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HS-06-AmericanPioneers1week5.pptxContemporary Issues: Historical Framework of Contemporary Psychology
Unit 6
American Pioneers
Psychology in 19th-CenturyAmerica
Faculty Psychology
Based on Scottish realist philosophy
Mind, separate from body, composed of a set of “faculties”
Innate, but influenced by nurture/environment
Thomas Upham’s Mental Philosophy
Faculties divided into three broad categories
The intellect (cognitive)
The sensibilities (emotion)
The will (actions, behavior)
Education: strengthen intellect to control will & emotions
Through drill and repetition (younger)
Older: abstract subjects such as classical philosophy, literature, and languages, as well as advanced mathematics to ‘sharpen the mind’
Edward Thorndike discredited this
Thorndike’s Connectionism replaced (S-R ‘habits’)
Thorndike’s Cats (S-R)
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Edward Thorndike discredited Faculty Psychology
Ph.D. 1898 PhD at Columbia University
Most of his career at Teacher College of Columbia
Animal intelligence (Thorndike, 1898) Connectionism (S-R ‘habits’)
Learning is forming associations or bonds
“the connection of a certain act with a certain situation and resultant pleasure”
“the beginning of an exact estimate of just what associations, simple and compound, an animal can form, how quickly he forms them, and how long he retains them”
Thorndike’s Cats – Puzzle Box
Learning Curve
Thorndike’s Cats: Law Of Effect
Behavior governed by its consequences
initial success determined by chance
Steady strength of correct response & corresponding strength of various incorrect responses
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The “Modern” American University Post Civil War
Morrill Act (1862)
Land Grant Universities
Public Institutions
Agricultural Research
educate both men & women in practical fields of study, though women's courses were still centered around home economics
Graduate Education in Private Institutions
No longer just religious or ‘finishing’ schools
e.g., Harvard
The Research University (German Model)
Johns Hopkins (1876)
Clark (1887)
Stanford (1891)
U. Chicago (1891)
The “Modern” American University Education for Women
Pre-Civil War:
Mostly institutes or seminaries
Salem College (1766) became Moravians College 1890
oldest women's college re: founding date
Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (1837) - MH College (1888)
Few co-ed Colleges (about 5)
Oberlin College (1833) 1st accept Women & African Americans
“Women’s sphere” created obstacles
Alleged health consequences of too much cognitive effort
Several private women’s colleges opened
Vassar (1865), Smith (1871), Wellesley (1875), Bryn Mawr (1885)
Mt Holyoke was model for many
1894: Margaret Washburn – 1st (women) Psych PhD
Cornell University with E. B. Titchener
The Animal Mind: A Textbook of Comparative Psychology, 1908
The Animal Mind (1908)
A Textbook of Comparative Psychology.
compiled research on exper work in animal psychology
covered a range of mental activities: S&P, Consciousness & Cognition, as well as behavior.
Covered more than 100 species. Entire chapter on amoeba
Intro chaps on methods
Opposed behaviorism & dismissal of Conscious
animal consciousness is not qualitatively different from human mental life.
Consciousness exists in animals “… of structure resembling ours which rapidly adapt themselves to the lessons of experience. Beyond this point, for all we know, it may exist in simpler and simpler forms until we reach the very lowest of living beings."
Separate but equal doctrine
Segregated education (& other things) OK as long as that provided to each “race” was equal.
extended to the public schools in 1899 by SCOTUS
Segregated schools needed black teachers.
Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Few pre-War (1837); most post-war; mainly in the South
Teacher Training; Little Psychology
Francis Sumner (1895-1954)
First African-American PhD
Clark; PhD, 1920, “Psychoanalysis of Freud & Adler”
Established Howard U psychology program
The “Modern” American University Education for Racial Minorities
Kenneth and Mamie Phipps Clark (PhD Columbia)
1940 & 1944 respectively
Met @ Howard where they studied with Sumner
Doll study (B&W dolls; Pref & Characteristics) 1939-40
Originated in Mamie’s MA work @ Howard
black children seemed to prefer white dolls to black ones (that are otherwise =)
“prejudice, discrimination, and segregation” created feeling of inferiority among African-American children & damaged their self-esteem.
