Boris Semeonoff

Last updated
Boris Semeonoff
Born
Boris Semeonoff

St. Petersburg (Leningrad)
NationalityBritish
Alma mater University of Edinburgh
Scientific career
Fields Psychology, Personality psychology
Institutions University of Edinburgh

Boris Semeonoff (1910-1998) was a British psychologist with particular expertise in personality assessment.

Contents

Career

Semeonoff was born in St. Petersburg, Russia but moved to Scotland when he was only four. The visit was intended as a holiday but with the outbreak of war he did not return to Russia. He was a student at George Watson's College, Edinburgh followed by the University of Edinburgh where he obtained an MA (Hons) in English Language and Literature (1931) followed by a B.Ed (1933). After the departure of George Seth, he was appointed to the staff of the Department of Psychology at the university and was subsequently awarded a Ph.D. (1936) for a thesis on Weber's Law in relation to the intensity of sound. [1]

From 1933 until his retirement in 1980, Semeonoff worked at the university rising to the position of Reader of Psychology. During the Second World War, he was involved in the selection of officers for the Special Operations Executive. [2]

He was actively involved in the British Psychological Society becoming its president in 1966. He edited the British Journal of Psychology between 1958 and 1964. [3]

Research

His research was largely in the area of personality assessment and selection and he published several books on the subject (Semeonoff, 1958, 1970, 1976). His papers are held in the University of Edinburgh Archives. [4]

Honours

Publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Industrial and organizational psychology</span> Branch of psychology

Industrial and organizational psychology is the science of human behavior in the workplace. It is an applied discipline within psychology. Depending on the country or region of the world, I-O psychology is also known as occupational psychology in the United Kingdom, organisational psychology in Australia and New Zealand, and work and organizational (WO) psychology throughout Europe and Brazil. Industrial, work, and organizational (IWO) psychology is the broader, more global term for the science and profession.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Psychological Association</span> Scientific and professional organization headquartered in the Washington, D.C.

The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 146,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It has 54 divisions—interest groups for different subspecialties of psychology or topical areas. The APA has an annual budget of around $125 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Psychological testing</span> Administration of psychological tests

Psychological testing is the administration of psychological tests. Psychological tests are administered by trained evaluators. A person's responses are evaluated according to carefully prescribed guidelines. Scores are thought to reflect individual or group differences in the construct the test purports to measure. The science behind psychological testing is psychometrics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rorschach test</span> Psychological test created in 1921

The Rorschach test is a projective psychological test in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both. Some psychologists use this test to examine a person's personality characteristics and emotional functioning. It has been employed to detect underlying thought disorder, especially in cases where patients are reluctant to describe their thinking processes openly. The test is named after its creator, Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach. The Rorschach can be thought of as a psychometric examination of pareidolia, the active pattern of perceiving objects, shapes, or scenery as meaningful things to the observer's experience, the most common being faces or other pattern of forms that are not present at the time of the observation. In the 1960s, the Rorschach was the most widely used projective test.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clinical psychology</span> Branch of medicine devoted to mental disorders

Clinical psychology is an integration of human science, behavioral science, theory, and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development. Central to its practice are psychological assessment, clinical formulation, and psychotherapy, although clinical psychologists also engage in research, teaching, consultation, forensic testimony, and program development and administration. In many countries, clinical psychology is a regulated mental health profession.

Irving Lester Janis was an American research psychologist at Yale University and a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley most famous for his theory of "groupthink" which described the systematic errors made by groups when making collective decisions. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Janis as the 79th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.

The British Psychological Society (BPS) is a representative body for psychologists and psychology in the United Kingdom.

The Barnum effect, also called the Forer effect or, less commonly, the Barnum–Forer effect, is a common psychological phenomenon whereby individuals give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically to them, yet which are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. This effect can provide a partial explanation for the widespread acceptance of some paranormal beliefs and practices, such as astrology, fortune telling, aura reading, and some types of personality tests.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raymond Cattell</span> British-American psychologist (1905–1998)

Raymond Bernard Cattell was a British-American psychologist, known for his psychometric research into intrapersonal psychological structure. His work also explored the basic dimensions of personality and temperament, the range of cognitive abilities, the dynamic dimensions of motivation and emotion, the clinical dimensions of abnormal personality, patterns of group syntality and social behavior, applications of personality research to psychotherapy and learning theory, predictors of creativity and achievement, and many multivariate research methods including the refinement of factor analytic methods for exploring and measuring these domains. Cattell authored, co-authored, or edited almost 60 scholarly books, more than 500 research articles, and over 30 standardized psychometric tests, questionnaires, and rating scales. According to a widely cited ranking, Cattell was the 16th most eminent, 7th most cited in the scientific journal literature, and among the most productive psychologists of the 20th century. He was a controversial figure due in part to his friendships with, and intellectual respect for, white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Murray</span> American psychologist and academic (1893–1988)

