During his short life, Hovland published over seventy ar-
ticles, was the editor or coauthor of seven books, and super-
vised at least twenty-two Yale doctoral dissertations.
5
His
scientific achievements were recognized by his early elec-
tion to the American Philosophical Society (1950), the Ameri-
can Academy of Arts and Sciences (1956), and the National
Academy of Sciences (1960), as well as by conferral of the
Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award by the Ameri-
can Psychological Association (1957) and of the Howard
Crosby Warren Medal by the Society of Experimental Psy-
chologists (1961). This last, awarded close to the time of
Carl's death, was graciously received for Carl by his nine-
teen-year-old son David in what was recalled by another
Hovland admirer, Yale professor emeritus Wendel R. Gar-
ner, as an unusually "emotional occasion" at the annual
meeting of that august society (Garner, personal communi-
cation of May 17, 1997).
Beyond his earliest research on diverse problems of physi-
ological, perceptual, and industrial psychology, and his sub-
sequent public service and consulting work, Hovland's most
influential scientific contributions emerged from the three
fields on which he successively focused his principal re-
search efforts: (1) basic processes of human learning and
generalization (late 1930s), (2) social communication and
attitude change (1940s and 1950s), and (3) human concept
acquisition and problem solving (1950s, until his 1961 death).
His work in learning is widely respected and it undoubt-
edly helped shape the quantitative and experimental skills
that he later brought to bear on social communication.
But it is his work in that second field that has had the
most far-reaching impact. One can't help wondering: If
Hovland's life had not been cut short while he was still at
the height of his powers, might not the third line of work
he had begun on thinking and concept attainment have
had a similarly profound impact on the soon-to-burgeon
interdisciplinary field of cognitive science?
Like so many others, I feel boundless gratitude that I had
ten years to benefit from Hovland's wise and benevolent
guidance and, especially, from his example. Yet, in prepar-
ing this memoir almost forty years later, I have gained an
aching awareness of how much we and the whole range of
the behavioral, social, and cognitive sciences lost back in
1961 as a result of the untimely death of this gifted re-
searcher, statesman of science, and incomparable human
being.
I THANK FORMER YALE students and Hovland associates for the many
thoughtful and heart-warming reminiscences they shared with me,
including those I have quoted in this memoir (the most extensive
supplied by Hovland's former coworkers Harold Kelley and Herbert
Kelman) and those, though not quoted here, that contributed help-
ful information, suggestions, or corrections (from Robert Abelson,
Irvin Child, Earl Hunt, Kenneth Kurtz, Mark Lepper, Edith Luchins,
George Mandler, George Miller, Lloyd Morrisett, John Pierce, and
Burton Rosner). Finally, I thank Hovland's daughter Kathie Hovland
Walvick, his son David A. Hovland, his brother C. Warren Hovland,
and his cousin Mary Hovland Jenni (who generously provided me
with the wonderful material she had previously obtained from still
other of Hovland's family members and colleagues－many of whom
are no longer living).
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