Functionalism Flashcards
represents the first truly unique American psychology. As it evolved from Darwin, Galton, James, Hall and Cattell, its definition was:
.. ‘ The study of behavior as it functions in adapting the organism to the environment’.
This broad definition was inclusive of the many different approached to psychology from cognition to behaviorism and pure experimental through applied.
Functionalism
It represented a direct and effective attack on the narrowness of strict (Titchenerian) structuralism.
With no particular clear leader to narrow the movement, it went from a school of thought to absorption into (or the definition of) contemporary mainstream American Psychology.
Functionalism
Born 02/11/1809
Same birthday as Abraham Lincoln.
Grandson of Erasmus Darwin, and son of a wealthy physician.
Studied theology at Cambridge.
Charles Darwin
became interested in zoology and Lyell’s theory of geologic evolution.
Lyell’s theory of uniformitarianism held that the earths major features evolved slowly over eons rather than via rapid changes (eg., volcanism).
He also read Thomas Malthus (1789) Essay on the Principle of Population while on the Beagle voyage.
Charles Darwin
While in the Galàpagos islands, his observations on the isolation of sea turtles to the particular islands started his thinking about animal evolution.
He had already apprehended the theory of selective breeding of the best animals and plants by humans.
Combining Lyell and Malthus, he now extended that to nature making the selection by over breeding, overpopulation, and survival of the fittest.
Charles Darwin
Illness, some suggest psychosomatic (science religion conflict), contributed to the delay of the publication of his work.
His work, verified to have preceded that of Alfred Wallace by 15-years won him credit for the discovery
Charles Darwin
Origin of the species (1859) drew heavily on the Malthusian concern for population control.
Malthus had argued that population was growing geometrically while food supplied were growing arithmetically, predicting that only the most cunning would survive the inevitable competition for dwindling food supplies.
The actual data for the book were based on 22 years of research on the richness and variety of life gleaned from voyages like the Beagle.
Charles Darwin
The variety of life implied the importance rather than trivialization of individual differences.
Origin of the Species established a continuity between humans and non-human, and rational, irrational and instinctive behavior, producing a major impact on comparative psychology and psychoanalysis and psychology as a whole.
Charles Darwin
fully develops the physical and psychological continuity of humans as descended from other animals.
Charles Darwin - Descent of Man
had suggested two principles of evolution:
Development toward perfection with increasing complexity. (refinement)
Anomalies (mutations) reflect environmental interference. (adaptation)
Lamarck
illustrated an evolutionary linkage to the emotions to parallel the rational and physical similarities..
Darwin’s (1872) Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals
Darwin’s theory generated great debate and ridicule as this turn of the century (20th) cartoon caricature of Darwin illustrates.
Darwinian Controversy
Non-traditional/self educated.
Interested in Lyell’s theory of geologic evolution.
Major contributor to psychology and evolutionary theory
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
His first book, Principles of Psychology (1855) proposed evolutionary principles much like Darwin’s but had little impact because of his lack of academic reputation.
Darwin’s Origin of the Species (1859) increased his stature as well.
He revised Principles of Psychology with an emphasis on philosophy of science, published as a 10 volume series The System of Synthetic Philosophy, 2 volumes of which (1870, 1872) dealt with psychology.
Herbert Spencer
The Spencer -Bain Principle
Voluntary behavior follows the pleasure principle.
Frequently made associations are passed on to future generations (Lamarckian)
“simple creatures respond in simple undifferentiated ways”…. (reflexively).
“Instinct is a compound reflex action”….
“Memory and cognition arise from instincts”….
Principles
There are that are true for all phenomena not just one class.
Eg., the Law of Evolution:
A process by which a system moved from” an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity.
This applies to the universe, solar system organisms, and cultures,
First Principles
is a first principle that extends to: The fittest geological structure The fittest organic life The fittest culture The fittest institution The fittest behavior Evolution proceeds from the simple to the complex with a purpose. Consider the child’s path to adulthood.
Survival of the fittest
“ if the doctrine of evolution is true, the inevitable implication is that Mind can be understood only by observing how the Mind evolved. If creatures of the most elevated kinds have reached those highly integrated, very definite, and extremely heterogeneous organizations they possess, through modifications upon modifications accumulated through an immeasurable past– if the developed nervous systems of such creatures have gained their complex structures and functions little by little:then necessarily, the involved forms of consciousness which are correlatives of these complex structures and functions must have arisen by degrees. And it is impossible truly to comprehend the organization of the body in general or the nervous system in particular without tracing its successive stages of complication; so it must be impossible to comprehend mental organization without similarly tracing its stages.” (Spencer , 1855, pp181-182)
Consider the impact of this quote
Progress (social evolution) can inevitably lead to good and bad ends
Social Darwinism
a process by which cultures regulate by balancing forces….to where …”an equilibrium exists between man’s nature and the conditions of his existence”.
Eg., The law of supply and demand.
Equilibration
Spencer, 1880, on an equilibrated society
“…the individual has no desires but those that may be satisfied without exceeding his proper sphere of action, while society maintains no restraints but those which the individual voluntarily respects. The progressive extension of liberty of citizens and the reciprocal removal of political restrictions are the steps by which we advance to this state”……if unimpeded, evolving naturally to a society ….”of the greatest perfection and complete happiness”.
