William E. Blatz
| William E. Blatz | |
|---|---|
Dr. Blatz with a young child, 1961
|
|
| Born | William Emet Blatz June 30, 1895 Hamilton, Ontario, Canada |
| Died | November 1, 1964 (aged 69) Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Fields | Psychology (developmental) |
| Alma mater | |
| Thesis | A Psychological Study of the Emotion of Fear (1924) |
| Doctoral advisor | Harvey A. Carr |
| Doctoral students | Mary Ainsworth |
| Known for | Security theory |
| Spouse |
|
| Children | Margery Elsie deRoux (née Blatz) |
William Emet Blatz (/ˈblætz/; June 30, 1895 – November 1, 1964) was a German-Canadian developmental psychologist. He was director of the University of Toronto's Institute of Child Study from 1925 until his retirement in 1960, and known for his creation of security theory, a precursor to attachment theory.
Blatz’s theory posited that in infancy and early childhood, the child needs to create a secure base with its caregivers in order to gain the courage necessary to brave the insecurity implicit in exploring the world, and argued that a lack of psychological resilience and self-confidence in adulthood are born out of a failure to develop a secure bond in childhood.
William Emet Blatz was born in Hamilton, Ontario on June 30, 1895 to German parents. His father, Leo Victor Blatz, had moved to Canada from Würzburg in 1868, while his mother, Victoria Mary Mesmer—a relation to Franz Mesmer, arrived from Mainz in 1870. They married in Hamilton, Ontario in 1871, and William Emet was the youngest of nine children in the family.
Victoria was driven and intelligent, put an emphasis on academic endeavor and "assumed all her children would do well in school." Blatz did do well in school, and received his BA in physiology in 1916 from the University of Toronto. He earned his MA the following year, then attempted to join the Canadian Armed Forces but was rejected due to his German lineage and instead returned to the University of Toronto to treat shell shocked veterans along with Dr. Edward A. Bott. After the war, he began studying medicine, and graduated in 1921 with a BM from the University of Toronto. He then received a scholarship at the University of Chicago, where he met his first wife Margery Rowland and received his Ph.D in psychology under the tutelage of Harvey A. Carr in 1924.
...
Wikipedia