Cattell, Raymond
Start date:
Commentary
Born in 1905 in Staffordshire, England, US psychologist Raymond Bernard Cattell was considered to be one of the world's leading personality theorists.
Cattell was educated at the University of London, receiving his BS in 1924 and his PhD in 1929. He taught at the University of Exeter (1927-32), after which he served as director of the Leicester Child Guidance Clinic (1932-37). Cattell then taught at Clark University, Worcester, Mass. (1939-41). After a brief stint as a lecturer at Harvard University (1941-43), Cattell was appointed research professor of psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana (1945), a position he held until becoming emeritus professor in 1974.
Cattell was a prolific writer in his field, making substantial contributions to both the theory and methodology of psychological measurement. Among his many books are The Meaning and Measurement of Neuroticism and Anxiety (1961), Handbook of Multivariate Experimental Psychology (1966), Prediction of Achievement and Creativity (1968), and Abilities: Their Structure, Growth, and Action (1971).
Personality and Learning Theory, (2 vols, 1979-80), is considered his most important work. In it he proposed a theory of human development that integrates the intellectual, temperamental, and dynamic aspects of personality in the context of environmental and cultural influences. He was able to synthesize in this work many of the disparate hypotheses of both personality and learning theories.