Discovering Psychology

John Terrence Cacioppo was born in Marshall, Texas on June 12, 1951. He received a bachelor of science degree in economics in 1973 from the University of Missouri and a doctorate in social psychology at Ohio State University in 1977. He taught at the University of Notre Dame, the University of Iowa, Ohio State University, and the University of Chicago.

In the early 1990s, he and Gary Berntson were the founding fathers of social neuroscience, which bridged biology and psychology. Cacioppo was a neuroscientist with an expertise in loneliness. He wrote hundreds of articles and more than a dozen books including Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connections written with William Patrick. In 2015, Cacioppo developed salivary gland cancer. At his death, he was a psychology professor at the University of Chicago, director of the university's Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience, and chairman of the Social Psychology Program. He died on March 5, 2018 at the age of 66.

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