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PROFESSOR Marie Jahoda, who died on 28 April 2001, was one of the most distinguished psychologists in the discipline's history. During seven decades she published prodigiously on psychological, social and political issues, being most well known for her influential output on the damaging psychological consequences of unemployment. All this, including recently publishing her own exquisite translations of 24 sonnets by the 16th-century French poet Louize Labe, is more than enough to have filled several productive careers.
Marie Jahoda was born on 26 January 1907 into a prominent Viennese family. Her father was a follower of the social reformer Josef Popper-Lynkeus. Her mother was a committed pacifist. In the flourishing artistic, intellectual and political atmosphere of 1920s Vienna, Marie became active in socialist youth organisations. In 1926, in her first known publication, she issued a clarion call to young people who were `prepared for real problems, be those of a personal or social nature'. This was to be a theme to which Marie would repeatedly return.
From 1926 Marie studied at the Psychological Institute of the University of Vienna under Professors Karl and Charlotte Buhler. At that time Karl Buhler was preoccupied with problems of...