William James McGuire (February 17, 1925 in New York City, New York â December 21, 2007 in New Haven, Connecticut) was an American social psychologist known for his work on the psychology of persuasion and for developing Inoculation theory. He was a faculty member at Yale University from 1970 until he retired in 1999, and chaired the psychology department there from 1971 to 1973. He was the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology from 1967 to 1970.
An obituary of McGuire in American Psychologist stated that McGuire was "...for several decades the fieldâÂÂs premier researcher of the psychology of persuasion".