International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

One of the founding figures of communication science, Yale psychologist Carl Iver Hovland (1912–1961) was born in Chicago to Scandinavian parents. His mother, Augusta Anderson Hovland, had emigrated from Sweden, while his father, Ole C. Hovland, a child of immigrants from Norway who had settled in Minnesota, had left the family farm to become an electrical engineer and inventor in Chicago. Both parents were said to be deeply religious. Hovland had a solid background in mathematics, physics, and biology, as well as in experimental psychology, receiving his BA (1932) and MA (1933) at Northwestern University ( Shepard 1998 ). In 1934, he arrived at Yale University to become a member of faculty. He was recognized as an outstanding student, shy and self-contained, but gentle and musical (a piano player). He was found to be a very efficient administrator of research who never seemed to be bothered by details which he dealt with very quickly. He received his PhD with honors in 1936, under the prominent Yale learning theorist Clark C. Hull. Hovland rose quickly through the ranks of assistant professor (1937), director of graduate studies (1941), associate professor (1943, in absentia), to become full professor and chairman of the psychological department in 1945, at the age of 33, and Sterling professor in 1947. During World War II, from 1942 to 1945, Hovland headed the Experimental Section ... log in or subscribe to read full text