Howard H. Kendler (1919-2011)

Abstract

Presents an obituary for Howard H. Kendler. Kendler was born in New York City on June 9, 1919, and died in Santa Barbara, California, on February 17, 2011. Kendler majored in psychology at Brooklyn College, where he was an assistant to Abraham Maslow, the father of humanistic psychology, and did a research project on the psychology of thinking under the supervision of Solomon Asch, a leading Gestalt psychologist. Howard Kendler's career was characterized by insightful experiments and a consistent analysis of the fundamental issues of the nature of our science, its methods, and its role in the community. The breadth of his knowledge and the depth of his thinking on these issues are rare. Although he did not settle these issues, he brought them into clear focus and forcefully advocated for his point of view. He was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and Tel-Aviv University and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He held the offices of president of the Western Psychological Association, chairman of the Board of Governors of the Psychonomic Society, and president of the Division of General Psychology and the Division of Experimental Psychology of the American Psychological Association.