George Everett Partridge (31 May 1870, Worcester, Massachusetts – November 1953, Baltimore) was an American psychologist credited with popularizing the term sociopath in 1930 that Karl Brinbaum had suggested in 1909. He worked with the influential G. Stanley Hall at Clark University. One year after his death, the George Everett Partridge Memorial Foundation was incorporated in 1954 by the Partridge family to memorialize his life's work in the study and treatment of mental and personality disorders. The Foundation focused on developing programs to promote treatment centers for mentally disabled children, often referred to as the "forgotten children." Partridge schools were established. The first of which was in Herndon, Virginia, for older boys with moderate intellectual disability resulting from brain damage. However, the foundation was forfeited in 1991.
Early work Partridge's PhD and early work focused on the psychology of using alcohol and other intoxicants. He surveyed historical patterns of use, including in religious and social contexts. He gave varying details across cultures stating alcohol consumption to be “polygenetic” and considered why there may be a human 'intoxication impulse'. He related that varying religious groups such as the Hindus, Greeks, Pueblos, Dahomans, Ainos, and several others are displayed similar intoxication rituals to appease deities. He conducted his own research experiments on the effects of alcohol, in which he found opposite effects to those reported by the influential German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin. Partridge's interest stemmed from a "desire to test the value of psychological methods in dealing with certain ethical problems. Any one of a large number of impulses which are important because they determine morbid conduct might have been chosen for similar study, as for example, the gambling impulse, envy and jealousy, or the sexual impulse." He published a short book in 1910 concerning the philosophical and scientific issue of individuality, and how teachers can learn each child's unique character, temperament and potential. He also helped publish Hall's writings on education. He began writing a book during the final months of World War I, published in 1919, in which he had analyzed motives for war "in the light of the general principles of the development of society", and addressed the likely effects of the war on countries and the 'world-consciousness'.
Psychopathy studies Starting in 1928 he published a series of studies conducted at The Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital in Baltimore on the 'psychopathic personality' — a broad category used somewhat differently from some predominant definitions today. He postulated three subtypes: delinquent (commonly in males), inadequate (commonly in females), and the generally incompatible or emotionally unstable. He speculated that the first two were likely more biologically determined while the latter appeared to be more linked to early upbringing. He then published a brief paper in 1929 outlining the negative social effects of the "legion of deviates" vaguely classed as having psychopathic personalities, while noting the difficulty in discerning the interaction between cultural patterns and personality patterns, and suggesting that groups as a whole could also become pathological, perhaps most strikingly so in national motivations for war. He concluded: "The thesis here is that the thorough and adequate investigation of the individual consciousness in its pathological manifestations yields us precisely the background needed for the study of the group consciousness — that is, for the development of a scientific socio-pathology."
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