May 5, 2011
This episode is primarily relevant to professionals.
In this episode, R. Trent Codd, III, Ed.S., interviews Elizabeth Loftus, PhD about her research. Some of the items they discuss include:
ELIZABETH LOFTUS, PhD BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Loftus attended UCLA and originally
majored in Mathematics. Dr. Loftus was planning on being a math
teacher when she discovered psychology while attending UCLA. In
1966, she received her Bachelor of the Arts in Math and Psychology
from UCLA. After graduating from UCLA Dr. Loftus enrolled at
Stanford in the Master's program. While attending Stanford, Dr.
Loftus became interested in long term memory. There is a story that
Dr. Loftus mentions in, The
Myth of Repressed Memory, having to do with her mother's death. Some 20
years after her mother drowned in a swimming pool her family was
having a get together at her Uncle's house and a relative
mentioned to Dr. Loftus something about her having been
the one to find her mother in the swimming pool. After
that moment Dr. Loftus began remembering things about finding
her mother in the pool, several memories flooded back to her that
she did not know that she had in her memory. A few days
after being told that she had been the one to find her mother,
her brother called and told her that the relative had
gotten the information wrong and that her uncle, not her, had
been the one to find their mother in the swimming pool. This event
in Dr. Loftus' life gives more fuel to the battle she is fighting
about memory and how easy it is to create false memories.
Until that day, Dr. Loftus had no memories of finding her
mother in the pool, but as soon as she was told that it had
been her, all kinds of memories of the event were "recovered."
In 1967, Dr. Loftus received her M.A. in psychology and then
in 1968 she married her now ex-husband, George Loftus. Dr. Loftus
received her Ph.D. (also from Stanford) 1970 (Born,
1997).
From 1970 to 1973 Dr. Loftus was an Assistant
Professor and Graduate Faculty at New School University. From 1973
to 2002, Dr. Loftus has been employed with the University of
Washington holding such titles as Assistant, Associate, and Full
Professor. Dr. Loftus was also an Adjunct Professor of Law for the
University of Washington between 1984 and 2002. Between 2002 and
the present Dr. Loftus has been an Affiliate Professor at the
University of Washington for the Psychology department as well as
the School of Law. Dr. Loftus received grants from the National
Institute of Mental Health between 1971 and 1974 for her reseearch
and in 1973 Dr. Loftus published her first
book, Human
Memory. For Dr. Loftus 1974
was a busy year, she worked for the Department of Transportation
(until 1976) was a member of the editorial boards for
the Journal
of Experimental Psychology,
and she published an article on memeory which thrust her into the
courtroom as an expert witness. For one year (1975-1976) Dr. Loftus
was a fellow of the American
Council on Education and
in 1976 Cognitive
Processes was published.
Dr. Loftus has been a member of the National
Science Foundation and a
fellow of the Center
for Advanced Study in Behavioral Science (Loftus, 2008).
Eyewitness Testimony was
published in 1979 and also that year Dr. Loftus became Professor of
Psychology at the University of Washington. Also during 1979, Dr.
Loftus began her research on repressed memories and eyewitness
account due to the alarmingly high rates of childhood abuse and
trauma. In 1980, Dr. Loftus published Law
and Human Behavior and
in 1981 Dr. Loftus found surprising information into how we
remember and also why we forget. In 1983, Dr. Loftus was
honored by being invited to present her work on memory to the
Royal Society in London. Dr. Loftus and her husband
Geoffrey Loftus were divorced in 1991. The
Myth of Repressed Memory was published in 1994
with Remembering
Dangerously right behind
it in 1995. Dr. Loftus received the Distinguished Contribution
Award from the American Academy of Forensic Psychology also in 1995
(Loftus, 2008).
Dr. Loftus
has been awarded six different honorary doctorates beginning in
1984 and receiving the last in 2006. She received her first
honorary doctorate in 1982 from Miami University in Ohio. The
second was received from Leiden University in the Netherland in
1990. Her third honorary doctorate, in 1994, came from John Jay
College of Criminal Justice in New York and was an honorary
doctorate of laws. In 1998, she received her fourth honorary
doctorate from the University of Portsmouth in England. The fourth
and the fifth honorary doctorate were in 2005 and 2008,
respectively and were from the University of Haifa in Israel and
the University of Oslo, respectively.
Dr. Loftus
has been of service to many different societies and has also served
as President of many of these organizations. In 1984, she
served as President of the Western Psychological Association
(she also served as President for this organization in 2004-2005).
She served as President of the American Psychology-Law Society in
1985 and as President of Division 3 (Experimental) of the American
Psychological Association in 1988. From 1998 to 1999, Dr. Loftus
served as President for the Association of Psychological Science
(APS).
Dr. Loftus
has received many awards due to her work, in fact she has received
so many that I am only able to mention a few of them here. In 1996,
she received the American Association of Applied and Preventative
Psychology (AAAPP) Award for Distinguished Contributions to Basic
and Applied Scientific Psychology (Loftus, 2008). She received the
James McKeen Cattell Fellow from APS in 1997 for "a career of
significant intelletual contributions to the science of psychology
in the area of applied psychological research." In 2001, Dr.
Loftus received the William James Fellow from APS for "ingeniously
and rigorously designed research studies...that yielded clear
objective evidence on difficults and controversial questions." The
National Academy of Sciences bestowed the inaugral Henry & Bryna
David Lectureship award in 2002. This is an award for the
"application of the best social and behavioral sciences research to
public policy issues." In 2004, Dr. Loftus was elected to the
National Academy of Sciences, then in 2005 she was elected to the
Royal Society of Edinburgh. Also in 2005, Dr. Loftus won the
Grawemeyer Prize in Psychology with a gift of $200,000. The prize
was to honor ideas of "great significance and impact." Dr. Loftus
was elected tothe American Philosophical Society in 2006. Most
recently Dr. Loftus was named the 58th of the 100 Most Eminent
Psychologists of the 20th century and was also the top ranked
woman.