Orville Gilbert Brim Jr.

Orville Gilbert Brim Jr. (c. 1923 April 15, 2016) was an American social psychologist who conducted research on early
childhood and middle age.[1] He was the author of books exploringambition and the nature of and the desire forfame.[2]

Contents
1 Biography
2 Work
3 Awards
4 Publications
5 References
6 External links

Biography
Orville Gilbert Brim Jr. was born in Elmira, New York on April 7, 1923[3] and grew up in Columbus, Ohio where his father was a
professor at Ohio State University.[4] He was introduced to sociology as a freshman at Yale in the autumn of 1941 and had chosen it
as his major field of study when he was called up for officer training in the Army Air Corps. Commissioned a second lieutenant, he
spent the remainder ofWorld War II on combat duty in thePacific theater as a pilot of B-24 bombers.[5]

After his discharge Dr. Brim returned to Yale, earning his B.A. degree in 1947 and his Ph.D. in sociology in 1951. After a year as a
research assistant he joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin as an instructor and subsequently assistant professor before
moving to the Russell Sage Foundation.[6]

During a two-week leave from the Army Air Corps in 1944, Lieutenant Brim was introduced to Kathleen Jane Vigneron. Soon after
his leave was up the two were marrieda union that lasted almost 60 years and produced four children (John Gilbert, Scott Whittier,
Margaret Lowry and Sarah Morgan).[7]

In 1985, the Brims settled in Vero Beach, Florida, spending their summers at Watch Hill, Rhode Island, and later, Old Greenwich,
Connecticut. Kathy Brim died in 2003.

Work
Dr. Brim joined the Russell Sage Foundationof New York City in 1955 and was named president in 1964.[8] He led the foundation's
successful effort to encourage the law schools at leading universities to include courses in social science research in their curricula
for example, by accompanying courses in criminal law with courses in crime and its origins. The concept was later extended to
schools of medicine and journalism.

In 1974, Dr. Brim was appointed president of the Foundation for Child Development.[9] During his twelve-year tenure he expanded
the foundation's field of inquiry and support, which had been centered on welfare programs for children, to include study of their
social and psychological development. Under his leadership, the first National Survey of Children[10] was undertaken, in 1976, and
, not-for-profit organization, Child Trends, in Washington, D.C.[11] Since
three years later he established through the foundation a new
then, Child Trends has become the nation's leading repository and clearinghouse of past and current information about America's
children, an essential resource for policymakers and scholars alike.
After leaving the Foundation for Child Development in 1985, Dr. Brim wrote the first of his two books exploring widely known but
little-studied aspects of human behavior. Ambition: How We Manage Success and Failure Throughout Our Lives,[12][13] was
published in 1992. It has since been reprinted and translated into several languages.

His second book, Look at Me!: The Fame Motive from Childhood to Death,[14] examines the desire to be famous in people of
different ages, backgrounds and social status, and how succeeding or failing to achieve fame affected their lives, both outwardly and
inwardly. It was published in 2009.

In 1989, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation asked Dr. Brim to lead the Foundation's Research Network on
Successful Midlife Development, which to this day remains the most thorough and extensive examination of middle age ever carried
out.[15] Over the next ten years, the Network conducted dozens of separate studies of midlife drawn from interviews of more than
7,000 Americans of both sexes, aged 25 to 74. The basic findings, which received nationwide attention when announced in early
1999, were that Americans tend to feel younger than they really are; that, for most, "midlife crisis" is a myth, and midlife itself
especially the years 40 to 60is a time of good health, psychic equanimity, productive activity and satisfying personal and
community relationships. In summarizing the findings, Dr. Brim declared, "On balance, the sense we all have is that midlife is the
best place to be." The complete findings of the MacArthur project appeared in 2004 in How Healthy Are We" A National Study of
Well-Being at Midlife,[16] a book edited by Dr. Brim with Carol D. Ryff and Ronald C. Kessler. A follow-up study of the original
University of Wisconsin.[17]
7,000 respondents to the original network survey is currently in progress at the

Awards
Society for the Study ofHuman Development Award for Distinguished Career Contributions to the Scientific Study of
Life Span Development, 2005.[18]
Society for Research in Child DevelopmentAward for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Child Development
Research, 1985.[19]
Kurt Lewin Memorial Award. Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, 1979.[20]
Wilbur Lucius Cross Medalof the Yale Graduate School Association, 1975.[21]

