Lecture 2: Historical Foundations Flashcards
William James
1875: First empirical psychologist. Started the first psychology laboratory at Harvard University. Mainly studied sensation, perception, and emotion
Kurt Lewis
1945: First social psychologist. Became the Director of “The Centre for Group Dynamics” at MIT. Used an experimental approach to study issues related to group dynamics and the impact of one’s social environment on individual behaviour
phrenology
popular scientific fad in the early 19th century that believed skull shape was a reliable predictor of psychological traits
William McDougall
1908: Was a prof at Duke University & Department Chair at Harvard. Wrote one of the first textbooks on social psychology. He identified numerous groups as “superior” and others as “submissive”
johnson-reid act
1924: Passed in the U.S. & imposed a quota of 165,000 immigrants for countries outside the Western Hemisphere (~80% reduction), while barring immigrants from Asia. Justified by research eugenics and other forms of scientific racism
Herbert Spencer
created the term survival of the fittest
survival of the fittest in social psychology
Existing disparities were justified as reflecting innate differences between more and less worthy groups
naturalistic fallacy
whatever exists is right
virginia sterilization law
1924: forcibly sterilized severely mentally ill people and was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court
Floyd Allport
1924: Pushed back against the naturalistic fallacy & argued that structural forces and prejudice must be contributors to differing group outcomes
William Graham Summer
Influenced the field of intergroup relation in his book Folkways by coining the terms ingroup, outgroup, and ethnocentrism
He noted the fundamental need to be part of a group
Walter Lippman
1922: He developed the term stereotype to describe the process through which someone takes impressions towards one group member and applies them to all group members
where did the term stereotype come from
it was a printing term
Lippman’s account of stereotypes
- The modern world is too chaotic, so some people must oversimplify it through larger categories and stereotypes
- Stereotypes arise from the need to abstract (there is more in the world than we can observe)
- Cultural influences and expectations influence the way we view the social world
The Princeton Trilogy Studies, 1933
First empirical study of stereotypes
Assessed the extent to which people explicitly subscribe to stereotypes
Personal experiences and cultural expectations can lead to stereotypes
Richard LaPiere
1934: Criticized current social psych studies for focusing on hypothetical questions rather than behaviour. Travelled around America with a Chinese immigrant couple and they were only refused service one time.
6 months after the visits, LaPiere contacted them and 92% said they would refuse service to a Chinese couple
Gordon Allport
Published a book called The Nature of Prejudice, which was the first psychological analysis of prejudice and discrimination
