Hans Eysenck was professor of psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London from 1955 to 1983. He was a major contributor to modern scientific personality theory, having created and developed a distinctive dimensional model of personality. Born in Germany, Eysenck immigrated to the UK when he was 18 because of his opposition to the Nazi party. When he was informed that his prerequisite courses for entry into a physics or chemistry program in the UK would not transfer from Germany, a frustrated Eysenck decided to instead pursue psychology.
A notably divisive figure in scientific psychology, Eysenck made waves in the field over several decades. A paper he wrote in 1952 on the effects of psychotherapy ignited his first major controversy. In it, he stated that two-thirds of therapy patients improved significantly or recovered within two years, regardless of whether or not they received psychotherapy. But perhaps the most influential controversy of Eysenck’s career was the argument made in his book, Race, Intelligence and Education, that racial differences in intelligence could be partially attributed to genetic factors. Although he was a controversial figure, Eysenck’s expansive research had a major influence on psychology. Beyond his work in personality and intelligence, Eysenck was a key figure in the establishment of empirically researched approaches to psychotherapy.