Willis F. Overton, Ph.D.

For more information visit Dr. Overton's personal website at http://astro.temple.edu/~overton/.

Biographical Sketch

Willis F. Overton is the Thaddeus Lincoln Bolton Professor of Psychology, and Chair, of Temple University's Department of Psychology. His activities include work in the fields of Developmental and Clinical Psychology. He is currently a Fellow of the American Psychological Association in Division 7 (Developmental), Division 12 (Clinical), and Division 20 (Adult Development & Aging). Person-centered action theories of development, especially Piaget's and Werner's theories, and person-centered action theories of personality, particularly object relations theories such as those of D. W. Winnicott and H. S. Sullivan, frame his approach to the study of the development and functioning of the psychological subject. A number of his writings focus on the articulation of philosophical, metatheoretical, and methodological assumptions that ground and contextualize alternative conceptions of development, cognition, personality and the nature of scientific inquiry. His empirical research has focused on cognitive development -- in particular, the development of reasoning in adolescence -- the, relationship between cognitive and personality development, and developmental psychopathology.
     Following several years of service in the U.S. Marine Corps, Professor Overton received his university education at Boston University where he was awarded his B. A. (magna cum laude) and M.A. in psychology. He received his Ph.D. from Clark University where he was trained in Developmental and Clinical Psychology. Prior to joining the Temple faculty in 1972 as Director of the Division of Developmental Psychology he taught in the Psychology Department at SUNY/Buffalo. He has also taught in a number of European countries including Czechoslovak, Germany, The Netherlands, Poland, and Switzerland. In 1982 he was awarded a prestigious Lindback Foundation Award for distinguished teaching. His clinical work includes supervision of psychological interns at Pennsylvania Hospital and, until its recent closing, he was Senior Research Scientist at The Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital.
     Professor Overton is a past President of the Jean Piaget Society. After a number of years on the Board of Directors of the Jean Piaget Society, he is currently an honorary member of that Board, and a member of the Geneva based International Associates of the Archives Jean Piaget. He is  Editor of Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development. He was Associate Editor of the journal Developmental Psychology for several years, and has served on numerous editorial boards including Child Development, Cognitive Development, Development & Psychopathology, Human Development, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Journal of Adult Development, Journal of Research on Adolescents, International Journal of Behavioral Development, and Psychological Inquiry. He was also a member of the NIH Developmental Behavioral Sciences Study Section, and has served on many committees of the American Psychological Association, the Society for Research in Child Development, and the Jean Piaget Society.

Selected Papers

Dick, A. S., Overton, W. F., & Kovacs, S. L. (2005). The development of symbolic coordination: Representation of imagined objects, executive function, and theory of mind. Journal of Cognition and Development, 6, 133-161.

Chapell, M.S., & Overton, W. F. (2002). Development of logical reasoning and the school performance of African American adolescents in relation to socioeconomic status, ethnic identity, and self-esteem. Journal of Black Psychology, 28, 295-317.

Muller, U., Sokol, B., & Overton, W. F. (1999) Developmental sequences in class reasoning and propositional reasoning. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 74, 69-106.

Muller, U., Sokol, B., & Overton, W. F. (1998a). Reframing a constructivist model of the development of mental representation. Developmental Review, 18, 155-201.

Muller, U., Sokol, B., & Overton, W. F. (1998b).Constructivism and development: Reply to Smith's commentary. Developmental Review, 18, 228-236.

Ward, S. L., & Overton, W. F. (1990). Semantic familiarity, relevance, and the development of deductive reasoning. Developmental Psychology, 26, 488-493.

Ward, S. L., Byrnes, J. P., & Overton, W. F. (1990). Organization of knowledge and conditional reasoning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 832-837.

Overton, W. F., Ward, S. L., Noveck, I. A., Black, J., & O'Brien, D. P. (1987). Form and content in the development of deductive reasoning. Developmental Psychology, 23, 22-30.

Overton, W. F., Byrnes, J. P., & O'Brien, D. P. (1985). Developmental and individual differences in conditional reasoning: The role of contradiction training and cognitive style. Developmental Psychology, 21, 692-701.

Posters

Dick, A.S., Müller, U., Overton, W.F. (October, 2003). Further support for negative priming in the Dimensional Change Card Sort. Poster presented at the meeting of the Cognitive Development Society, Park City, UT.

Dick, A.S., Overton, W.F., & Kovacs, S. L. (April, 2003). Using representations: Children's coordination of symbols in theory of mind, executive function, and representation of imagined objects. Poster presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Tampa, FL.