Introduction to History of Psychology

Question 1

What are the differences between “old history” and “new history”?

Answer 1

Old history:

Presentist - only the people who did things that led to present day were right and anyone else was wrong, the “right” ones are the centre of focus

Internal - the ones presenting the history are members of the field and are viewing it from the inside (will take some things for granted)

Personalistic - focus on particular people as being responsible for moving the field forward (making progress)

New history:

Historicist - try to take currents (time periods of the field) on their own terms rather than from our own perspective (e.g., sexist thinking)

External - written by professional historians of science

Naturalistic - assume that “great thinkers” were simply products of their context/time

Question 2

What are some other issues in historiography?

Answer 2

Data sources - secondary (published interpretations)
primary (letters, photos, minutes, journal articles)
- can be a lot of work to find the data in a lot of archives

Writing problems -
data selection - reliability

interpretation

Question 3

What is the problem of relativism of history?

Answer 3

Is one version of history always as good as another?
How can better histories be distinguished from worse ones?
A Darwinian struggle in the marketplace of historical ideas?

Question 4

What is a good guideline for formulating hypotheses? What are the two terms used for this idea?

Answer 4

Occam’s razor, also known as the principle of parsimony, is a very important guideline for formulating hypotheses. It states that “entities should not be multiplied without necessity.”

Simple hypotheses are easier to test than complicated ones, hence the principle is good for progress in science even if it does not always single out the correct hypothesis.

Question 5

What did Karl Popper point out in 1959 about verifying scientific theories?

Answer 5

it is futile to try to verify scientific theories by piling on more evidence.
The problem with trying to verify theories is that, for any given body of evidence, there are always multiple theories that are potentially compatible with it. Adding more evidence does not change this, though it can narrow the range of theories that fit the data.
Because theories are underdetermined by evidence, it is much more epistemically useful to try to falsify theories than to verify them.

Question 6

What is the falsifiability criterion? Who is this concept associated with?

Answer 6

the process of testing should involve searching for or trying to create situations in the real world where the predictions of the theory break down.
This only works if the theory (a set of linked generalizations about the world) makes sufficiently clear predictions about the world that it can be unambiguously shown to be false (if it is false, of course).

Popper

Question 7

Popper said that theories that resist repeated attempts at falsification may be accepted as …

Answer 7

provisionally (but only provisionally) true.

Question 8

According to Popper, a real scientific theory must do what?

Answer 8

must make clear predictions; that is, there must be observations one can imagine, that, if they were actually obtained, would prove the theory false.
If a theory cannot make these sorts of predictions, it is neither true nor false, it is simply a non-theory, empty of empirical content.

Question 9

According to Popper, both Marxism and Freudian psychoanalysis are what? Why?

Answer 9

non-theories

Because they do not make clear predictions that can be falsified
The Oedipus Complex “theory” gives no way to disprove it - therefore, it’s not a theory

E.g., If you ask most men, I predict they will say something along the lines of “Ew, that’s gross!” They might also try to hit you. This would not be considered counterevidence by Freud, because he would see it as a sign of some sort of defense mechanism in action.

Question 10

The Quine-Duhem thesis states that…

Answer 10

experiments can seldom falsify a theory because there is always a “protective belt” of ancillary hypotheses (for example, about apparatus) surrounding the central theory. These are almost always questioned first.

Often experiments will fail to replicate the conclusions/results according to a theory but this is usually attributed to problems with that particular experiment (which is often true)

Question 11

What are the three phases Kuhn described for the development of a science?

Answer 11

preparadigmatic

normal science

revolution

Question 12

Describe Kuhn’s preparadigmatic stage of science.

Answer 12

the first stage

Different workers in the field work on certain problems, but they do not share a core set of beliefs about what the object of study is, what sorts of methods are appropriate for carrying out that study, how questions should be formulated, etc.
Scientists may group together into schools, but the schools often have trouble communicating with each other. Their propositions are said to be incommensurable. Lack of communication may also occur because of a lack of widely read journals and other, similar institutional factors.

Question 13

What happens in Kuhn’s preparadigmatic stage when some scientist in the field solves a problem spectacularly well, and many others start to follow this individual?

Answer 13

Theories, methodologies, questions, etc. become much more consistent. In Kuhn’s terms the new field now has a paradigm.
Kuhn uses the term “paradigm” in at least two distinct ways.
Paradigms can be these exemplary works of science that give a field structure and direction.
Paradigms can also be that structure and direction; in this case, “paradigm” is a synonym for “disciplinary matrix.”

Question 14

According to Kuhn, When a scientific field achieves a unified paradigm, it is said to have entered what stage of development? Explain this stage.

Answer 14

the second stage of scientific development, normal science

the terms of scientific debate are settled, though debate can still be vigorous

Kuhn likens this stage to puzzle solving.

A failure to obtain interpretable results is almost never interpreted as a failure of the paradigm, but rather as an error or a problem of instrumentation. Recall Quine-Duhem.

Question 15

How long can a science be in the normal science phase? What happens with a science over time in this phase?

Answer 15

Normal science can proceed for quite a long time, sometimes centuries.

over time, there are usually either anomalies (consistent failures of observations to accord with theory) or theoretical innovations that can give rise to unease within the field. The first response to such unease is an intensification of puzzle-solving activity.

