Jeanne Humphrey Block (1923-1981)
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Like Mary Ainsworth, Jeanne Block was a singular individual as well as a singular researcher. Although not an attachment researcher herself, she was a friend and important model for a number who are, including Alan Sroufe, Mary Main, Harriet & Everett Waters. She can still be a prototype for lives and careers in progress. EW Jeanne Humphrey Block (1923-1981) During her lifetime, the scientific contributions of havior. Although an engaged feminist, Jeanne Block Jeanne Humphrey Block ranged widely. She inves- was also a scientist and her unique conjoining of tigated delay of gratification in young children; the these identity-expanding values with sober and inci- parents of schizophrenic children; the factors predis- sive scientific analyses struck a responsive chord in posing to childhood asthma; cross-cultural differ- many and gave her words wide influence. ences in socialization practices; student activism; various cognitive styles; the effects of family stress; Her personal presence also helped her toward hav- creativity; and the many long-term implications of ing effect: she was womanly, energetic, warmly con- ego control and ego resiliency for the way behavior necting, funny, artful in the non-pejorative sense, is organized and manifested, among other things. attractive to both women and to men. Her work She also planned, implemented and for many years continues to be frequently cited and she is well- nurtured a longitudinal study of personality and cog- remembered as a role model of the women psy- nitive development of unprecedented scope, chologist. achievement, and continuing implication that, by itself, justifies her distinguished reputation. Her Family Background and Education work on childhood asthma received the American Jeanne Lavonne Humphrey was born in Tulsa, Okla- Psychiatric Association Hofheimer Prize (1974) and homa on the 17thof July, 1923. Her father was she was elected to the status of Fellow in four divi- Charles Joseph Humphrey, a building contractor ear- sions of the American Psychological Association. lier from Cleveland, Ohio; her mother was Louise She also served on various significant editorial and Lewis Humphrey, originally from Rolla, Missouri in national research review committees. the Ozark foothills. Her father was a moral, quietly warm person whose consistency and concern were But perhaps the primary basis for her recognition to important to his daughter's development. During his date derives from the series of integrative, theoreti- life, he became well-known as a meticulous and cally oriented, thoughtfully analytic essays she scrupulous builder of finely crafted homes. Her wrote during the 1970's and early 1980's on sex role mother was a firm instiller of traditional values, a development (Block, 1973, 1976a, 1979, 1983), cul- believer in self-improvement, and with high intelli- minating in her posthumously published book, Sex gence, energy, and social lconcerns. Active in Role Identity and Ego Development (1984). In church and community affairs, when her children these writings on the course of personality develop- reached a sufficient age, she went on to became a ment, she presented her own conception of sex role tax analyst and a respected lobbyist of principled based upon cross-cultural and longitudinal recogni- convictions with the state legislature. tions, described the ways in which the interweaving of biological and cultural factors have historically When Jeanne Humphrey was 4-months old, the fam- influenced sex role development, showed how socie- ily wended its way to Portland, Oregon and settled tal and technological developments have in signifi- near Reed College. As a child, she played and cant ways made previously understandable sex role swam at Reed and came to know several neighbor- shapings no longer valid, documented the differen- ing Reed professors. After the birth of a brother, tial premises ingrained in little girls and little boys Richard, in 1931,the family moved to a large house by their differential socialization, and radically but on several acres in Clackamas County, near the constructively revised previous understandings of small town of Milwaukee and about ten miles out- the empirical literature on gender differences in be- side Portland. The depression period was a hard one for the Hum- gists, and she graduated with honors in 1947. She phrey family because of crushing, undeserved finan- had applied to several graduate schools in the East cial blows. But with an affectionate milk cow, a and been accepted at Harvard but during a summer productive garden, and some chickens, the family visit to the San Francisco Bay Area to see a friend, was in many immediate ways self-providing. she used the opportunity to spontaneously visit Stan- Things eased up after several years and, overall, it ford University to see what the Psychology Depart- seems fair to say that Humphrey lived what might be ment was like. Ernest Hilgard happened to be avail- called an All-American, small-town life. Through