[1][2] His parents, Hans Jordon Peterson and Inger Mary Christensen, were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who had immigrants from Denmark to the United States.

The 1911 BYU controversy — involving some of the same professors, including Joseph Peterson and Ralph V. Chamberlin — led in part to the University of Utah debacle.

"[7] A review published in the American Journal of Sociology in 1930 suggested, "the results show enormous and statistically reliable superiority of whites over Negroes.

"[7] [sic] However, in a review for the American Journal of Psychology, Otto Klineberg argued that based on their evidence, he came to a "totally different" interpretation.

"[9] Peterson was a member of Sigma Xi, the National Research Council and the Society of Experimental Psychologists, as well as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.