Question 16

How does Kuhn’s third phase of science come about? What is it called?

Answer 16

If such intensified puzzle-solving fails to lead to some sort of resolution, the unease gradually intensifies, and the field is primed for a revolution, the third stage of scientific development.
Revolutions never occur just because there are persistent failures of the old paradigm.
There needs to be a new paradigm with some successes to its credit to replace the old one.
Thus, some new brilliant scientist must solve a previously insoluble problem and create a completely new framework for the science. This is also called a paradigm shift.

Question 17

What happens to the various groups of scientists during a scientific revolution / paradigm shift?

Answer 17

Not everybody is converted by a paradigm shift. Often, established scientists keep on doing their thing, and it is young scientists and graduate students who are converted to the new way of doing things. The old guard do not change their minds, they just die off.

The cycle of normal science/revolution/normal science may be repeated endlessly.

Question 18

How is Kuhn’s view of the development of science similar to evolution by natural selection? Does this represent progress?

Answer 18

this view does not guarantee that science approaches some sort of absolute truth, though it does imply some adaptation to local conditions

Kuhn is agnostic about whether this is progress because sometimes the new paradigm does not solve problems the old one did

Question 19

What did David Wootton say about Kuhn’s view of the development of science?

Answer 19

Claims that since Kuhn, the historiography of science has become too relativistic.
The issue is that recent historians of science talk as if social, cultural, and historical factors are the only ones that influence change, and that evidence never plays a role.

Wootton counters this by pointing to instances where a single observation or experiment completely wiped out a school of thought, without all the messy processes associated with scientific revolutions.

Question 20

What was Kurt Danziger’s contribution to the history of psychology? What was the name of his book?

Answer 20

Kurt Danziger’s book Constructing the Subject caused many people who were teaching history of psychology in the early 1990s to change their approach.

previous work on history of psychology tended to focus on ideas and findings.
Problems with these approaches:
Neglect of social aspects
Internal (communication, consensus-building)
External (vested interests, alliances, etc.)
Neglect of constructed nature of findings
Overemphasis on rationality

Danziger thinks we must, as historians, ignore considerations of the truth value of different approaches, because what counts as truth depends on which approach people take.

Question 21

What did Kant claim? What three concepts did he introduce?

Answer 21

Kant claimed that things as we perceive them are not the same as things as they really are - introduced terminology:
Noumena - fundamentally unknowable reality outside of perception
Phenomena - our perception of the outside world
Trancendental ego - processes that allow us to make sense of the outside world

Question 22

Which of Kant’s concepts of consciousness was Wundt studying? What was his approach to studying this concept?

Answer 22

Wundt was, in essence, studying the transcendental ego (processes) - decided these could be studied by physiological methods (experimental methods)
His approach was a stimulus (input), reaction (output)

Question 23

Wundt’s lab marks the beginning of psychology because he had…
What served as the data source?

Answer 23

student researchers.

The person serves as a data source.

Question 24

What is special about the terminology that Wundt used for his subjects/participants?

Answer 24

Early: “discriminator,” “associator,” “reactor”
Late: “observer,” “Versuchsperson”

• not demeaning or judgmental

Question 25

What was the difference between the social structures of Wundt’s experiments and Galton’s experiments?

Answer 25

Wundt
Roles of experimenter and experimental subject are interchangeable.

Francis Galton
There were large status differences between subjects and experimenters.

Question 26

What did Galton study? How did he study this?

Answer 26

Galton got people to pay him to be subjects in his study - to have “measurments” done of individual differences (basis for evolution) (in Europe)
His experiments were physical tests which relied on the ignorance of the subjects (thought it correlated with IQ)

One of the first psychologists to come at the discipline from a statistical approach – The importance of comparing people to the population came from a statistical worldview (and Darwin).

Had social motives (eugenics)

Question 27

What did Charcot do? What was the social structure of his experiments? What term did he coin?

Answer 27

Charcot - ran a psych hospital - it is from him that we got the term “subject” - demeaning, very large difference in power status between subject/experimenter

Subjects are assumed to be abnormal.
Power differentials were very large (Charcot ran the hospital in which his subjects were patients).
The clinical relationship carried over to the investigative situation.

Question 28

What are the side-effects of the three models of experimentation:
Wundt
Galton
Charcot

Answer 28

Wundt - subjects/experimenters are intermingled - conformity pressures, etc.

Galton - discrepant goals - the subjects’ goals are to exaggerate their scores to receive great measurements (they have skin in the game)

Charcot - ingratiation (sucking up)

Question 29

Which of these models of experimentation triumphed (Wundt, Galton, Charcot)? Why?

Answer 29

Galton’s model triumphed, Wundt’s model pretty much died. Charcot’s persistent in some circumstances

Galton model: The report centers on statistical aggregate responses.
Quetelet: popularizer of statistics, general propensities
Most social averages are fairly stable over time.
Social problems are conceptualized as related to these averages.
Averages supposedly say something about human types (usually defined by basic demographic variables).
The population concept also comes from Darwin.

Galton triumphed due to his approach’s prestige and alleged administrative practicality.
Institutional alliances are also important.
Part of psychology’s early course was determined by its very strong alliances with the K-12 educational system.