a noted psychologist, dies
Retired Yale psychologist Irvin L. Child of Newton, Massachusetts, died of a bone marrow blood disorder on Oct. 27 at Park Avenue Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Arlington, Massachusetts.
Professor Child, 85, was the author or coauthor of over 100 professional papers and many books. His most important works included "Italian or American?" (1943), about Italian-American families in New Haven, Connecticut; "Child Training and Personality" (1953), coauthored by the late John W. M. Whiting of Harvard, an anthropologist and the Yale psychologist's brother-in-law; and "Humanistic Psychology and the Research Tradition" (1973), exploring Professor Child's deep interests in aesthetics and parapsychology. In the 1990s Professor Child collaborated with his wife Alice Blyth Child, an anthropologist, on "Religion and Magic in the Life of Traditional Peoples."
Born in Deming, New Mexico, Mr. Child was raised in El Paso, Texas and in Los Angeles, California. He earned his bachelor's degree at the University of California in Los Angeles. He came to the east coast in 1935. After receiving his Ph.D. in psychology from Yale in 1939, Professor Child taught for two years in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University.
After spending a year in Costa Rica with his wife, who was doing graduate work in anthropology there, Professor Child returned to Yale in 1942 and taught there until his retirement in 1985. He served for over a decade as director of graduate studies in psychology and was both director of undergraduate studies and chair of the Yale Department of Psychology.
Professor Child spent many summers with his wife and family on the island of Martha's Vineyard in a summer home he helped build on the shore of Tisbury Great Pond. He also loved to travel and to garden with his wife, who died in 1997. After living for nearly six decades in New Haven, Hamden and North Haven, Connecticut, Professor Child moved in 1998 to Newton, Massachusetts, where he lived at Cabot Park Village in Newtonville.
Professor Child is survived by his son, Richard Child of Watertown, Massachusetts, and his brother, Arthur Child of Davis, California. In addition to his wife, he was predeceased by his daughter, Pamela Colman Child. In lieu of flowers, his family asks that tax-deductible contributions be made in Professor Child's memory to Rhine Research Center, 402 North Buchanan Blvd., Durham, NC 27701-1728, or that friends donate blood to their local blood bank.
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