Thus the evolutionary process will work best if the state does not interfere.
Those who struggle successfully should survive.
Those who are not successful should not survive.
The state must not interfere with this natural order or evolutions progress to perfection will be thwarted.
Spencer
Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnagie and J.D. Rockefeller were strong supporters of social Darwinism with their “rugged individualism.
“ The Socialist or Anarchist who seeks to overturn the present conditions is to be regarded as attacking the foundations on which civilization itself rests, for civilization took its start the from the day when the capable, industrious workman said to his incompetent, lazy fellow if thou dost not sow, thou shalt not reap, and thus ended primitive communism by separating the drones from the bees”. (Carnegie, 1900)
Quote
Influence of Darwin (and Spencer on American Functionalism should be clear.
Functionalism’s emphasis on the adaptational function of behavior and the survival of the fittest behavioral strategy both within and between organismic life spans are clear descendants (not a Freudian slip) of Darwin and Spencer’s theories
Influence of Darwin (and Spencer on American Functionalism should be clear.
The continuity of mental, behavioral and physical life meant that animal studies were legitimate ways to understand human behavioral (including cognitive) evolution.
afsafda
As Darwin’s cousin, and with an IQ estimated at well over 200, Galton came from an educationally and financially privileged family.
Francis Galton
He used his independent wealth to attack the scientific study of numerous phenomena as a hobby more than a vocation.
In his youth, he set out to learn medicine by taking medications from A to Z to determine what they did. When he got to C ….croaton oil (a powerful purgative) he abandoned the approach.
At Trinity College he switched from medicine to mathematics, suffered a nervous breakdown, and finished school.
Francis Galton
His primary interest was in investigation the premise that intelligence was genetically determined.
His work marks the foundation of the psychology of mental testing, psychometrics, and assessment of individual differences.
He also founded the fields of eugenics and biometrics.
Francis Galton
His other contributions include:
Exploration of much of Central Africa
Invention of weather instruments
Devising a system for prediction of weather patterns
Invented a teletype machine to allow the rapid transmission of weather information over great distances to study global weather patterns.
Development of fingerprinting for Scotland Yard
Francis Galton
Leading fashion designer in London
Accomplished weight lifter and body builder
Ran experiments on the efficacy of prayer.
Wrote extensively on the future of the human race
He published Hereditary Genius in 1869 in which he argued that intelligence ran in genetic lines, based on extensive genealogical examinations.
He also noted that there was considerable variability and what we now call regression toward the mean.
Francis Galton
Founded the science of eugenics and its journal, Biometrica in 1901.
His eugenics lab (1904) is still productive today at the University College of London.
He argued forcefully for genetic engineering of a better race of humans through selective breeding. (sound familiar for W.W.II?)
Suggested that the British government pay highly intelligent people to breed prodigiously and pay low intelligence people to not breed. (pretty radical!!)
Francis Galton
Based on Jaques Quètelet’s (a Belgian astronomer) observation that biological and social data were distributed according to Gauss’s (Normal) distribution.
He assumed that the same would be true for mental characteristics and set out to measure them.
To do so he had to develop measurement techniques for the study of relationships between variables, so he developed the techniques of correlation and regression and used means, and, average deviations (and later variances standard deviations).
Francis Galton
His followers, Pearson and Spearman developed the methods further giving you most common methods for computing correlations…thank them!
Others who followed in his heritage included Thurstone (psychometrics) and Sir Ronald Fisher (F-distribution and Analysis of Variance)… thank them too!
Francis Galton
He set up a museum full of instrumentation to measure sensory/perceptual/memory capacities motor skills, strength, etc. and developed the questionnaire to get information from people about their dreams, cognitions and mental imagery.
His data was based on 9000 people who paid admission to go through the museum (creative AND frugal!!).
Francis Galton
All of these data became the basis for correlations that would assess intelligence and all appeared to be normally distributed.
He became so fascinated with the normal distribution that he counted everything, including yawns at the opera and found them to be normally distributed around the mean time of the performance.
Francis Galton
As another example of his divergent, creative thinking, he devised a system of arithmetic based on odors ;
camphor = 1,
peppermint = 2 etc.)
Using this system, he was able to do calculations by thinking of the odors.
Francis Galton
The pitch could be varied and he used the orienting response of people and animals to determine hearing ranges while walking around London.
Galton’s whistle
While he was not successful in developing a good intelligence test, he is clearly credited (for psychology) with initiating the mental testing movement, the questionnaire method and the statistical methods to support this research.
What is truly amazing is that he accomplished all this in 15 years of indulging his curiosity in a hobby.
Galton’s whistle
was born into a wealthy family with plenty of intellectual competition (his brother was the novelist, Henry James).
He traveled extensively for leisure and education.
William James
His early interest in science was displaced by an interest in art which he gave up when he found, as he put it that “he had no talent”.
He enrolled in Harvard at 18, in chemistry but disliked laboratory research and switched to medicine.