Henry Alexander Murray was an American psychologist at Harvard University, where from 1959 to 1962 he conducted a series of psychologically damaging and purposefully abusive experiments on minors and undergraduate students—one of whom was Ted Kaczynski, later known as the Unabomber. It has been suggested that Murray's work with Kaczynski helped consolidate the personal beliefs and world views that culminated in Kaczynski's later actions as the Unabomber. He was Director of the Harvard Psychological Clinic in the School of Arts and Sciences after 1930. Murray developed a theory of personality called personology, based on "need" and "press". Murray was also a co-developer, with Christiana Morgan, of the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), which he referred to as "the second best-seller that Harvard ever published, second only to the Harvard Dictionary of Music."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul E. Meehl</span> American psychologist (1920–2003)

Paul Everett Meehl 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 Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Meehl as the 74th most cited psychologist of the 20th century, in a tie with Eleanor J. Gibson. Throughout his nearly 60-year career, Meehl made seminal contributions to psychology, including empirical studies and theoretical accounts of construct validity, schizophrenia etiology, psychological assessment, behavioral prediction, and philosophy of science.

Raymond D. Fowler was an American psychologist and Professor Emeritus of the University of Alabama. He was president of the American Psychological Association (1988) and served as APA's executive vice president and chief executive officer (CEO) from 1989 to 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Hogan (psychologist)</span> American psychologist (born 1937)

Robert Hogan is an American personality psychologist and organizational psychologist known for developing socioanalytic theory, which fuses psychoanalytic theory, role theory, and evolutionary theory. Hogan is the president of Hogan Assessment Systems, which he cofounded with the late Joyce Hogan, PhD, in 1987. He is the author of three widely used personality inventories—the Hogan Personality Inventory; the Hogan Development Survey; and the Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory—along with more than 300 scholarly articles, chapters, and books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neal E. Miller</span> American psychologist and academic

Neal Elgar Miller was an American experimental psychologist. Described as an energetic man with a variety of interests, including physics, biology and writing, Miller entered the field of psychology to pursue these. With a background training in the sciences, he was inspired by professors and leading psychologists at the time to work on various areas in behavioral psychology and physiological psychology, specifically, relating visceral responses to behavior.

Molly Harrower was an American clinical psychologist. During the Second World War she created a large-scale multiple choice Rorschach test. She was one of the first clinical psychologists to open a private practice. Specializing in diagnostics, Harrower developed a scale allowing practitioners to predict which patients would profit from psychotherapy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Saville (psychologist)</span> British psychologist (1946–2022)

Peter Francis Saville was a British chartered occupational psychologist specialising in psychometrics, personality and talent management.

Rodney L. Lowman is an American psychologist, academic administrator and entrepreneur whose major contributions have been in the areas of career assessment and counseling, ethical issues in Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the integration of clinical psychology and I-O psychology and helping to develop the field of consulting psychology. In a study of the most prolific contributors to the Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, Lowman was rated the second highest contributor for articles for the period 1992–2007.

Everett Lowell Kelly was an American clinical psychologist, professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, president of the American Psychological Association (1954–55), and chairman of the Executive Committee for the Boulder Conference on Graduate Training in Clinical Psychology (1948–49).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Beloff</span> British psychologist and author

John Beloff was an English psychology professor at Edinburgh University and parapsychologist.

H. Gwynne Jones was a British psychologist with particular expertise in personality assessment.

References

  1. "Our History - Boris Semeonoff". University of Edinburgh. Retrieved 2 August 2020.
  2. Semeonoff, Boris (1969). "Changing horizons: An essay in autobiography". Bulletin of the British Psychological Society. 22: 169–179.
  3. Beloff, John (1998). "Obituary - Boris Semeonoff". The Psychologist.
  4. "Collection: Papers of Professor Boris Semeonoff". University of Edinburgh. Retrieved 2 August 2020.
  5. Beloff, John (1998). "Obituary - Boris Semeonoff". The Psychologist.
  6. Semeonoff, Boris (1958). Diagnostic Performance Tests. London: Tavistock. OCLC   430947 . Retrieved 2 August 2020.
  7. Semeonoff, Boris (1970). Personality Assessment. Harmondsworth: Penguin. OCLC   178237 . Retrieved 2 August 2020.
  8. Semeonoff, Boris (1976). Projective Technique. London: Wiley. ISBN   9780471016847. OCLC   1859903 . Retrieved 2 August 2020.