William A Scott (1926–1991) was an American-born social psychologist. After serving in the US Navy in World War II, Scott did graduate study in psychology at the University of Michigan, where he did research on propaganda and attitudes. From 1955, he held an academic appointment at the University of Colorado, where he eventually became a full professor. While there, he made contributions to research on mental health and cognitive complexity, and to value theory. In 1974 he migrated to Australia, becoming the Foundation Professor of Behavioural Science at James Cook University in Townsville. In 1977, he took a position as Professor of Psychology at the Australian National University in Canberra. During this period, he did research on cognitive structure and on the adaptation of immigrants, the latter in collaboration with his wife Ruth Scott. He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia in 1977. He died in Canberra on 8 November 1991.
A notable contribution of William Scott was the development of the Scott's pi as a measure of inter-observer agreement for nominal scale measures. Scott's paper on pi has been recognized as a citation classic.
References
- ^ Biddle, B.J. (1993). William A. Scott (1926-1991). American Psychologist, 48, 291.
- Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. "Deceased Fellows". Retrieved 6 June 2021.
- Scott, W.A. (1955). Reliability of content analysis: the case of nominal scale coding. Public Opinion Quarterly, 19, 321-325.
- Scott, W.A. (1984). This week's citation classic. Current Contents, 38, September 17.
  | This biography of an American psychologist is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it. |
- 1926 births
- 1991 deaths
- American social psychologists
- American emigrants to Australia
- University of Michigan alumni
- University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus faculty
- Academic staff of James Cook University
- Academic staff of the Australian National University
- Fellows of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia
- 20th-century American psychologists
- American psychologist stubs