He concluded that “with the exception of surgery where something positive is accomplished there is too much humbug in medicine”.
William James
He went on the Thayer expedition to Brazil to try biology but found the rigorous laboratory methods of collecting, organizing classifying specimens too painstaking and he returned to medicine.
Finding himself depressed and suffering from psychosomatic illnesses, he went to Europe for rest and relaxation.
In Berlin he attended lectures on physiology and began to develop a strong interest in the emerging psychology as a science.
William James
He returned to America, completed his MD in 1869, became depressed and suicidal.
Having read a book on free will he willed himself to get over his depression and was “cured”
He took a teaching position at Harvard (in psychology) in 1872, took 1873 off to travel in Italy, and returned to teaching at Harvard in 1874.
William James
In 1875, he taught the first American course in psychology (called the relation between physiology and psychology) for which he received a $300 grant to set up a lab.
These two events mark the formal beginning of American Psychology. He was an assistant professor of philosophy in 1880, full professor of psychology by 1889.
William James
In 1878 he signed a contract with Holt Publishing to write an introductory psychology book. It was not published until 12 years later.
Work was interrupted by frequent trips to Europe where he met with many of the early psychologists including Wundt.
William James
Of Wundt he said, “He isn’t a genius, he is a professor. A being whose job it is to know everything and have an opinion about everything”.
After it’s publication in 1890 (two Vols.) Principles of Psychology was widely acclaimed and attracted many American students to psychology.
Most contemporary psychologists still consider it to be the best introductory book ever written.
William James
viewed it in his own words as …“A loathsome, distended, tumified, bloated, dropsical mass testifying to but two facts. There is no such thing as a science of psychology and William James is an incapable”.
Having published the book, he wanted to turn to philosophy (he became one of Americas leading philosophers), so he hired Hugo Munsterberg to teach psychology and run the teaching lab.
William James
Munsterberg was at Freiberg at the time and had been severely criticized by Wundt which made him highly praiseworthy in James view.
Munsterberg became an outstanding teacher, popularized the lab and trained many early psychologists, emphasizing applied (industrial) psychology. (see later)
James retired from Harvard in 1907.
William James
main impact therefore was through the book which was a masterpiece.
It established psychology as a natural biological science descended from Darwin.
It established the function of consciousness to be adaptive, laying the basis for functionalism.
It began the American attack on structuralism offering an appealing alternative.
William James
defined the subject matter of psychology as the science of mental life, both of it’s phenomena and their physiological conditions.
The Wundtean fallacy …‘is that the elements they extract have any meaning’.
“Sensory elements do not exist in conscious experience, only in the minds of the introspecters as tortuously extracted inferences or abstractions”.
James went on to say…“No one ever had a simple sensation”.
In the book, James
He called for a move away from reductionism and artificial analysis toward a positive program to….’understand the unity of the total experience as it flows and changes.
Consciousness in like a stream. Any attempt to stop it, or analyze it at the molecular level is a distortion’. Another of his famous one liners.
..”No one ever had the same thought twice”.
William James
Consciousness is a continuous stream
Consciousness is selective, filtering, emphasizing combining and separating the elements continuously.
Consciousness has a biological purpose to adapt the organism to it’s environment,
Unlike consciousness, habit is involuntary and serves an important purpose……
William James
Habit …. Is the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children from the envious uprisings of the poor. It alone prevents the hardest and most repulsive walks of life from being deserted by those brought up to tread therein…… It dooms us all to fight out the battle of life upon the lines of our nurture of early choice, and make the best of a pursuit that disagrees, for there is no other for which we are fitted, and it is too late to begin again. It keeps the different social strata from mixing. Already at the age of twenty-five you see the professional mannerism settling down on the young commercial traveler, on the young doctor on the young counsellor-at-law. You see the lines of cleavage running through the character, the tricks of thought, the prejudices, the ways of the “shop,” in a word, from which the man can by-and-by no more escape than his coat-sleeve can suddenly fall into a new set of folds….
William James
On the whole is is best he should not escape. It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster and will never soften again.”
William James, 1890, Principles of Psychology, Vol. 1, pg 121)
On the whole is is best he should not escape. It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster and will never soften again.“
William James
Problem solving involves adaptive, purposive, conscious behavior, exercising free will.
Methods that were acceptable were varied but immediate introspection was good if not used to rigidly analyze elements but rather ….”to catch the very life of a moment as it passed by, fixing and reporting a fleeting event as it occurred in a natural setting”.
William James
The James - Lange theory of emotion reversed the common sense theory of emotions as motivators
see the bear—> become afraid—-> run
to fear being the consequence of behaviors
see the bear—-> run—->become afraid.
Note the Cannon - Bard theory that has running and fear as concurrent processes fits contemporary data better.
William James
“Don’t trust anyone over thirty”
Jane Fonda (1969)
psychology was pragmatic (if it works, use it) adaptive (e.g. habits increased the plasticity of the nervous system freed the mind thought) and inclusive of a wide variety of subject matter. (comparative, abnormal, child , etc.) which made it an attractive alternative to the narrowness of Titchnerian structuralism.
