Jonh Wesley Mayhew Whiting (June 12 1908 Chilmark, Massachusetts

Chilmark, Massachusetts

Chilmark is a town located on Martha's Vineyard in Dukes County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 843 at the 2000 census. The fishing village of Menemsha is located on the northern end of town along its border with the neighboring town of Aquinnah...

 — May 13 1999, Chilmark, Massachusetts) was an American sociologist and anthropologist, specializing in child development

Child development

Child development stages describe theoretical milestones of child development. Many stage models of development have been proposed, used as working concepts and in some cases asserted as nativist theories....

.

In 1973, the American Psychological Association

American Psychological Association

The American Psychological Association is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States. It is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 154,000 members including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. The APA...

 honored him with the G. Stanley Hall Award for Distinguished Contributions to Developmental Psychology. Whiting was elected the first President of the Society for Psychological Anthropology in 1978. In 1982, John and his wife, Beatrice Whiting, won the American Anthropological Association

American Anthropological Association

The American Anthropological Association is a professional organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 11,000 members, the Arlington, Virginia based association includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, biological anthropologists, linguistic...

's Distinguished Service Award. In 1989, they received the Society's first Career Contribution Award.