Morton Deutsch facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Morton Deutsch
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Morton Deutsch in his Office, 2012
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| Born | February 4, 1920 |
| Died | March 13, 2017 (aged 97) |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | City College of New York (B.S., 1939) University of Pennsylvania (M.S.) MIT (Ph.D., 1948) |
| Occupation | Professor at Columbia University, Psychoanalyst |
| Known for | Theories of cooperation and competition, conflict resolution, distributive justice |
Morton Deutsch (born February 4, 1920 – died March 13, 2017) was an American social psychologist. He was a very important researcher in the field of conflict resolution. This means he studied how people can solve disagreements peacefully. Many people consider Deutsch one of the main founders of this field. In 2002, a study ranked him as the 63rd most referenced psychologist of the 20th century.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Morton Deutsch was born in 1920 in the Bronx, New York City. He was one of four children in his family. By the time he was 15, he was already attending the City College of New York. He first thought about studying psychiatry, which is a type of medicine dealing with mental health. However, he changed his mind after a biology class where he had to dissect a guinea pig. He then decided to study psychology instead.
He earned his first degree, a Bachelor of Science (B.S.), in 1939 from the City College of New York. He then got his Master of Arts (M.A.) in 1940 from the University of Pennsylvania. After this, Deutsch worked at different places in New York State. These included institutions that helped people with intellectual disabilities, troubled young boys, and adults with mental health issues.
Military Service and Further Studies
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Deutsch joined the U.S. Air Force. He first worked as a psychologist. Later, he became a navigator and flew in 30 bombing missions over Nazi Germany. For his bravery during combat, he received special awards like the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal.
After his military service, he worked as a clinical psychologist in an Air Force hospital. Then, he went to study at MIT under a famous psychologist named Kurt Lewin. Deutsch earned his Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy) in 1948. For his Ph.D. project, he studied how working together (cooperation) and competing against each other affected groups of people. He also taught psychology classes to college students. In his classes, he even experimented with different ways of grading students, some cooperative and some competitive.
Theory of Cooperation and Competition
This early research led to one of Deutsch's most important ideas: the "Theory of Cooperation and Competition." This theory looks at how people's goals are connected. For example, do people need to work together to reach a goal, or do they have to compete? The theory also studies how people's actions affect each other. Deutsch used three main ideas to explain this:
- Substitutability: How one person's actions can help another person reach their goals.
- Cathexis: How people feel about themselves and their surroundings.
- Inducibility: How willing a person is to be influenced by others.
This theory was first shared in a paper in 1949.
While at MIT, Deutsch also met Lydia Shapiro, who would become his wife. They got married on June 1, 1947.
Early Career and Research
One of Deutsch's first big projects was studying how group tension and racial attitudes affected people. He worked with the American Jewish Congress. Their goal was to fight against religious and racial prejudice in American society.
In 1951, Deutsch and his co-author Mary Evans Collins studied housing in New York and New Jersey. They compared places where people of different races lived together (integrated housing) with places where races were kept separate (segregated housing). Before their study, it was common for housing projects to keep races apart. Their research showed that segregated housing was not fair. Because of their findings, public housing projects changed their rules and started allowing people of all races to live together. This study was published in a book called Interracial Housing. Many people today believe Deutsch's research helped end segregation policies in the United States.
In 1951, Deutsch also helped write a textbook called Research Methods in Social Relations. This book was very popular and had three new versions over the next 25 years. In 1954, Deutsch began training to become a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. He finished his training in 1957. Besides his work as a social psychologist, he also had a small private practice helping people as a therapist until the late 1980s.
Studying Bargaining and Conflict
In 1956, he joined Bell Telephone Laboratories. Here, he researched how people bargain and make decisions in small groups. One famous experiment he did was called the "Acme-Bolt Trucking game." This game showed that when people have a way to threaten others in a competition, they often use it. However, this threatening behavior usually does not lead to cooperation.
Deutsch also helped edit a book in 1962 called Preventing World War III. This book continued his interest in preventing nuclear war, including the idea of nuclear deterrence, which is about discouraging attacks by having strong defenses. As an expert in social psychology, he started appearing on television to talk about his field.
Career at Columbia University
In 1963, Morton Deutsch moved to Teachers College, Columbia University. He was invited to start a new Ph.D. program in social psychology. During his time here, he wrote two very important books: The Resolution of Conflict (published in 1973) and Distributive Justice (published in 1985). He also published Theories in Social Psychology (1965) and Applying Social Psychology (1975).
Deutsch was the first psychologist to use a famous puzzle called the Prisoner's Dilemma to study how much trust exists between small groups or pairs of people. His work on conflict resolution became very important. He showed the difference between "constructive conflict" (where disagreements lead to positive solutions) and "destructive conflict" (where disagreements cause harm). His ideas had a real impact. For example, in 1989, leaders in Poland used Deutsch's work to help guide a peaceful change from a Communist government to a democratic one.