Despite the brevity of his career, he was the most influential early American psychologist and defined the field, through the students he influenced with the book.
William James
Initially, he studied theology at Williams College (1863) and became captivated by Darwin’s Theory of evolution.
G. Stanley Hall
At his father’s urging (“……If you have to be a scholar at least be a minister”) he entered Union Theological Seminary in 1867, and quickly became known for his unorthodox views.
After his first trial sermon, in which he attempted to reconcile Darwin with creationism, he was advised to study theology in Germany.
He transferred to Bonn where he shifted from philosophy/theology to physiology and physics at Berlin.
G. Stanley Hall
He became well known as “…an intense student who frequented the beer gardens and had many romantic interludes”.
Returning to the states with no money and no degree at 27, he preached for 10 weeks in a country church, tutored for a family for one year, and took a teaching position at Antioch College in Ohio, teaching English, French, German, philosophy and literature, led the choir and preached.
G. Stanley Hall
In 1874, he read Wundt’s Physiological Psychology, became intensely interested in the new psychology
He left Antioch to be an English tutor at Harvard, and found a way to do research at the Medical School
In 1878, he presented his dissertation on muscular perception of space receiving the first American Ph.D. in psychology.
G. Stanley Hall
Returned to Germany to study physiology at Leipzig and then on to Wundt’s lab, becoming the first American student to make the pilgrimage.
Thus, he was the first American student in the first (arguably) experimental psychology lab during it’s first year (1879).
He was not as overwhelmed by Wundt as he thought he would be and his subsequent career reveals marginal structural influence.
G. Stanley Hall
Returned to the states in 1880 at 36, with no job and no prospects.
He was invited to give informal Saturday morning lectures on education, at Harvard. They were well received and he was invited to lecture at Johns Hopkins in 1881.
He immediately established a research laboratory and became the first American professor of psychology in 1884.
G. Stanley Hall
Founded the American Journal of Psychology (a first) in 1887.
Became the first president of Clark University in 1888.
The graduate program was not well supported but Clark provided excellent undergraduate education.
Despite that, his department turned out 81 psychology Ph.D.s over the next 37 years.
G. Stanley Hall
His students included Cattell, Dewey, Terman, Sanford, and Sumner (the first African American PhD in psychology)
Founded APA and became the first APA president (1892).
In 1909, he arranged to bring Freud and Jung to lecture in the United States, introducing psychoanalysis to American psychology.
G. Stanley Hall
Other journals he founded were the Journal of Genetic Psychology (originally Pedagogical seminary (1891), the Journal of Religious Psychology (1904) and the Journal of Applied Psychology (1915)
He represented the second major push toward a broad, functionalistic psychology in the United States, and was second only to James in his influence…(but vastly more productive!)
Note how well his fascination with evolution plays into the mission of functionalism.
G. Stanley Hall
His most influential work was in the area of child and adolescent psychology.
He believed that child and adolescent development recapitulate cultural prehistoric development. (note the influence of evolution and Jung here!)
Like James, he was mainly theoretical and not strongly experimental.
He also introduced Galton’s questionnaire methodology, but Cattell was the real mover in this area.
G. Stanley Hall
Sumner earned his Ph.D. with Hall becoming the first African-American Ph.D. in psychology.
Francis Sumner
built an undergraduate psychology program at Howard University which has graduated more African-American psychologists than any other university.
He contributed to the development of Psychological Abstracts, abstracting over two thousand articles (from English, French, German, Spanish and Russian journals)
Francis Sumner
Cattell completed his BA at Layfayette College and went to study at Göettingen and on to Leipzig with Wundt.
James McKeen Cattell
A paper he wrote while with Wundt won him a fellowship with Hall (who had preceded him with Wundt) at Johns Hopkins.
He conducted reaction time research with Hall at Hopkins and returned to work with Wundt in 1883.
He worked around Wundt more than with him. They disagreed on the value of introspective research, and Cattell wanted to do individual differences studies.
Wundt called him the brash American.
James McKeen Cattell
He managed to get 6-7 papers on individual differences in reaction times out and completed his degree in 1886.
He then lectured at Bryn Mawr College and the University of Pennsylvania for one year.
Following this, he went to Cambridge University where he met and worked with Galton at the museum collecting data and learning the statistical techniques, and the questionnaire methodology and IQ research in general.
James McKeen Cattell
In 1888, he returned to the States as a professor of psychology at Penn and moved on to Columbia University as the head of the department in 1891.
In 1894 he founded the journal Psychological Review.
He acquired the financially troubled journal, Science, from Alexander Bell in 1895, and transformed it into the official publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science within five years.
James McKeen Cattell
He was the first psychologist to be inducted into the National Academy of Science at the age of 40.
In 1904, he founded Popular Science Monthly (later sold as Popular Science) and Scientific Monthly (1915) when he also started School and Society (weekly)
Like Hall, he became increasingly involved with editing journals and participating in scientific societies. Due to his heavy editorial responsibilities, his research productivity declined.
James McKeen Cattell
Nonetheless, he trained more doctoral students in psychology during his reign at Columbia than any other university.
He emphasized the importance of independence in research (which he never had with Wundt) for his students, and himself.