cited in Brown v. Board of Education (Warren, 1954)
"separate educational facilities are inherently unequal"
The “Modern” American University Education for Racial Minorities
William James (1842-1910) America’s First “New” Psychologist
Born in NYC; Family moved to Europe 1855-8
studied painting & science
Brother: Henry James (author)
Harvard MD in 1869 (never practices)
troubled about materialist philosophy
Discovers Renouvier (post-Kantian) and free will
‘… the sustaining of a thought because I choose to when I might have other thoughts’
Pragmatism ideas have value in terms of their functional capacity
1873 – begins teaching at Harvard
1875 – first psychology course (with demo lab)
Travels to Europe (1882)
Meets with Hering, Stumpf, Mach, Wundt, Charcot & others
William James The Principles of Psychology (1890)
1200 pages of physiology, psychology, philosophy
12 years to write
“a loathsome, distended, tumefied*, bloated, dropsical mass, … that there is no such thing as a science of psychology…” *swollen
Psychology’s most famous book
contains seeds of pragmatism and phenomenology
Note: Pragmatism was forerunner of Functionalism
Pragmatism: thought is a product of the interaction between organism and environment
vs: thought describes, represent, or mirror reality
William James The Principles of Psychology (1890)
Primary method “introspection”
General reflection: not as rigid as Wundt or Titchener
“the looking into our own minds and reporting what we there discover”
Skeptical about the new laboratory psychology methods (psychophysics, reaction time)
Called them “brass instrument psychology”
Used a diversity of methods, including Comparative
Not interested in questionnaires, however
“among the common pests of life”
The Principles of Psychology On Consciousness & Habit
Stream metaphor
vs. analytic strategy of succession of “ideas”
Continuously changing
Sensibly continuous
Selective: attention creates “things” from “qualities”
Function of Consciousness
focus on & solve problems
environmental adaptation
Function of Habit
“any sequence of mental action which has been frequently repeated, tends to perpetuate itself ...”
decrease attention needed for actions
frees cognitive capacity so that important problems can be in the focus of consciousness
The Principles of Psychology On Emotions & Will
James-Lange theory of Emotions
emotion follows, rather than causes, its bodily expression
e,g., we feel sad BECAUSE we cry
Implication simulate bodily changes, and emotion associated with those changes will occur
Problem requires unique pattern of physiological arousal for each strong emotion
Will
Wundt: one special feeling — a “feeling of innervation”
James: some do, some don’t
e.g., mindless snacking while talking after dinner – no “feeling …”
James’s Later Years Religion and Philosophy
The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
neglect of science in the study of religion
“the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine”
chapter on “Mysticism”
Became interested in spiritualism
1855: Established Amer Soc for Psychical Research
Controversial: peers thought it hurt the reputation of psychology as science
James thought it was important to keep an open mind and look for evidence one way or the other
Pragmatism (1907) William James
middle ground between 2 mainstream approaches of European philosophy
rationalistic, intellectualistic, religious, dogmatic
empirical, sensations, materialistic, irreligious, skeptical
God: all-encompassing Absolute Spirit
practical consequences for a believer:
it would provide us with the optimistic, comforting assurance that everything will work out for the best
BUT: also undermines the values of human individuality, freedom, and responsibility
Truth: Must agree with reality
matters of fact
relations of ideas (e.g., eternal truths of mathematics)
the entire set of other truths to which we are committed.
G. Stanley Hall (1844-1924) Professionalizing Psychology
Harvard PhD (1878) from James & Bowditch (1st physio lab)
1st Amer PhD in psychology
Prof. of Psych & Pedagogy at JHU
John Dewey & James Cattell were students
Interests in Child Devel & Evolution
1st U. S. lab of experimental psychology (1883)
1st U. S. journal to publish research in psychology
American Journal of Psychology (1887)
Named first President of Clark University (1887)
Opened 1889 – first stand-alone graduate school (no UG) in U. S.
Followed German Research Univ model
1892 1st president of APA
James Cattell:
1st Prof of Psych (U Penn)
Intelligence; Statistics – The Psychological Corporation
(Anti draft in early 1900’s – Fired from Columbia 1917 for this)
John Dewey: Pragmatism; Functionalism
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Psychology at Clark
Clark 1st stand alone Grad School (no UG)
Monday evening seminars (run by Hall)
Diversity of interests
Common theme – Evolution & Genetic psychology
Recapitulation as a biological model
Individual development mirrors evolution
Hall Invents Adolescence
Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion, and Education. (1904).
Post Civil War: new machines replaced the work children did earlier
The 1909 Clark conference
Interested in Freud’s Work
Psychology at Clark
The Clark lab Edmund Sanford as director
“Brass Instruments” (a); voice reaction time (b)
Included comparative psychology
Small’s Learning Mazes
Mary Whiton Calkins (1863-1930) Challenging the Male Monopoly
Graduates Smith; Teaches Greek @ Wellesley, 1887
offered Prof in Psych if she would learn Psych
Difficult search for graduate education
Germany, Michigan, Yale –warned off by females there
A “guest” at Harvard with W. James (1890)
Some laboratory training with Sanford at Clark
Returns to Wellesley & sets up Psych Lab
Münsterberg visits Harvard, ‘guest’ in his lab (1892)
Paired-associates learning
Münsterberg requests she be granted PhD – denied (1895)
Offered PhD from Radcliff in 1902 – SHE refused
Like James (her mentor), shifted interests to philosophy
Self psychology ”…the person or organism which is conscious, which experiences, which functions, which drives or is driven."
First woman President of APA
elected 1905; 14th President
