Creative Vision

WILLIAM STERN
William Lewis (Louis) Stern
(29 April 1871, Berlin, Germany– 27 March 1938, Durham, North Carolina, USA) (aged 66)
Nationality: Germany
Category: Scientists
Occupation: Psychologist, philosopher
Specification: Founder of personalistic psychology and European psychotechnique, a pioneer in the fields of child psychology, differential, educational, legal (forensic) psychology. Inventor of the concept of the intelligence quotient, or IQ.
Gender: Male
Family: Grandson of the German-Jewish reform philosopher Sigismund Stern. Father Sigismund Stern (owner of small business), mother Rosa Stern (cousin of her husband).
W. Stern was married to Clara Joseephy, a psychologist. They had 3 children: Hilde, Eva and Günther, who became an German writer and philosopher.
Student of Ebbinghaus, was influenced by Binet.
Education: Stern graduated Friedrich-Wilhelm University of Berlin (1888-1893) (today the Humboldt University). He received his PhD in psychology from the University of Berlin in 1893. (Doctoral dissertation “Analogy in popular thought”.
Career: He taught at the University of Breslau (Wrocław ) (1897-1916), at the University of Hamburg, Professor of Psychology (1916-1933), where he also remained until 1933 as Director of the Psychological Laboratory. In 1931 he was elected President of the German Psychological Society.  In 1933, fleeing from the Nazi regime, he emigrated first to the Netherlands, then to the United States where he taught at the Duke University (1933-1938).