He moved 40 miles from the campus and set up a lab and office at home, coming into the university on occasion.
James McKeen Cattell
A rift developed between Cattell and the University over his independence, and his “ungentlemanly and irretrievably nasty conduct in scathing the administration.”
After three attempts to fire him (from 1910-1918) they finally did on the grounds of disloyalty to his country.
As a Quaker, he was an outspoken pacifist about W.W.I and this was the grounds for the firing.
James McKeen Cattell
He won a $40,000 libel suit against the university and the grounds for his firing became the basis for the establishment of academic tenure for professors.
Tenure was to protect their academic freedom to take controversial stands with out fear of reprisal.
Cattell used the money from the suit to establish the Psychological Corporation which continues to be one of the major psychological testing corporations in the United States.
James McKeen Cattell
Thus his important contributions were to establish mental testing and Galton’s methodology in the United States, first through his research and students, and later through the Corporation.
His work on the IQ test showed poor correlations with academic success in 1901 but by 1905, Binet had worked out one that was better (see Binet later)
James McKeen Cattell
Through his heavy applied emphasis and his students, notably E.L. Thorndike and R.S. Woodworth, he gave another important push in the direction of functionalism.
James McKeen Cattell
Word Association Lists: He compiled a list of fairly constant word pairs often found occurring together. He argued that these associates could be a method to study deeper levels of subconscious associations, anticipating Freud’s method of “free association”.
Galton’s Legacy
Mental Imagery: Subjects imagined scenes that were recorded and rated on their richness of detail, thematic integration and so forth. These measurements were found to be normally distributed and not highly related to scientific ability or intelligence.
Galton’s Legacy
Sensory acuity: Many methods including tests of vision, audition, taste, and of course, strength of grip. All were found to be normally distributed (anthropometry) but not highly correlated with intelligence.
Galton’s Legacy
Cattell administered the Galton test battery to college students and found a low correlation of items to each other, and a low correlation of test items to success in college (r near zero)
Cattell set about trying to enhance the practical value of Intelligence testing by improving and testing new items.
Cattell’s Work
was an MD, self educated in psychology with a varied career in terms of his reputation.
He was a prime mover in mental testing in France.
Alfred Binet
He conducted some early research on hypnotism (efficacy of animal magnetism) with Charcot that was methodologically poor, unreplicable, and damaging to his credibility.
His work with Charcot also influenced him to argue that sexual fetishes were simple caused by unusual associations (classical conditioning).
Charcot also influenced Freud’s turn toward sexual interpretations of hysteria.
Alfred Binet
He represented an interesting blend of nativism and empiricism, believing that there were native structures that were activated and forged by experience.
Like Piaget, he used his own children for observational data.
Importantly, he believed that nurture could overcome natural (native) deficits.
Alfred Binet
He began to argue for a program of mental orthopedics (environmental intervention) opposing the strong trend toward genetic interpretations which offered institutionalization, sterilization and selective breeding (Galton) as the answers.
His early search for appropriate test items included assessments of individuals’ interpretations of ambiguous stimuli (anticipating the T.A.T.) including ink blots (anticipating the Rorschach Test)
Alfred Binet
Unfortunately, he also used a blend of craniognomy and phrenology, measuring head size as an indicator of intelligence. Once again, his findings (probably the result of subtle experimenter biases) were unreplicable damaging his credibility.
Binet and Henri (1896) wrote of an individual psychology based on mental testing of higher cognitive functions and less on sensory acuity.
Work by Stella Sharp (1899), graduate student at Cornell University showed low inter-correlations among the tests questioning their validity.
Alfred Binet
About the time of the failure of Binet and Henri’s individual psychology (1899), Binet linked up with Theodore Simon, who was working with institutionalized retarded children.
Simon and Binet added tests of memory, imagination attention span, comprehension, suggestibility, aesthetic appreciation moral sentiment and free will to the standard battery of sensory acuity, imagery, dexterity and …..strength (Them too??).
Alfred Binet
By 1905, they had developed 30 subtests, 27 of which were cognitive and only 3 of which were motor.
While the test was clearly ordinal (above or below a given age norm), they began to standardize the test against like aged children, leading to a proliferation of ordinal categories by 1908.
Alfred Binet
In 1911, he introduced the intelligence quotient (IQ=[MA/CA] x 100) which he argued made the measurement an interval level continuous normal distribution.
Binet opposed the reduction of intelligence to a single number.
William Stern
was a Clark University Ph.D. (1899) who translated the Simon and Binet test into English.
Henry Goddard
He administered the test to many “feeble minded” individuals (at Vineland school in New Jersey) and introduced the term “moron” for those scoring lower than 40 using the IQ.
The strong Galton influence from Hall at Clark led Goddard to be strongly nativistic and in his view of intelligence.
In an effort to show the native component, he intensively studied families to show the genetic linkage.
Henry Goddard
His extensive study of the “Kallikak” family to show the linkage from the revolution to the present led to his extreme position advocating sterilization of mental defectives to rid society of retardation.
He believed that he could spot a low IQ person by looking at them (blending, like Simon, craniognomy).