able to meet her, liked the verve of the eager, obvi- elementary, junior high, and high school, there was ously intelligent young woman that he saw, and in- the same set of chums. Humphrey was bright, viva- vited her to become a graduate student that Fall. cious, enterprising, and popular, but also she was, in Humphrey liked Stanford, far enough and yet close adolescence, turning over in her own mind the vari- enough to Portland, and so her choice was made. ous sets of values she was encountering and con- structing a sense of who she was and who she At Stanford, Jeanne Humphrey majored in clinical wanted to be. She was powerfully upset by the ab- psychology, then a field seeking to define and trans- sence of local community reaction when a long term form itself after the war. During these years, clinical Nisei girlfriend was, overnight, family and all, re- psychology at Stanford was represented by Maud moved from town and sent to an internment camp a Merrill James, who had worked with Terman in re- few days after Pearl Harbor; she was realizing that vising the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test and by she was smarter than she was supposed to be; a min- Howard Hunt, neither of whom would be considered ister, Tom Shannon, was important to her thinking to be clinicians given later conceptions of the term. on self. But Maud Merrill James (one never omitted her middle name) was a quietly shrewd, elegant, and Upon graduation from high school in 1941, Hum- gentle person with much experience with young phrey went to Oregon State College for a year, ma- problem children; she became a significant mentor joring in home economics but also taking courses in for Humphrey both professionally and personally. architecture. She achieved the unusual distinction of Becoming a Veterans Administration Clinical Psy- failing in home economics while still making the chology Intern in 1948, Humphrey encountered the Dean's List for academic achievement. The time full range of psychopathology among the patients was 1942; America was at war; college seemed in- there and, as a personal project, for three years un- significant. She quit school and took a job at Meier dertook prolonged psychotherapy with a young Frank, the leading department store in Portland, schizophrenic veteran, a significant learning experi- working as a buyer's assistant. In 1943, she accom- ence. Concurrently, she served in the Stanford Child panied a girlfriend to the recruiting office, and re- Guidance Clinic, first as a psychometrician and then turned having herself enlisted in the SPARS, the as a therapist with children and with parents. women’s' unit of the Coast Guard. Jeanne Hum- phrey was commissioned an ensign in 1944and Also at Stanford, Jeanne Humphrey was taking non- served with distinction. In 1945, during her service, clinical psychology courses: on learning with Ernest she was scalded over much of her body and almost Hilgard, on statistics with Quinn McNemar (at a per- died from the subsequent plasma loss. Coast Guard sonal level, a significant mentor), on comparative servicemen responded with blood donations (she psychology with Calvin Stone, on experimental was told at the time that she held the record for num- methods with Donald Taylor, on the history of psy- ber of blood transfusions). After many painful skin chology with Paul Farnsworth, among others. It was grafts, Humphrey returned to active service earning the élan of the clinical graduate students at Stanford commendation for facilitating, at the end of the war, of that time to be both clinically oriented and also to the demobilization of military men seeking rapid academically outdo the psychology graduate stu- return to civilian life. dents focusing on "hardnosed," "experimental" psy- chology. Jeanne Humphrey was a successful exem- Demobilized in 1946, Humphrey wanted more and a plar of this orientation. different education. She went to Reed College, near - where she had lived as a young child, and majored An unusually good group of graduate students was in Psychology. Her major influences there were at Stanford during this era, the late 1940's, partly Fred Courts and Monte Griffith, both interesting and because of the return of veterans keen to renew their supportive individuals as well as good psycholo- education: Fred Attneave, GerryBlum, Charles 2 Ericksen, Wayne Holtzman, Paul McReynolds, Har- cles on ethnocentrismand intolerance of ambiguity oldRauch, Paul Secord, among others. Intellectual (Block & Block, 1951), on reactionsto authority discussions wereintense and informal; the possibili- (Block & Block, 1952), on the reactions of young ties for psychology seemed, if not boundless, at least children to frustration (Block & Martin, 1955), on to extend in many alluring directions. Jeanne Hum- psychiatrists' conceptions of schizophrenogenic par- phrey had become impressed by Lewinian psychol- ents (Jackson, Block, Block,& Patterson, 1958), and ogy and by psychoanalytic theory and so had her on the comparison of the parents ofneurotic children fellow graduate student, Jack Block.