Hess, Eckhard H., 1916-1986

Eckhard Hess was born in Bochum, Germany on September 27, 1916. He immigrated to the United States in 1927 where he became a naturalized citizen in 1943. He began his undergraduate studies at Blue Ridge College in Maryland in 1941. The next year Hess began wartime service in the United States Army for two years. When he returned, he attended Johns Hopkins University for graduate study, earning his M.A. in 1947 and his Ph.D. in 1948. In 1953, Hess began his career as an associate professor at the University of Chicago, where he would go on to chair the psychology department in 1963. During this time, Hess revived the study of imprinting in precocial birds. On the subject of imprinting, Hess published many books including New Directions in Psychology (1962), and Imprinting: Early Experience and the Developmental Psychobiology of Attachment (1967). Hess also co-edited Early Behavior: Comparative and Developmental Approaches (1967), and Imprinting (1977).

Hess dedicated the latter part of his life to the study of pupillometrics, which measures pupillary response to viewing emotionally charged stimuli. In 1967, Hess authored a book on the subject titled The Tell-Tale Eye: How Your Eyes Reveal Hidden Thoughts and Emotions (1975).

Hess died of pneumonia in Cambridge, Maryland, on February 21, 1986.

From the guide to the Eckhard Hess papers, 1952-1984, (Center for the History of Psychology)