While true in the case of Down’s syndrome, this is a dangerous view, especially since identified individuals can be ostracized.
Henry Goddard
He administered the tests to immigrants to the United States.
Using the test scores as the basis, deportation rose by 350% in 1913 and 570% in 1914. (note that the tests were extremely culturally biased and given under poor conditions.
Henry Goddard
Perhaps a saving grace for Clark Ph.D.s after Goddard, Terman (Ph.D. 1905) represents something good about intelligence testing
Lewis Terman
He was very concerned with standardization of the Binet-Simon test.
He developed the method of adding and subtracting items from the test to force the average MA to equal the average CA, standardizing the test at a mean IQ=100.
Since most of this work was done at Stanford University, where Terman was throughout his career, the standardized test became known as the Stanford Binet test
Lewis Terman
He did extensive research to demonstrate that the test predicted (somewhat) academic success.
Undertook the longitudinal study of genius (50 year project) demonstrating among other things that geniuses are not more likely, but less likely to be “crazy and mentally unstable”
Lewis Terman
A Harvard Ph.D. (1902), he remained there throughout his academic career.
Robert Yerkes
He was a founder of the field of comparative psychology (the Yerkes-Dodson Law) and primate research (the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in Atlanta) and conducted early research on intelligence testing.
W.W.I he helped to developed mental testing to select in officers and select out misfits.
Robert Yerkes
He developed the Army Alpha (literate) and Beta (illiterate or non- English speaking) tests.
Based on these tests less than a half of a percent were rejected, questioning the practicality of the testing.
Overall, half were found to have a mental age of less than 13. Should it have been 18?? (random samples?).
Robert Yerkes
Like Goddard and Galton, he was a strong advocate of eugenics and was part of the unfortunate, misguided application of mental testing to immigration policy.
He conducted extensive animal research (a pioneer in comparative psychology) including frogs, crabs, turtles, mice, rats, worms, crows, doves, pigs, monkeys, apes and humans.
Robert Yerkes
Enrolled at the University of Heidelberg in 1879
Establish the discipline of mathematical statistics.
Established the first university statistics department at University College of London (1911).
Karl Pearson
As a protégé Sir Francis Galton, he collaborated extensively with Galton in the Biometric and Galton laboratories.
Galton left much of his estate to University College of London to establish a Chair in eugenics to be filled by Pearson.
Established the Department of Applied Statistics.
Many contributions to statistics (PPM) and eugenics
Karl Pearson
Ph.D with Wundt at Leipzig (1906).
Trained David Weshler
Major influence on Anna Anastasi, Cyril Burt and J.P. Guilford
Charles Spearman
Collaborated with Galton and Pearson at University College of London.
Pioneer of the statistical techniques including factor analysis
Discovered a general factor (g) in correlations among mental tests.
Pioneer in mental and intelligene testing
Charles Spearman
Fisher was a pioneer in statistics, evolutionary biology, mathematics, genetics, and eugenics.
Sir Ronald Fisher
Psychology knows him best for his contributions to statistics, including the analysis of variance (ANOVA), method of maximum likelihood, and derivation of various sampling distributions.
As a child, his poor vision led him to do all mathematical steps in his head. Later, at Cambridge, his tutor told him that ‘despite his enormous aptitude for scientific work and his mathematical potential, his disinclination to show calculations or to prove propositions rendered him unsuited for a career in applied mathematics’.
Sir Ronald Fisher
Gosset graduated Oxford in 1899 in chemistry and mathematics.
Spent a year interacting with Pearson at the biometrics laboratory learning statistical methods and theory
William Sealy Gosset
He went to work for the Guinness Brewery where he used his statistical expertise to study barley recipes
Pearson helped Gosset in developing small-sample methods, but Pearson didn’t see the value in it.
He finally got Guinness to allow him to publish his work under the pseudonym Student.
Another of his friends, Fisher, immediately saw the value of his small sample work and incorporated Student’s t-table into the degrees of freedom solution he was building for the t-test.
William Sealy Gosset
Ph.D at Columbia (age 21).
Pioneer in Psychometrics and mental testing
Reformed mental testing to focus on the individual
Anne Anastasi
Mental tests are descriptive not predictive.
They reveal more about the test constructors than the test takers
Three of her books have become classics in the field: Differential Psychology, Fields of Applied Psychology, and Psychological Testing.
Psychological Testing (7 editions) was a classic.
Refocused testing on experience rather than genetics.
Anne Anastasi
Aptitude is context-dependent.
Advocated limited use of aptitude and personality tests.
“No intelligence test can be culture free, because human intelligence is not culture free”
Understanding statistical concepts was essential to understanding the meaning of statistical computation.
Anne Anastasi
B.A. University of Nebraska (1918)
Cornell University from 1919 to 1921 with Titchener.
Finished his career at The University of Southern California.
J. Paul Guilford
Focused on individual difference, intellgence creativity and statistics.
Test scores measure qualitative, not quantitative difference.
