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GG- In 1951 I was drafted into the US Army, and I was lucky enough to be chosen to go to counter intelligence. The Korean War was going on then. After I went through basic training, I went through 14 weeks, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, of counter intelligence school. I loved counter intelligence school. They told us that we were the top one to two percent of the people that had been drafted into the army. I worked very hard to be in the top one or two percent of anything that came along. I was very, very good at working hard, and it all paid off when I finished. I think I was second or third in my class of forty. When we came up to assignment day, we were special personnel because we had gone through this course. They didn't just hand us a piece of paper that said, You're going to Korea, You're going here, You're going there . They called us in for an interview, to make sure we were satisfied with our assignment. Because I had a smattering of German, they sent me to Austria instead of Korea. They did the interviews in alphabetical order. I was paying close attention to where everybody was being sent, and everybody was being sent to Korea. So, when the officer called me in and said, “ Well, I guess you know where you're going ,” and I said, “ Yeah, Korea,” He said, “ Gottlieb? Korea? You speak German, don't you?” And I said, “ Yavohl !” And off to Austria I went. I was very happy, generally, and that turned out to be a very valuable experience. I wasn't that young, I was going on 22. Austria was filled at that time with what was called displaced persons. They had come from Eastern Europe and many of them had held exalted positions,
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2 were well figured, or had held government positions. It was very striking to me that some of them adapted extremely well to their new conditions. They somehow were making the best of it, while others just sort of gave up. I thought that was a very interesting phenomenon, and I thought what would explain that, probably, is psychology, individual psychology. So from that day on, I made up my mind that when I got out of the service, I would go back to school, major in psychology and continue my professional career in psychology, if it was possible.
DM- When you went back to school, were you still an undergraduate?
GG- Yes, I was still an undergraduate. I had started college when I was 16 and I was way too young. I didn't know how to study, and I botched it, so I left college in second year and started on a career trying to figure out what it was I was supposed to do. My father was a businessman, so I felt maybe I was supposed to be a businessman, but I wasn't very good at that. The best thing that ever happened to me, although I didn't think so at the time, was I was drafted into the army. After leaving the Army, I went to the University of Miami, because that's where I could get in. I was a Florida citizen and they made breaks for Florida citizens. I also studied at Miami for a Masters degree, and then I was fortunate enough to be accepted at Duke. Duke decided that they had not been accepting enough graduate students because they were not graduating enough people at the other end. They decided to enlarge their class to 15, and under that situation, I got accepted to Duke. I was still on fire and pretty young. I entered the clinical psychology program and then got interested in imprinting. Imprinting is a phenomenon whereby waterfowl become attached to the first objects they see shortly after hatching. I started to do research on imprinting while I was also doing some human research. Being in a clinical program, I needed to be doing some human research, so I did both. I decided to do my Ph.D. dissertation on imprinting, and Duke was willing enough to accept me doing that. Usually there’s a conflict between the experimental side, which is the animal side, and the clinical side, which is the human side, and they fight fiercely over students doing their thing, so I was very lucky. Duke was very generous to me.
DM- Have you ever come upon another person who was trained as a clinical psychologist and ended up really doing animal behavior as their primary research?
GG- No, I never thought of that actually. I guess off hand I really don't know of anybody.
DM- Some of the people that are going to be listening to us are undergraduates that are interested in a career in science. What do you recollect were the most valuable aspects of your education that contributed most toward your development as a research scientist?
GG- Undergraduate education at Miami was very good because some of the professors were very broad in their orientation, and they encouraged me to come and talk to them after class. We talked about things that could extend into other things that
Gilbert Gottlieb: Developmental Psychologist and Theorist
[The original interview was done by Dr. David Miller and the video recording
was made at the Gottlieb home by Marc Gottlieb. The interview was transcribed
from the GGvideo.mov file into a Word file by Edyta Eansor and then edited by
Dr. Douglas Wahlsten and Dr. Miller.Taken from: http://icube.uconn.edu/GGvideo.mov .]
GG- In 1951 I was drafted into the US Army, and I was lucky enough to be chosen to go to counter intelligence. The Korean War was going on then. After I went through basic training, I went through 14 weeks, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, of counter intelligence school. I loved counter intelligence school. They told us that we were the top one to two percent of the people that had been drafted into the army. I worked very hard to be in the top one or two percent of anything that came along. I was very, very good at working hard, and it all paid off when I finished. I think I was second or third in my class of forty. When we came up to assignment day, we were special personnel because we had gone through this course. They didn't just hand us a piece of paper that said, You're going to Korea, You're going here, You're going there . They called us in for an interview, to make sure we were satisfied with our assignment. Because I had a smattering of German, they sent me to Austria instead of Korea. They did the interviews in alphabetical order. I was paying close attention to where everybody was being sent, and everybody was being sent to Korea. So, when the officer called me in and said, “ Well, I guess you know where you're going ,” and I said, “ Yeah, Korea,” He said, “ Gottlieb? Korea? You speak German, don't you?” And I said, “ Yavohl !” And off to Austria I went. I was very happy, generally, and that turned out to be a very valuable experience. I wasn't that young, I was going on 22. Austria was filled at that time with what was called displaced persons. They had come from Eastern Europe and many of them had held exalted positions,
Page 2
2 were well figured, or had held government positions. It was very striking to me that some of them adapted extremely well to their new conditions. They somehow were making the best of it, while others just sort of gave up. I thought that was a very interesting phenomenon, and I thought what would explain that, probably, is psychology, individual psychology. So from that day on, I made up my mind that when I got out of the service, I would go back to school, major in psychology and continue my professional career in psychology, if it was possible.
DM- When you went back to school, were you still an undergraduate?
GG- Yes, I was still an undergraduate. I had started college when I was 16 and I was way too young. I didn't know how to study, and I botched it, so I left college in second year and started on a career trying to figure out what it was I was supposed to do. My father was a businessman, so I felt maybe I was supposed to be a businessman, but I wasn't very good at that. The best thing that ever happened to me, although I didn't think so at the time, was I was drafted into the army. After leaving the Army, I went to the University of Miami, because that's where I could get in. I was a Florida citizen and they made breaks for Florida citizens. I also studied at Miami for a Masters degree, and then I was fortunate enough to be accepted at Duke. Duke decided that they had not been accepting enough graduate students because they were not graduating enough people at the other end. They decided to enlarge their class to 15, and under that situation, I got accepted to Duke. I was still on fire and pretty young. I entered the clinical psychology program and then got interested in imprinting. Imprinting is a phenomenon whereby waterfowl become attached to the first objects they see shortly after hatching. I started to do research on imprinting while I was also doing some human research. Being in a clinical program, I needed to be doing some human research, so I did both. I decided to do my Ph.D. dissertation on imprinting, and Duke was willing enough to accept me doing that. Usually there’s a conflict between the experimental side, which is the animal side, and the clinical side, which is the human side, and they fight fiercely over students doing their thing, so I was very lucky. Duke was very generous to me.
DM- Have you ever come upon another person who was trained as a clinical psychologist and ended up really doing animal behavior as their primary research?
GG- No, I never thought of that actually. I guess off hand I really don't know of anybody.
DM- Some of the people that are going to be listening to us are undergraduates that are interested in a career in science. What do you recollect were the most valuable aspects of your education that contributed most toward your development as a research scientist?
GG- Undergraduate education at Miami was very good because some of the professors were very broad in their orientation, and they encouraged me to come and talk to them after class. We talked about things that could extend into other things that