Personal Relationships: Their Structures and Processes

Foreword
The vigor and intellectual development of social psychology emanated from the genius of a group of social psychologists working at Kurt Lewin's Research Center for Group Dynamics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. These social psychologists initiated work on communication processes, social motivation and person perception. We are very honored to have Harold Kelley, a member of this group, as our fourth MacEachran lecturer. As I shall chronicle events, you'll see that many of the major developments in the field of social psychology have been marked by the presence of Harold Kelley.

His intial work in psychology began with his study of measurement, statistics, social, physiological and experimental psychology at the University of California at Berkeley. After obtaining his master of arts degree there, he was associated with the Aviation Psychology Program of the Army Air Force during the war. Based on his association with Stuart Cook and others, his interest in social psychology developed into a career decision. Advised by Cook, and encouraged by his association with a number of other aspiring social psychologists, he went to Lewin's Research Center for Group Dynamics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1946. During this time he did his research on first impressions in interpersonal relations under the advice of Dorwin Cartwright. After obtaining his doctoral degree, he went to the University of Michigan where he worked with Leon Festinger, engaging in studies of social attitudes and informal social communication within communities and in small groups. He then joined the faculty at Yale University and was part of the group conducting research on attitude change, persuasive communication and attitude scaling with Irving Janis and Carl Hovland. In this program they developed a major systematic approach to the psychological processes underlying communication and attitude change…