Dr. K.J. (Kenneth) Gergen
Honorary supervisor Prof. Dr. H.F.M. Peeters - 1987 – Faculteit Sociale Wetenschappen
Kenneth Gergen (Rochester NY, 1935) studied Social Sciences at Yale, was affiliated with several universities, including Harvard, and until his emeritus status, was Professor of Social Psychology at the American Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.
Honorary supervisor Harry Peeters joked in his eulogy that it might be the last time an American was appointed an honorary doctor of Psychology, due to Europe's rapid progress in that field.
Kenneth Gergen was appointed because of his scientific work, which focuses on the balance between humans who are supposed to have a certain self-direction and the social dimension. He believes that all knowledge of "the mind" is socially constituted, that is, not merely a reaction to stimuli from the environment as behaviorism, among others, still claimed. People themselves, together with each other, give meaning to the information they receive from the environment.
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