Opposed those who claimed racial differences in intelligence (Eysenck and Burt) ”
Argued that standard intelligence tests do not favor divergent thinking, working better for convergent thinkers:
Championed the concept of divergent thinking as a trait of creativity.divergent thinking
J. Paul Guilford
Argued that its characteristics were:
fluency (the ability to produce great number of ideas or problem solutions in a short period of time);
flexibility (the ability to simultaneously propose a variety of approaches to a specific problem);
originality (the ability to produce new, original ideas);
elaboration (the ability to systematize and organize the details of an idea in a head and carry it out).
J. Paul Guilford
Guilford (Along with Thurstone) argued that intelligence was a non- unitary concept (single score)
He argued for intelligence as an interdependent set of factors derived from culture, genetics and development.
Qualitatively differenent intelligences could be studied utilizing neuroscience, development, and artificial intelligence to form a more complete picture of the “modules” that comprise it.
J. Paul Guilford
Ph.D. (1925) Columbia University with Robert S. Woodworth.
Worked with Spearman and Pearson.
Best Known for the WAIS and the WISC.
David Wechsler
He assigned a 100 to the mean intelligence plus or minus 15 point per standard deviation, empirically determined.
He divided the concept of intelligence into two main areas: verbal and performance (non-verbal) scales, each evaluated with different subtests
David Wechsler
PhD. (1917). University of Chicago
University of Chicago (1924–1952) where he taught and conducted research.
1952 vhe established the L. L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Leon Thurstone
In 1952 , at the end of his career, he established the L. L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Thurstone was responsible for the standardized mean and standard deviation of IQ scores used today
Thurstone’s work in factor analysis led him to formulate a model of intelligence center around “Primary Mental Abilities” (PMAs),
Leon Thurstone
He joined with Guilford and Anastasi in opposing the model of a singular general intelligence that factored into the scores of all psychometric tests and was expressed as a mental age.
Thurstone was one of the driving forces developing the methods of factor analysis laying the groundwork for: psychometric factor structures hierarchical models of intelligence the WAIS the modern Stanford-Binet IQ test
Leon Thurstone
The seven primary mental abilities in Thurstone's model were: verbal comprehension word fluency number facility spatial visualization associative memory perceptual speed reasoning
Leon Thurstone
The stage was set for the formal emergence of functionalism by James, Hall, Cattell and Galton based on Darwin’s theory of evolution and adaptation.
The name of functionalism came about through an ironic twist. In an 1898 paper called the “Postulates of a Structural Psychology”, Titchener developed the theme of structural analysis of consciousness in contrast to the growing functional emphasis in American psychology. Basically, he was setting up functionalism as a “straw man” to attack but the straw man turned out to be real and it demolished structuralism.
Formal Founding
of
Functionalism
got his Ph.D. with Hall in 1884, and published the first American Psychology textbook but it was almost immediately eclipsed by James’ Principles
John Dewey
took a position at the new University of Chicago, set up a laboratory school and began a shift toward education. His paper on the reflex Arc Concept in psychology was very influential.
He argued that you cannot study either S or R in a vacuum. You must consider the whole system including its physiology. For example
S—> sensory afferent—->control/associative mechanism (O) —> efferent motor—-> response (R).
John Dewey
Behavior should be studied in molar units first with an emphasis on purpose and function.
Proposed that psychology’s subject matter should be the study of the total organism functioning in it’s environment.
He gradually shifted to the progressive education movement and left the new psychology to Angell.
John Dewey
Studied as an undergraduate with Dewey and got his M.A with James at Harvard (1892)
James R. Angell
He had his dissertation done but was never able to get it translated into proper formal German so he never got his Ph.D.
After one year at the University of Minnesota, he went to the University of Chicago for 25 years.
He then moved on to be the first non-Yale graduate to be president of Yale University. (He was awarded 23 honorary doctorates during his life)
James R. Angell
He published an introductory psychology book in 1904 (4 editions followed by 1908) and a paper “The Province of Functional Psychology” in 1907 which marks the formal beginning of functionalism.
Psychology should be.…
the study of metal operations not elements
the study of the fundamental utility of consciousness.
the study of psychophysical relationships. (sensation and perception and habits)
James R. Angell
Titchener had found reaction time to be fastest when an observer concentrates on the response (motor condition), while Baldwin (a functionalist) had found the fastest reaction times when the observer concentrates on the stimulus (sensory condition).
Angell and Moore conducted an experiment in which they looked at a 2 x 2 cross of naive and trained observers with the motor and sensory conditions.
James R. Angell
They found that naive subjects have faster reaction times in the sensory condition while trained subjects (like introspectors) have the fastest reaction times in the motor condition.
With the discrepancy explained, they emphasized the importance of using naive subjects to yield applied significance in the real world.
Continuing to train many students, (including Carr) Angel became the chair of the department at Chicago.
James R. Angell
received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1905 with Angell. He succeeded Angel as chair of the department in 1919.
Harvey Carr
, psychology was to be the study of mental activity or adaptive behavior.
In his system, adaptive behavior is a chain where either a sensory situation or a motivating stimulus provokes a response which continues until the response feeds back altering the motivational stimulus (e.g. satisfying a need).
Thus motivation dominates behavior until the response alters the motivating stimulus.
