Block, Jack

Kevin Lanning is a Professor of Psychology at the Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University. He is a social scientist trained in personality psychology.

It has been said about William James that there is little reason to distinguish between the man and his writing, for each was largely reflected in the other. An analogous claim could be made about Jack Block, one of the most prominent personality psychologists of the second half of the twentieth century. Block lived a life that, like his science and his writing, was broad and deep, passionate and reasoned, compassionate and challenging, exacting and formidable.

Overview of Major Contributions

Block was born in Brooklyn in 1924 and died 85 years later at his hillside home just outside Berkeley. Four broad classes of his contributions to psychology may be articulated. The first was his longitudinal studies, which encompass both the reanalyses of the Oakland Growth and Berkeley Guidance Studies that appeared in the classic Lives...