Seymour Sarason

Seymour Bernard Sarason (January 12, 1919, Brownsville, Brooklyn, New York – January 28, 2010, New Haven, Connecticut) was Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Yale University, where he taught from 1945 to 1989. He is the author of over forty books and over sixty articles, and he is considered to be one of the most significant American researchers in education, educational psychology, and community psychology. One primary focus of his work was on education reform in the United States. In the 1950s he and George Mandler initiated the research on test anxiety. He founded the Yale Psycho-Educational Clinic in 1961 and was one of the principal leaders in the community psychology movement. In 1974, he proposed psychological sense of community, a central concept in community psychology. Since then, sense of community has become a well-known and commonly used term both in academic and non-academic settings.

Early life Sarason was born in Brownsville, Brooklyn New York on January 12, 1919. Sarason grew up with his sister, Mildred, and his brother, Irwin (who also became a psychologist). At the age of six his family moved to Newark, New Jersey. Sarason was a teenager during the Great Depression and he sold frozen treats and handkerchiefs to help support his family. At Clark University his research mentor was Saul Rosenzweig and Sarason was the first student at Clark to obtain practical experience working as an extern at a hospital.

While at the Southbury Training School, Sarason became frustrated with individual-based psychological theories that did not consider social context. This book provided a new approach to intellectual disabilities that emphasized social and cultural factors that affect our understanding of intellectual disability. This book emphasized the importance of taking a historical and sociological perspective when considering school reforms, such as considering the history of teacher training programs and how that history may impact teachers’ current work.

In 1965, Sarason predicted that all attempts to reform schools would fail. His prediction still has an accuracy of 100%. He believed that schooling needed fundamental changes. Further, he often stated that it was inconceivable to think that an ingrained human social system such as public schooling was easily reformed. The preparation and training of teachers was a good place to begin reform, according to Sarason.

Test anxiety and situational factors affecting test performance Sarason's research interests in children's test anxiety developed from his observations that the performance of people with and without intellectual disabilities on intelligence tests could be impacted by anxiety related to the testing environment. to describe situational factors in testing environments that can lead to inaccurate and confusing test results. Although Sarason's research was considered successful, he described his work as a “research factory” The clinic aimed to expand the role of clinical psychologists to include working in community settings and helping to solve community-based problems. Through his work in the clinic, Sarason also sought to better understand the creation and sustainability of settings. He defined settings as “any instance in which two or more people come together in new relationships over a sustained period of time in order to achieve certain goals.”

The history of the Yale Psycho-Educational Clinic can be separated into two time periods.

Personal life While working toward his Ph.D. at Clark University, Sarason met Esther Kroop, a fellow graduate student. Sarason married Esther Kroop in 1943, and they had one daughter, Julie. Sarason was described as an incredibly warm and welcoming man who made a positive impact on the lives of many students, colleagues, and scholars. Sarason died on January 28, 2010, in New Haven, Connecticut, at the age of 91.