Background
Latané, Bibb was born on July 19, 1937 in New York City. Son of Henry Allen and Felicité Gillman (Bibb) Latané.
Latané, Bibb was born on July 19, 1937 in New York City. Son of Henry Allen and Felicité Gillman (Bibb) Latané.
Bachelor of Arts, Yale University, 1958; Doctor of Philosophy, University Minnesota, 1963.
He is probably most famous for his work with John M. Darley on bystander intervention in emergencies, but he has also published many articles on social attraction in animals, social loafing in groups, and the spread of social influence in populations. Latané was instrumental in introducing ideas from dynamical systems theory into social psychology, demonstrating, for example, how various forms of order could emerge spontaneously in large social groups from individual"s simple attempts to fit in with their local neighbors. Latané was twice awarded the American Association for the Advancement of Science Prize for Behavioral Science Research, in 1968 and in 1980.
Latané received his Bachelor of Arts from Yale in 1958 and his Doctor of Philosophy (under the mentorship of Stanley Schachter) from the University of Minnesota in 1963.
He taught at Columbia University, the Ohio State University, Florida Atlantic University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In the 1980s, he was director of University of North Carolina"s Institute for Research in Social Science (now the Odum Institute).
He is currently director of the Center for Human Science in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, which he founded. Although Latané is sometimes mispronounced as la-tane, Latané"s name is correctly pronounced as latt-an-ay.
Member American Psychological Association (council representative 1971-1975), Society Personality and Social Psychology (president 1976-1979, Campbell award 1986), Midwestern Psychological Association (president 1981-1984), Academy Management, American Association for the Advancement of Science (Socio-Psychological prize 1968, 80), Society Experimental Society Psychology (Distinguished Scientist award 1998), American Sociological Association, Animal Behavior Society.
Married Deborah Ruth Richardson. Children by previous marriage: Julia Gillman, Claire Augusta, Henry Arbiter.