Gilbert H. Gottlieb

RALEIGH - Professor Gilbert H. Gottlieb was born October 22, 1929, in Brooklyn, N.Y., and spent his early childhood in Cedarhurst and Lawrence, Long Island, before eventually settling in North Carolina after a stint in the Korean War. He died on Thursday, July 13, 2006, at home. Prof. Gottlieb was a Research Professor of Psychology in the Center for Developmental Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Previously, he was an Excellence Foundation Professor of Psychology at the UNC at Greensboro from 1982-1995. Prior to going to Greensboro, Prof. Gottlieb was a Research Scientist at Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh, N.C., from 1961-1982. He received his Ph.D. from Duke University, where he participated in both the clinical and experimental psychology programs and was the first graduate student in the joint Psychology-Zoology graduate training program in animal behavior. Prof. Gottlieb worked as a clinical psychologist at Dorothea Dix Hospital from 1959-1961 before turning his full-time attention to basic research on early social development in several species of precocial birds in the laboratory and in the field. His first monograph, Development of Species Identification in Birds (1971), was a product of those labors. In 1973, he helped to revive interest in the field of behavioral embryology by editing a volume by that name, along with writing theoretical reviews of the field in several journal articles. His interest in the developmental basis of evolution resulted in a 1992 book, Individual Development and Evolution. Later, Prof. Gottlieb summarized his career-long research and theoretical efforts in Synthesizing Nature-Nurture (1997), which won the Eleanor Maccoby Book Award of the Developmental Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association. Prof. Gottlieb was a guest of the Czechoslovak Academy of Science in Prague (1967) and the USSR Academy of Sciences in Moscow (1989), advisor to the German National Science Foundation (1977), and a member of the Council for the Future of Kids since 2001. He was a past president of the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology, and a recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Child Development Award from the Society for Research in Child Development (1977). In 2003, his 1993 article in the journal Animal Behavior, Social Induction of Malleability in Ducklings, was ranked as the 14th most fascinating study published in the psychological literature since 1950 by members of the Society for Research in Child Development.

In 1999, he gave the Heinz Werner Lectures at Clark University on the topic of Probabilistic Epigenesis and Evolution, and a small book (his ninth) by that title was published by Clark University the following year. Prof. Gottlieb was a recipient of research grants from 1962-2006 from the National Institutes of Mental Health and Child Health and Human Development, as well as the National Science Foundation. In 1995, Prof. Gottlieb discontinued his animal research and turned his attention to the role of genetics in human psychological development.

He is survived by his wife, Mrs. Nora Lee Willis Gottlieb; son, Mr. Jonathan B. Gottlieb of Raleigh, son, Mr. Aaron L. Gottlieb, wife Christa and grandson Evan of Wendell, son, Dr. Marc S. Gottlieb, wife Michele, granddaughter Emily and grandson Dylan of Raleigh; and nephew, Smith Sherman of Glensfalls, N.Y. He is predeceased by his son, Mr. David H. Gottlieb.

A memorial service will be held at at 1 p.m. on Tuesday at Unitarian Universalist Church Lower Fellowship Hall, 3313 Wade Avenue, Raleigh. Reception to follow.

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This obituary was originally published in the News Record.