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Roger Brown (psychologist)
Roger William Brown (April 14, 1925 – December 11, 1997) was an American psychologist. He was known for his work in social psychology and in children's language development.
Brown taught at Harvard University from 1952 until 1957 and from 1962 until 1994, and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1957 until 1962. His scholarly books include Words and Things: An Introduction to Language (1958), Social Psychology (1965), Psycholinguistics (1970), A First Language: The Early Stages (1973), and Social Psychology: The Second Edition (1985). He authored numerous journal articles and book chapters.
He was the doctoral adviser or a post-doctoral mentor of many researchers in child language development and psycholinguistics, including Jean Berko Gleason, Susan Ervin-Tripp, Camile Hanlon, Dan Slobin, Ursula Bellugi, Courtney Cazden, Richard F. Cromer, David McNeill, Eric Lenneberg, Colin Fraser, Eleanor Rosch (Heider), Melissa Bowerman, Steven Pinker, Kenji Hakuta, Jill de Villiers, and Peter de Villiers. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Brown as the 34th-most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
Born in Detroit, Brown earned an undergraduate psychology degree in 1948 and a Ph.D. in 1952 from the University of Michigan. He started his career in 1952 as an instructor and then assistant professor of psychology at Harvard University. In 1957 he left Harvard for an associate professorship at MIT, and became a full professor of psychology there in 1960. In 1962, he returned to Harvard as a full professor, and served as chair of the Department of Social Relations from 1967 to 1970. From 1974 until his retirement in 1994, he held the title of John Lindsley Professor of Psychology in Memory of William James.
Roger Brown's research and teaching focused on social psychology, the relationship between language and thought, and the linguistic development of children. The clarity, directness, and humor of his scholarly writing are often praised; Pinker describes him as "perhaps the best writer in psychology since James himself".
Brown's book Words and Things: An Introduction to Language (1957) examines the mutual influence of thought and language, described as "the first book on the psychology of language coming out of the cognitive revolution". His writing in this area became an inspiration for much work in the relation between language and cognition, including Eleanor Rosch (Heider)'s work on color names and color memory and Steven Pinker's 1994 book The Language Instinct.
Brown taught social psychology and published his first textbook, Social Psychology, in 1965. The book was completely rewritten and published in 1986 as Social Psychology: The Second Edition. Brown also wrote an introductory textbook on psychology, co-authored with his colleague Richard Herrnstein. Pinker noted that these two books "live in publishing infamy as a lesson of what happens to textbooks that are unconventional, sophisticated, and thought-provoking: they don't sell."
In the late 1950s, Brown and then his student Jean Berko Gleason undertook the first experimental studies on children's language development. During the late 1960s, Brown and several junior colleagues, including Ursula Bellugi, Colin Fraser, and Richard F. Cromer, undertook a landmark study of the linguistic development of children, published in A First Language: The Early Stages. This book chronicled the language development of three English-speaking children over several years, and provided an in-depth analysis of the early stages of first language acquisition. This analysis of five stages of language development, determined by structures used and by mean length of utterance (MLU), continues to be used in the field today. The original transcriptions of the three children's conversations, along with materials from many other children speaking a wide variety of languages, is available from the Child Language Data Exchange, founded by Brian MacWhinney (Carnegie Mellon University) and Catherine Snow (Harvard).
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Roger Brown (psychologist)
Roger William Brown (April 14, 1925 – December 11, 1997) was an American psychologist. He was known for his work in social psychology and in children's language development.
Brown taught at Harvard University from 1952 until 1957 and from 1962 until 1994, and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1957 until 1962. His scholarly books include Words and Things: An Introduction to Language (1958), Social Psychology (1965), Psycholinguistics (1970), A First Language: The Early Stages (1973), and Social Psychology: The Second Edition (1985). He authored numerous journal articles and book chapters.
He was the doctoral adviser or a post-doctoral mentor of many researchers in child language development and psycholinguistics, including Jean Berko Gleason, Susan Ervin-Tripp, Camile Hanlon, Dan Slobin, Ursula Bellugi, Courtney Cazden, Richard F. Cromer, David McNeill, Eric Lenneberg, Colin Fraser, Eleanor Rosch (Heider), Melissa Bowerman, Steven Pinker, Kenji Hakuta, Jill de Villiers, and Peter de Villiers. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Brown as the 34th-most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
Born in Detroit, Brown earned an undergraduate psychology degree in 1948 and a Ph.D. in 1952 from the University of Michigan. He started his career in 1952 as an instructor and then assistant professor of psychology at Harvard University. In 1957 he left Harvard for an associate professorship at MIT, and became a full professor of psychology there in 1960. In 1962, he returned to Harvard as a full professor, and served as chair of the Department of Social Relations from 1967 to 1970. From 1974 until his retirement in 1994, he held the title of John Lindsley Professor of Psychology in Memory of William James.
Roger Brown's research and teaching focused on social psychology, the relationship between language and thought, and the linguistic development of children. The clarity, directness, and humor of his scholarly writing are often praised; Pinker describes him as "perhaps the best writer in psychology since James himself".
Brown's book Words and Things: An Introduction to Language (1957) examines the mutual influence of thought and language, described as "the first book on the psychology of language coming out of the cognitive revolution". His writing in this area became an inspiration for much work in the relation between language and cognition, including Eleanor Rosch (Heider)'s work on color names and color memory and Steven Pinker's 1994 book The Language Instinct.
Brown taught social psychology and published his first textbook, Social Psychology, in 1965. The book was completely rewritten and published in 1986 as Social Psychology: The Second Edition. Brown also wrote an introductory textbook on psychology, co-authored with his colleague Richard Herrnstein. Pinker noted that these two books "live in publishing infamy as a lesson of what happens to textbooks that are unconventional, sophisticated, and thought-provoking: they don't sell."
In the late 1950s, Brown and then his student Jean Berko Gleason undertook the first experimental studies on children's language development. During the late 1960s, Brown and several junior colleagues, including Ursula Bellugi, Colin Fraser, and Richard F. Cromer, undertook a landmark study of the linguistic development of children, published in A First Language: The Early Stages. This book chronicled the language development of three English-speaking children over several years, and provided an in-depth analysis of the early stages of first language acquisition. This analysis of five stages of language development, determined by structures used and by mean length of utterance (MLU), continues to be used in the field today. The original transcriptions of the three children's conversations, along with materials from many other children speaking a wide variety of languages, is available from the Child Language Data Exchange, founded by Brian MacWhinney (Carnegie Mellon University) and Catherine Snow (Harvard).