In existographies, Max Meyer (1873-1967) was a German-born American psychologist and behaviorist noted for []
Sex Question | Scandal
In spring 1929, Meyer was teaching a sociology class at the University of Missouri, during which student Orval Hobart Mowrer, for his senior research project, mailed surveys to 700 male and female undergraduates, asking their reactions to several hypothetical situations; some examples are:
1. Female | Would you break your engagement to a man if you had learned that he had indulged in illicit sexual relations?
2. Male | Would you associate with women who accepted money in return for sexual favors?
3. Both | What is your attitude toward birth control?
4. Both | What is your opinion about ‘trial marriages’, wherein a man and a woman would live in sexual intimacy from some days or weeks in order to determine whether or not they were sexually compatible?
The survey quickly spread to journalists, sparking a firestorm: people demanded the university fire the faculty involved; Missouri legislators threatened to withhold funding; the university president Stratton Brooks attempted to restructure the entire university; Meyer and other faculty were terminated; the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) reacted by establishing the concept of ‘tenure’; national backlash worked to get on faculty involved reinstated and president Brooks fired.
Education
Meyer completed his PhD under Max Planck.
Influence
Meyer's only PhD student was Albert Weiss. [2]
See also
β Buss sexual receptivity study
References
1. (a) Nelson, Lawrence J. (2003). Rumors of Indiscretion: the University of Missouri ‘Sex Questionnaire’ Scandal in the Jazz Age. University of Missouri Press.
(b) Author. (c.2004). “Book Review: Rumors of Indiscretion” (pdf), The Annals of Iowa (pgs. 223-25). University of Iowa Press.
2. Weiss, Albert P. (1925). A Theoretical Basis of Human Behavior (pgs. v-viii). R.G. Adams & Co, 1929.
3. Wozniak, Robert H. (1997). “Albert Paul Weiss and A Theoretical Basis for Human Behavior” (ΡΊ), Bryn Mayr College.
Further reading
β Mayer, Max. (1911). The Fundamental Laws of Human Behavior. Lectures on the Foundations of any Mental or Social Science. Publisher.
External links
β Max Friedrich Meyer – Wikipedia.
