Parker Played Key Role in Advancing the Science of Socionomics
We are deeply saddened by the death of Dr. Wayne D. Parker, an esteemed colleague and friend who made important contributions to the field of socionomics.
Dr. Parker served as director of the Socionomics Foundation from 2003 until 2009. He spoke at numerous prestigious academic conferences around the world, co-authored several landmark papers with Robert Prechter and others, and was a theorist whose probing inquiries helped hone several key aspects of socionomic thought.
Dr. Parker was a co-author of the Institute’s well-known elections paper. The paper has been in the media spotlight since January, when it was posted on the popular research site SSRN.com. The paper is the third most-downloaded paper during that period. Forbes, Yahoo, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Barron’s, The Hill, CNN and NBC News all covered the study, and the academic journal SAGE Open published the paper in early November, just weeks before Dr. Parker’s death.
Dr. Parker co-authored three other papers with Prechter:
▪ “The Financial/Economic Dichotomy in Social Behavioral Dynamics: The Socionomic Perspective” (2007), published in the Journal of Behavioral Finance;
▪ “The Socionomic Theory of Finance and the Institution of Social Mood: Pareto and the Sociology of Instinct and Rationalization” (2006), presented at the Conference of the Association for Heterodox Economics, London School of Economics, London, England; and
▪ “Herding: An Interdisciplinary Integrative Review from a Socionomic Perspective” (2005), presented at the International Conference on Cognitive Economics, New Bulgarian University, Sofia, Bulgaria.
Parker also presented a paper titled “Methodological Individualism vs. Methodological Holism: Neoclassicism, Institutionalism and Socionomic Theory” (2006), presented in Paris, France at the Congress of the International Association for Research in Economic Psychology and the Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics. This and his other essays will feature in a collection of socionomic writings, to be published in book form in 2013.
Dr. Parker was born in 1951 in Montgomery, Alabama. He graduated magna cum laude from Yale University, where he was a member of the Whiffenpoofs, the world’s oldest collegiate a cappella group. After receiving a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Temple University, he completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychology at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. He went on to receive training in neuropsychological testing at the University of Pennsylvania and was trained as a research analyst at the university’s Wharton School. He was an adjunct faculty member at the Emory University School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.
As a marriage therapist for 35 years, Dr. Parker devoted a great deal of time to helping couples learn to love each other again. Since 1979, he was married to the love of his life, Miriam, with whom he raised three children.
Dr. Parker passed away November 26 after a two-year battle with carcinoid cancer. He will be greatly missed by those he loved and helped, and by those of us who knew him on both a personal and professional basis. His dedication and service to the Institute were an inspiration to those who served alongside him, and we are forever indebted to him for all he has done to advance the science of socionomics.
The Socionomist enables you to see trend-shaping waves of social mood, as reflected by the stock market — and capitalize on them. The June issue looks at phases of social mood and features a “Research Roundup,” which highlights five academic studies that shine a light on important aspects of socionomic theory. Mood Riffs topics include “quiet luxury,” loneliness, the Writers Guild strike and efforts by countries to trade in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. Read the June issue when you become a Socionomics Premier Member.