Publications
Look At Me!: The Fame Motive from Childhood to Old Age . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009.
How Healthy are We?: A National Study of Well Being at Midlife (with Carol D. Ryff, Ronald C. Kessler, Editors).
Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Ambition: How We Manage Success and Failure Throughout Our Lives.New York: Basic Books, 1992. Reprinted,
Nebraska: iUniverse, 2000. Swedish version:Ambition - hur vi klarar framgng och misslyckande i livet . Malmo,
Sweden: Brain Books, 1994. Italian version:Come Gestire Gli Alti ei Bssi Nella Vita E Nel Lavoro. Milano, Italy: RCS
Libri & Grandi Opere S.p.A., 1995. Spanish version:Ambiciones Legitimas, Cmo manejar el xito y el fracaso a lo
largo de nuestra vida. Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1997.
Life-Span Development and Behavior, Volumes II VI (with Paul B. Baltes, Editors). New York: Academic Press, 1979
1984.
Learning to Be Parents: Principles, Programs and Methods(with David Harman). Beverly Hills: Sage Publications,
1980.
Constancy and Change in Human Development(with Jerome Kagan, Editors). Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1980.
The Dying Patient (with Howard E. Freeman, Sol Levine and Norman Scotch). New ork: Y Russell Sage Foundation,
1970.
American Beliefs and Attitudes about Intelligence(with David C. Glass, John Neulinger and Ira J. Firestone). New
York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1969.
Experience and Attitudes of American Adults Concerning Standardized Intelligenceests, T Technical Report #1 on
the Social Consequences of Ability T esting (with John Neulinger and David C. Glass). New Y ork: Russell Sage
Foundation, 1965.
The Use of Standardized Ability Tests in American Secondary Schools and Their Impact on Students, eachers,
T and
Administrators, Technical Report #3 on the Social Consequences of Ability Testing (with David A. Goslin, David C.
Glass, and Isadore Goldberg). New Y ork: Russell Sage Foundation, 1965.
Intelligence: Perspectives1965 (with Richard S. Crutchfield and Wayne H. Holtzman). New York: Harcourt, Brace &
World, Inc., 1966.
 Socialization After Childhood: Two Essays (with Stanton Wheeler). New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1966. German
edition: Erwachsenen-Sozialisation, Sozialisation nach Abschluss der Kindheit (with Stanton Wheeler). Stuttgart:
Ferdinand Enke Verlag,1974.
Personality and Decision Processes: Studies in the Social Psychology of Thinking
(with David C. Glass, David E.
Lavin, and Norman Goodman). Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962. Reissued 1978.
Education for Child Rearing. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1959.Paperback edition, Basic Books, 1965.
Sociology and the Field of Education. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1958.German edition: Soziologie des
Erziehungswesens, Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer , 1963.

References
1. The International Who's Who 2004. 67th ed. London: Europa, 2003. Pg 223-224.
2. "Orville Brim" (http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/greenwichtime/obituary
.aspx?pid=179739770). GreenwichTime.
3. http://srcd.org/sites/default/files/documents/brim_orville_gilbert_cv
.pdf
4. Brim, Prof. Orville Gilbert : Ohio State University
, Columbus, Ohio by James McKeen Cattell
5. Chapter 8. (n.d.). In Cohen, P. (2012). In our prime: The invention of middle age. New oYrk, NY: Scribner.
6. http://www.srcd.org/sites/default/files/documents/brim_orville_gilbert_interview.pdf
7. http://srcd.org/sites/default/files/documents/brim_orville_gilbert_cv
.pdf
8. Russell Sage Foundation. (2007). Celebrating 100 Y
ears of Social Science Research: Russell Sage Foundation
1907-2007. Pg 4.
9. http://www.asanet.org/footnotes/1974/ASA.04.1974.pdf
10. Zill, Nicholas. "National Survey of Children: Wave I, 1976, Wave II, 1981, and Wave III, 1987" (http://www.icpsr.umic
h.edu/icpsrweb/RCMD/studies/8670).
11. http://www.childtrends.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/da3622h1258.pdf
12. Brim, O. G. (1992). Ambition: How we manage success and failure throughout our lives. Nework:
Y BasicBooks.
13. http://www.thirteen.org/openmind-archive/aging/adaptand-succeed/
14. Brim, O. G. (2009). Look at me!: The fame motive from childhood to death. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
15. "Midlife Research - MIDMAC WebSite" (http://midmac.med.harvard.edu).
16. Brim, O. G., Ryff, C. D., & Kessler, R. C. (2004). How healthy are we?: A national study of well-being at midlife.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
17. "MIDUS - Midlife in the United States, A National Longitudinal Study of Health and e
Wll-being" (http://midus.wisc.ed
u/index.php).
18. Sherrod, Lonnie. "A Tribute to Orville GilbertBrim." Research in Human Development 6.4 (2009): 197-98. Print.
19. "SRCD Senior Distinguished Contributions A wards History" (http://srcd.org/advancing-field/srcd-awards-research-gra
nts/srcd-senior-distinguished-contributions-awards-history)
. Society for Research in Child Development.
20. "SPSSI - Lewin Memorial Award Winners Sorted by Name" (http://www.spssi.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.viewpa
ge&pageid=719).
21. "Medalists by Year" (http://www.aya.yale.edu/content/medalists-year).

External links
MacArthur Foundation Website
Society for Research in Child Development Homepage

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