Charles E. Osgood
Charles Egerton Osgood (20 November 1916 – 15 September 1991) was an American psychologist and professor at the University of Illinois. He was known for his research on behaviourism versus cognitivism, semantics (he introduced the term "semantic differential), cross-culturalism, psycholinguistic theory, and peace studies. He is credited with helping in the early development of psycholinguistics. Charles Osgood was recognized distinguished and highly honored psychologist throughout his career. Early life and education Charles Egerton Osgood was born in Somerville, Massachusetts, on 20 November 1916. His father was a manager at the Jordan Marsh department store in Boston. Osgood described having an unhappy childhood as his parents were divorced by the time he was six. When he was ten, his aunt, Grace Osgood, gave him a copy of Roget's Thesaurus. This gift was described by Osgood an “object of aesthetic pleasure”, sparking his fascination with words and their meanings. Osgood attended Brookline High School, where he began writing for the school newspaper, and eventually founded a school magazine. Osgood attended Dartmouth College where he intended to graduate and work as a writer for newspapers. During his second year, he enrolled in a class taught by Theodore Karwoski, thus inspiring him to switch his major in order to pursue a degree in psychology. Charles Osgood earned his B.A. in 1939 from Dartmouth, and in the same year, married Cynthia Luella Thornton. Osgood then went on to study at Yale University where he completed his Ph.D. in 1945. During his time at Yale, he worked as an assistant for Robert Sears, and collaborated with the likes of Arnold Gesell, Walter Miles, Charles Morris, and Irvin Child. However, the person with the greatest influence on his career and future work was Clark Hull. Though Osgood was heavily influenced through working alongside Hull; he stated the experience was one of the determining reasons for him pursuing a career as a researcher, rather than a clinician. Career Osgood was a social psychologist interested in psycholinguistics, and research. He was an instructor at Yale from 1942 to 1946, where he earned his doctorate degree. He worked for the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development 1946 to 1947, serving as a research associate that worked on training of B-29 gunners. During this period, Osgood also worked as an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Connecticut from 1946 to 1949. Osgood then went on to become an associate professor at the University of Connecticut from 1949 to 1952, and eventually as professor of psychology and communications from 1952 onward. He completed a majority of his work during his time at the University of Illinois, Urbana, which, along with the Institute of Communications, funded many of his works. Osgood would often submit himself to his own experiments get a better grasp of what his subjects may experience. At Illinois, Osgood was active in aiding in the hiring processes, and even arranged interviews for women at the university during times when women were facing sexism in the field of