ABELSON, Robert P. 1928-2005

(Robert Paul Abelson)

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born September 12, 1928, in New York, NY; died of pneumonia as a complication of Parkinson's disease, July 13, 2005, in Hamden, CT. Psychologist, educator, and author. Abelson was a Eugene Higgins professor of psychology at Yale University. He completed his B.S. and M.S. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1948 and 1950, respectively, then earned his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1953. His entire academic career was spent at Yale, where he was hired in 1952 as a research assistant. Here he rose to the post of Eugene Higgins Professor in 1971, retiring in 2005. Although he wrote on a number of topics in the field of psychology, Abelson was best known for his concept of "psycho-logic," a theory in which the psychologist describes the reasons behind why established attitudes in people are difficult to change. In addition to his teaching and research, Abelson was also a political election analyst for the National Broadcasting Company, Inc., and provided insights into the 1964, 1968, and 1976 presidential elections. He was the author, coauthor, and editor of several books, including Scripts, Plans, Goals and Understanding (1977), Statistics as Principled Argument (1995), and Experiments with People (2004), the last written with Aiden Gregg and Kurt Frey. For his contributions to psychology, Abelson received several distinguished scientific contribution awards from such organizations as the International Association of Political Psychology, the American Psychological Association, and the Society for Experimental Social Psychology.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

ONLINE

Yale University Office of Public Affairs Web site, http://www.yale.edu/opa/ (July 29, 2005).