Lloyd Newton Morrisett Jr. (November 2, 1929 – January 15, 2023) was an American experimental psychologist with a career in education, communications, and philanthropy.

Shortly afterward, the family moved to Yonkers, New York, to escape the hardships brought about by the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression.

There, he met and apprenticed with Carl I. Hovland, a leading psychologist who founded the Yale Communications and Attitude Change program.

The thesis, which used three activities — including long distance dart throwing — as examples, explored whether or not it is possible to improve performance by thinking about it.

Simon and Newell, both faculty members at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie-Mellon), are "credited with laying much of the groundwork for the emerging field of cognitive psychology, which became Morrisett's lifelong scholarly passion.

[citation needed] Morrisett first encountered the Carnegie Corporation, a philanthropic foundation focused on education, while he was at the Social Science Research Council.

He became increasingly aware of the educational disadvantages of poor and minority children and wanted to find a way to better their access to preschool learning.

[12] In December 1965, as Morrisett's then 3-year-old daughter Sarah watched the test patterns as she waited for her cartoons to start one Sunday morning, her father noticed something.

It suggested that advertising techniques could teach letters and numbers, and provided the essential formula for a new pre-school, entertaining and educational television program appealing to both kids and parents.

[16] Morrisett and Cooney approached Harold (Doc) Howe, U.S. Commissioner of Education, who put up $4 million — nearly half the start-up money for Children's Television Workshop.

[17] "Had Morrisett been any less effective in lining up financial support," Lee D. Mitgang writes in his book Big Bird & Beyond, "Cooney's report likely would have become just another long-forgotten foundation idea.

"He's modest, but people who saw the beginnings of Sesame Street agree that he played a very significant contributing role as a member of that very small group.

[citation needed] The year Sesame Street hit the airwaves, with Morrisett as chairman of the board of CTW, he joined the John and Mary Markle Foundation as president.

-Markle Annual Report, 1997"The years since 1969," he wrote, "have been a voyage of discovery to see if the metaphor, 'venture capital for social benefit' really is the best description of what the Markle Foundation has been trying to do.