Theodore Newcomb

Theodore Mead Newcomb (1903 to 1984) was an American social psychologist, professor and author who led the Bennington College Study, a longitudinal look at how the college experience shaped students' social and political beliefs, with a follow-up 25 years later. He was also the first to document the effects of proximity on acquaintance and attraction, assigning students to rooms at random and finding that most roommates were close friends by the end of the study, and he described an elaboration principle by which small groups form larger ones. Born in Rock Creek, Ohio, he completed his doctorate at Columbia University in 1929. He taught at Bennington College and then at the University of Michigan from 1941 to 1972, where he founded and chaired the doctoral program in social psychology, and edited Psychological Review from 1954 to 1958.