Introduction
Timothy Leary is one of the most public and least understood psychologists of the twentieth century. Part serious scientist, part visionary, and part Gaelic prankster, he was one of the only American psychologists about whom popular songs were written and was named by an American President “the most dangerous man in America” (Kihlstrom 2007).
Early Career
Leary was born into Irish-American Catholic culture in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1920 and showed early academic gifts as well as a flair for journalism. Obtaining in 1940 a coveted appointment to the US Military Academy at West Point, he challenged an upperclassman’s authority after a drinking episode after the 1940 Army-Navy Game and was “silenced” by the Corps. Arguing for and receiving an honorable discharge in 1941, he sought – it is thought by choosing the first one on an alphabetical list – another academic home and found it at the University of Alabama. There he was enticed into psychology by Donald Ramsdell,...
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Devonis, D. (2016). Leary, Timothy. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_2201-1
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