28 Facts About Muzafer Sherif

Muzafer Sherif helped develop social judgment theory and realistic conflict theory.

Muzafer Sherif was born as Muzaffer Serif Basoglu and grew up in a wealthy family that included five children, of whom he was the second born.

Muzafer Sherif attended Elementary School in Odemis for six years and then attended Izmir International College from which he received a Bachelor of Arts in 1926.

Muzafer Sherif then obtained MA degree from the Istanbul University in 1928, where he expressed his support for the modernization of Turkey during political debates and gathered interest in goal-oriented behaviour, or hormic psychology as proposed by British psychologist William McDougall.

Muzafer Sherif went to America during the peak of the Great Depression, earning an MA from Harvard University where his teachers were Gordon Allport and Caroll Pratt.

Muzafer Sherif visited Berlin in 1932 during the rise of the Nazi Party to attend Wolfgang Kohler's lectures on Gestalt Psychology, whereafter Sherif planned to use Gestalt principles for a new social perception theory.

Muzafer Sherif returned to the US in 1933 and re-enrolled at Harvard for his Doctoral studies, but later switched to Columbia University, where he earned a Ph.

Muzafer Sherif gained a position at Ankara University upon his return to Turkey and developed ties with the Communist Party of Turkey.

Muzafer Sherif criticized members of the bureaucracy and Nazi-supporters in his works as fascism became more prevalent.

Muzafer Sherif was briefly detained along with other members of the TKP in 1944 following political conflicts at Ankara University, where he sided with Communists.

Muzafer Sherif fled back to America shortly after his detainment in Turkey in 1945 due to fear of a harsher and longer punishment for his association with the Communist Party.

Muzafer Sherif was officially fired as a professor at Ankara University, and was legally liable for salary debt to the Turkish government during his residence in the US Muzafer Sherif's marriage to his American wife, Carolyn Wood, led to his dismissal because it violated policies banning the marriage of Turks to foreigners.

Muzafer Sherif died on October 16,1988, in Fairbanks, Alaska, at the age of 82.

Muzafer Sherif made contributions to social psychological theory, field and laboratory methodology, and to the application of research to social issues.

Muzafer Sherif wrote more than 60 articles and 24 books.

Muzafer Sherif's dissertation was titled "Some Social Factors In Perception", and the ideas and research were the basis for his first classic book, The Psychology of Social Norms.

In 1977, while at Pennsylvania State University Muzafer Sherif published a paper identifying problem areas in Social Psychology as well as solutions towards them.

Muzafer Sherif begins by describing that social psychology was undergoing an increase in the amount of research taking place, and publications printed.

Muzafer Sherif blames reductionism, where the phenomena of groups was reduced to interpersonal reaction and ahistoricalism which removed situational factors from consideration.

Muzafer Sherif promotes the idea of attitude and attitude change due to its importance in a quickly changing world.

Muzafer Sherif emphasizes that real world contexts are important, even if regarded as "messy" compared to controlled lab experiments.

Muzafer Sherif believes this "publish or perish" culture perpetuates a large output of studies that aren't necessarily high quality, as researchers are forced to publish papers for their careers, rather than for good science.

Muzafer Sherif endorses the communication across discipline where it isn't scientific vs historical to understand a problem, but scientific AND historical.

Muzafer Sherif explains that some theory model-builders become fixated and create models of small trivial problems, and to break through the crisis is to ask some "unthinkable" questions.

The importance of cross-cultural comparisons is mentioned by Muzafer Sherif to insure the validity of methods.

Muzafer Sherif was a Rockefeller Research Fellow at Yale University from 1947 to 1949.

Muzafer Sherif moved to Oklahoma in 1949, where he worked as a professor, research professor, and director of the Institute of Group Relations, which he founded in 1952.

Muzafer Sherif organized different seminars at Oklahoma and later wrote five books based on the papers delivered at those seminars.