[2] Hall's work on temperament and behavior genetics is now only a historical footnote,[3] but was an aid to scientific studies and theories of today.
He first studied psychology at the University of Washington as an undergraduate, working with a well-known behaviorist, Edwin Guthrie.
He transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, his senior year because of his opposition of the ROTC course required at Washington.
Because of his growing research reputation, he was appointed departmental chair and professor in psychology in 1937 at Western Reserve University.
He and Robert Van de Castle, during this time, developed a comprehensive coding system that revolutionized the objective study of dream content.
"[3] He worked on the "inheritance of emotionality in rats and his discovery that a single dominant gene led to acoustical traumas in one inbred strain of mice".
[3] With this work, he made major contributions, early in is career, to the study of temperament and behavior genetics.
His chapter in the "Handbook of Experimental Psychology" (1951) is considered "one of the founding statements of modern behavior genetics".
[3] In the 1940s, Hall began three decades of systematic work on dreams that led to many theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions.
This work extended his mentor Tryon's earlier rat demonstration that they could be bred to do well or poorly in learning a maze.
Hall's early work on dreams was based on reports written anonymously by college students.
However, Hall soon was collecting reports from a plethora of types of children, older adults, people in other parts of the world, and those who kept dream diaries.
If the dreamer believes the world is filled with nothing but stress, problems, and agitation, then the dream will portray hostile environments.
[12] [3][4] According to colleagues at the University of California in Santa Cruz, Hall went into semi-retirement in 1966, and "he indulged his love of great literature, classical music, and opera, took daily walks and bike rides along the ocean, and tended his flower garden.