Harvey Carr
Psychology and physiology work in concert but the main emphasis in psychology must be on the adaptive adjustment to the environment. Physiology mainly functions to maintain the integrity of the functioning organism.
postulates:
Behavior is intrinsically purposive and adaptive.
All sensory (including motives) stimuli affect behavior.
All activity requires an initiating stimulus.
Every response has an effect on (modifies) the stimulus complex.
Harvey Carr
used rigorous laboratory methods to extend the study of behavior from humans to animals, used introspection to study thinking with consciousness as the object of study, and developed associationism to explain the connection of ideas (mental) and behaviors (S-R connectionism).
He generated many learning curves, arguing for average curves as the best, and emphasizing looking for factors that affect learning rather than being concerned with the process. Here he used extensively the animal model.
Harvey Carr
He defined learning as the organization of behavior by the associative connection of S and R.
Generalization was the dimensionalization of stimuli, and behavioral selection was a function of attention (facilitating perception) motivation (directing) and learning.
Harvey Carr
Received his doctorate in Wundt’s lab in 1885, and an MD from Heidelberg in 1887, becoming a Dozent at Freiburg.
Hugo Münsterberg
His major disagreement with Wundt over the principle of will, which Münsterberg saw as epiphenomonological (quite behaviorally), led to James hiring Münsterberg to run his lab course at Harvard.
The course and the book (Basic of Psychology) that followed were well received.
The book reflected his more narrow (positivistic) focus for psychology.
Hugo Münsterberg
This was a source of friction between James and Münsterberg.
He was extremely popular in public and academic circle and trained a number of prominent early psychologists, particularly Mary Calkins.
Anti-German sentiments around W.W.I led to his loss of popularity and influence, and perhaps his early death due to a heart attack.
Hugo Münsterberg
Regarding clinical psychology, his concept of reciprocal antagonism represents a forerunner of modern cognitive behavior therapy. (Strengthening positive, incompatible thoughts)
He also pioneered the fields of forensic (eyewitness testimony reliability, interrogation methodology and the prototype of the lie detector) and industrial psychology (including marketing, personnel selection and productivity) in direct opposition to Wundt and Titchener’s opposition to applied psychology.
Hugo Münsterberg
Mary Calkins studied at Leipzig and then returned to work with both James and Munsterberg at Harvard.
Mary Calkins
Although she completed all degree requirements (including her dissertation) she was not permitted to receive a Ph.D. because Harvard was an all male university and Radcliffe (Harvard’s affiliate for women) had no Ph.D. program.
Radcliffe offered her a Ph.D. which she declined because she had earned it at Harvard, not Radcliffe
She joined the faculty at Wellsley College and established a laboratory in 1891.
Mary Calkins
In 1896, she wrote a Psych Review paper extending Ebbinghaus’ work to include primacy, recency, frequency and vividness as factors in memory.
In 1905, she was elected president of the American Psychological Association (the 1st woman president).
In 1909, she published an influential introductory psychology text advocating functionalism.
Mary Calkins
While Ebbinghaus had developed his work around serial free recall. For her work on memory she developed the paired associates task which is a standard procedure today.
After one time through the list of pairs, only the first is shown, which prompts the recall of the paired associate.
In the paired associates task, some pairs occurred more frequently allowing the experimental manipulation of frequency
Mary Calkins
She also had a major applied agenda which used the displacement of negative associations with large numbers of positive association s (frequency) to eliminate troubling thoughts or images.
This procedure anticipated counter conditioning by decades.
Mary Calkins
She also wrote extensively on self perception, again anticipating the psychology of the self in personality theory.
the identity of the earlier and later evolving self. The early view of self is a complex of many characters (Childhood)
This evolves to “the unique being” I am I and you are you (late childhood/adolescence).
Finally an “identical being” that recognizes the self as an evolving composite of earlier and later selves.
Mary Calkins
Woodworth was a student of Cattell’s at Columbia who went on to study with Sherrington at Liverpool.
Both a physiological psychologist and a functionalist.
Robert S. Woodworth
He wrote “the” most widely used book in methods called Experimental Psychology (1938) and published again in 1954 with Schlossberg.
Much of his research was on psychophysical process and the physiological substrates of motivation.
He argued forcefully for the position that psychology must be S-O-R with the organism (O) in the middle not just S-R.
For Woodworth, the mechanism of drive reduction is the fundamental adaptational act.
Robert S. Woodworth
McDougall was influenced by James functionalism which he emphasized in the many (24) books he authored. ranging from physiological psychology to social psychology.
James McDougall
Like Watson, he defined psychology as the science of behavior. But unlike Watson, he retained the study of consciousness, albeit, striving to be objective in the methods, as important subject matter for psychology.
McDougall believed that all behavior was purposive, and freely emitted, in sharp contrast to Pavlov and Watson who viewed all behavior, including consciousness, to be reflexive (much like James Mill’s position).
James McDougall
He argued that all motives were instinctive with the instinct providing the stimulus for purposive behavior.
The instinct provides the motivation and the environment directs to behavior to a purposive goal.
McDougall was an ARDENT critic of Watson and radical behaviorism.
James McDougall
