciplines beyond those traditionally considered as evolutionary biology: evolutionary psychology, evolutionary anthropology, behavioral ecology, evolutionary developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, affective neuroscience, behavioural genetics, evolutionary epistemology, and other such disciplines.
The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry is a 1970 book about the history of dynamic psychiatry by the Swiss medical historian Henri F. Ellenberger, in which the author discusses such figures as Franz Anton Mesmer, Sigmund Freud, Pierre Janet, Alfred Adler, and Carl Jung. The book was first published in the United States by Basic Books. The work has become a classic, and has been credited with correcting older estimates of Freud's level of originality and encouraging scholars to question the scientific validity of psychoanalysis.
The Pfizer Award is awarded annually by the History of Science Society "in recognition of an outstanding book dealing with the history of science"
Gardner Murphy was an American psychologist who specialized in social and personality psychology and parapsychology. His career highlights include serving as president of the American Psychological Association and the British Society for Psychical Research.
Louis Breger was an American psychologist, psychotherapist and scholar. He was Emeritus Professor of Psychoanalytic Studies at the California Institute of Technology
John Forrester was a British historian and philosopher of science and medicine. His main interests were in the history of the human sciences, in particular psychoanalysis and psychiatry.
Freud, Biologist of the Mind: Beyond the Psychoanalytic Legend is a 1979 biography of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, by the psychologist Frank Sulloway.
The Birth Order Book: Why You Are the Way You Are is a 1982 non-fiction book by Christian psychologist Kevin Leman on birth order and its potential influence on personality and development. An updated and revised version of the book was published in 1998 through Baker Publishing Group. Leman first learned about birth order while a student at the University of Arizona. Several notable psychologists including the founder of birth order theory Alfred Adler, and Jules Angst have disputed the effects of birth order on personality and other outcomes.
Niche picking is a psychological theory that people choose environments that complement their heredity. For example, extroverts may deliberately engage with others like themselves. Niche picking is a component of gene-environment correlation.
John Thomas Jost is a social psychologist best known for his work on system justification theory and the psychology of political ideology. Jost received his AB degree in Psychology and Human Development from Duke University (1989), where he studied with Irving E. Alexander, Philip R. Costanzo, David Goldstein, and Lynn Hasher, and his PhD in Social and Political Psychology from Yale University (1995), where he was the last doctoral student of Leonard Doob and William J. McGuire. He was also a doctoral student of Mahzarin R. Banaji and a postdoctoral trainee of Arie W. Kruglanski.