Leadership and Justice Research
In 1981, Deutsch became the Edward Lee Thorndike Professor of Psychology and Education. This was a very respected position. Through his work, he became a leading expert in conflict resolution, social justice, how different groups get along, and social psychology.
In 1986, Deutsch started the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution (ICCCR) at Columbia University. The goal of this center was to connect the ideas of conflict resolution with how it's actually used in the real world. For instance, in 1987, the Center trained teachers in Long Island and New Jersey to help students deal with fighting and gang violence in their communities.
During this time, Deutsch also focused on "distributive justice." This idea is about how resources and good things are shared among people in a group. He saw this as different from "procedural justice," which is about how fair the rules and processes are. His research on distributive justice was put into his 1985 book.
Another key idea he studied was "Crude Law." This looked at how people's attitudes, behaviors, and relationships affect each other. Deutsch found that the usual effects of a certain relationship tend to make that relationship happen more. For example, if people cooperate, it often leads to friendly and helpful behavior. And friendly, helpful behavior encourages more cooperation. His "Crude Law" and his work on distributive justice greatly expanded his contributions to the field of conflict resolution.
Later Career and Legacy
Morton Deutsch was also a founding member of the World Dignity University initiative. He was also on the Global Advisory Board for the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies organization. He served as president for many important groups, including the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and the International Society of Political Psychology. He also led several parts of the American Psychological Association (APA).
In 2005, the ICCCR started the annual Morton Deutsch Award. This award goes to a scholar who helps both with the ideas and the practice of social justice. There's also an award for the best student paper. The International Society for Justice Research also created a Morton Deutsch Award in 2004 for the best article in their journal. The Peace Psychology Division of the APA also gives an annual Morton Deutsch Conflict Resolution Award. This award is funded by the money from Deutsch's book Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice. It honors people who help connect the ideas of conflict resolution with real-world practice.
Deutsch officially stopped teaching in 1990. However, he continued to write more than 50 papers and book chapters after he retired. Throughout his career, he guided almost 70 Ph.D. students, mostly at Teachers College. In 2005, Erica Frydenberg wrote a biography about him called Morton Deutsch: a Life and Legacy of Mediation and Conflict Resolution. In 2011, Peter Coleman edited a book called Conflict, Interdependence, and Justice: The Intellectual Legacy of Morton Deutsch.
The Columbia University Libraries keep the Morton Deutsch Collection. This is an archive of his work, both in print and online. In his retirement, Deutsch was still a respected professor at Columbia, known as the E.L. Thorndike Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Education.
Awards and Recognition
Morton Deutsch received many awards for his important work:
- In 1969, he was given the Kurt Lewin Memorial Award, named after his Ph.D. mentor.
- In 1993, he received the first Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Association for Conflict Management.
- He also won the G. W. Allport Prize, the Carl Hovland Memorial Award, and the AAAS Socio-psychological Prize.
- Deutsch received the Teachers College Medal for Distinguished Service to Education.
- He was given the Helsinki University Medal for his contributions to psychology.
- He received an honorary doctorate from his old college, CCNY.
- He earned special scientific contribution awards from three professional groups: the Society of Experimental Social Psychology (1985), the American Psychological Association (1987), and the William James Fellow Award of the Association for Psychological Science.
- In 1961, he won the AAAS Prize for Behavioral Science Research.
- In 2006, he received the James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award from the Association for Psychological Science.
Besides receiving these awards, he has been honored by the creation of the Morton Deutsch Conflict Resolution Award by the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution.
Books by Morton Deutsch
- Deutsch, M. (1973) The Resolution of Conflict: Constructive and Destructive Processes. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
- Deutsch, M. (1985). Distributive Justice: A Social Psychological Perspective. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
- Deutsch, M. & Coleman, P. T. (2012). Psychological Components of Sustainable Peace. New York, NY: Springer.
- Deutsch, M. & Coleman, P. T. (2000). The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
- Deutsch, M., Coleman, P. T., & Marcus, E. C. (2006). The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
- Deutsch, M. & Collins, M. E. (1951). Interracial Housing: A Psychological Evaluation of a Social Experiment. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
- Deutsch, M. & Hornstein, H. (Eds.). (1975). Applying Social Psychology: Implications for Research, Practice and Training. Hillsdale, NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates.
- Deutsch, M. & Krauss, R. M. (1965). Theories in Social Psychology. New York, NY: Basic Books.
- Jahoda, M., Deutsch, M., & Cook, S. W. (1951). Research Methods in Social Relations. New York, NY: Holt & Dryden.
- Wright, Q., Evan, W. M., & Deutsch, M. (1962). Preventing World War III: Some Proposals. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
