Alfred Binet and higher education.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Alfred Binet sought teaching positions at the Colfte de France and the Sorbonne. Binet wanted to develop experimental psychology in France, but the strong psychopathological orientation of French psychology blocked his ambition. The 1st part of this article relates the history of the introduction of psychology, via Théodule Ribot, to the Sorbonne and the Coll6ge de France. Ribot's premature retirement from the Collège de France in 1901 triggered a battle that led to Binet's repeated failure to gain access to these institutions of higher education and the success in 1902 of Ribot's students: Pierre Janet at the Colfte de France and Georges Dumas at the Sorbonne. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

British female academics and comparative psychology: Attempts to establish a research niche in the early 20th century.

Why was there a preponderance of women engaged in laboratory-based studies of animal behavior in Britain in the early years of the 20th century? As a new experimental subject with recently neglected potential, animal psychology then represented an opportunity for women to make further inroads into academic science. Because the study of psychology before World War I offered negligible professional opportunities for the application of the subject, the intake of students was restricted. Perhaps this encouraged academic access to it by aspiring female scientists who felt that career prospects, uncertain and socially unexpected of them in any case, were worth chancing for greater long-term rewards. The academic circumstances and contributions of 3 British female pioneers in experimental comparative psychology are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The psychology laboratory at the turn of the 20th century.

The author provides a brief history of the psychology laboratory from 1879 to 1900, discusses its crucial role in the founding of scientific psychology, and describes how it enabled psychology's separation from philosophy. The laboratory model is described as a research and graduate training enterprise that operated with K. Danziger's (1990) concept of a "community of scholars" and was eventually extended to the training of undergraduate students. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Issues in comparative psychology at the dawn of the 20th century.

Comparative psychology emerged as part of the "new psychology" that took hold in the United States around 1900. Many of the issues that have occupied comparative psychologists throughout the 20th century were developed as research problems during this period. In some respects, comparative psychology was then an integral and widely respected part of psychology at large; in others, it was already marginalized. Issues emerging during this critical period set the program for the upcoming century and included those of methodology in the conduct of experiments and conceptual issues related to evolution, development, intelligence, and higher processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The cultural psychology of the self.

Reviews the book, The cultural psychology of the self by Ciaran Benson (see record 2001-00374-000). This is a book rich in insight, deep in significance and, inevitably, marked by assumptions and interpretations subject to gentle disagreement. It is precisely because of its manifest assets that points of disagreement need to be highlighted. In this review I will address criticism only to the first half of the book, the criticism being more by way of an introduction to the issue than the suggestion of a settled position on it. I confine criticism to the first half not because of limited space. Rather, the foundational chapters on which the balance of the book's arguments depend are given in Part I. Part II then stands as an elevated and elevating "applied psychology of the self" resting on these very substantive and theoretical foundations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Asian American psychology meets the twenty-first century.

Reviews the book, Asian American psychology: Current perspectives edited by Nita Tewari and Alvin Alvarez (2007). Drs. Nita Tewari and Alvin Alvarez have compiled and edited a well-organized, comprehensive, user-friendly textbook on Asian American psychology. The 58 contributing authors represent the breadth and diversity of this growing field of study. The reader who is looking for simple answers about Asian America will be frustrated by the book, as the complex texture and nuance within “Asian America” is well represented. The 650-page volume is divided into six sections: Foundations and Roots, Balancing Multiple Worlds, Gender and Intimate Relationships, Next Generation, Social and Life Issues, and Health and Well-Being. The book is oriented toward the subfields of personality, counseling, and clinical psychology. Readers will have to look beyond this text to learn about the contributions of our colleagues in social psychology. This text is suitable for undergraduates and beginning graduate students. It contains a goldmine of information that faculty can use very flexibly. Faculty and instructors teaching classes such as Asian American Psychology, Cross-Cultural Psychology, or Asian American Families will be able to use this book as a primary text. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Applied psychology in action: Psychological research in personnel administration.

Industrial management has undoubtedly been skeptical about the value of the personnel psychologist as a direct part of its operations payrolled as its job evaluation, training, organization and methods and other functions are. Yet a large number and variety of management problems can be attacked by the application of the specialized skills of the research psychologist. And in most cases not only can they provide the most valid solutions and recommendations but can do this in a manner which will please even the most practical administrator. To do this, it seems important for the research psychologist to be close enough to the management and operations of the organization so that he can sense needs for research in day-to-day problems. And he can make acceptable recommendations for application of research results in the same setting. The possibilities for success are greater, of course, where the relationship between administrator and psychologist is a close and continuing one. The Civilian Personnel Research Branch (CPRB) of the U. S. Air Force Headquarters is in the fortunate position of approximating this ideal. This Branch conducts psychological research originating from everyday problems of the civilian personnel program of the Air Force. The author concludes that staffing with personnel specifically trained for such work pays dividends, if in no other way than in making such research sufficiently sound to assure management that the conclusions may be applied with confidence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The problem of measurement in the psychology of the eighteenth century.

Hitherto "largely unknown opinions of a number of eighteenth century philosophical and nonphilosophical writers regarding the possibilities and methods of psychological measurements" are considered in approximately chronological order. Writers mentioned include Christian von Wolff, Andrew Michael Ramsay, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Christian August Crusius, Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, Friedrich Johann Buck, Moses Mendelssohn, Gottfried Ploucquet, Charles Bonnet, Hans Bernhard Mérian, Johann Heinrich Lambert, Johann August Eberhard, Gottlieb Friedrich Hagen, Johann Gottlieb Krüger, and Christian Albrecht K?rber. "The question of the measurement of mental phenomena did not by any means remain alien to the inquiring genius of the eighteenth century." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Applied training programmes of psychology in Canada: A survey.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 12(2) of Canadian Psychologist Psychologie Canadienne (see record 2007-02141-045). Page 49 contains an error regarding the available staff for applied training programs at the University of Victoria. The correct figure under column 7 (staff, full-time, psychology) should not be 40. Instead the correct figure for 1971-72 should be 11; under "staff, other departments", 4 should be listed; under "staff, part-time", 1 should be listed; under "staff in applied settings", 3 should be listed.] A survey of professional applied training programmes in the Canadian universities was carried out in 1969. Reported were 29 programmes: 17 in clinical psychology, 4 each in counselling and school psychology, one each in educational psychology and learning disabilities and 2 in experimental psychopathology. The number of places in the universities was related to the expected manpower requirements. Information was also given concerning the numbers of teachers in each programme, the types of applied settings utilized, and the different courses offered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Historical intersections of psychology, religion, and politics in national contexts.

Various types of psychology have come into existence in and have been interacting with a plurality of contexts, contexts that have been radically varying in different states or nations. One important factor in the development of psychology has been the multiple relationships to the Christian religion, whether understood as an institution, a worldview, or a form of personal spirituality. The articles in this issue focus on the intertwinements between institutional religion and national political structures and on their influence on developing forms of psychology in four different national contexts: Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Within these four settings, aspects of the ways in which varying forms of Christian religion coconstituted, facilitated, and shaped psychology, theoretically, practically, and institutionally, are examined. The formative power of the religions was not independent of the relationships between religion and political power, but rather mediated by these. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hugo Münsterberg's attack on the application of scientific psychology.

No individual in the early history of American psychology is more identified with the promotion of applied psychology than Hugo Münsterberg, whose books and articles on applied topics such as industrial psychology, forensic psychology, psychotherapy, and educational psychology made him one of the most visible psychologists of his day. But there is an earlier chapter to Münsterberg's life that tells a very different story of a Münsterberg opposed to application. The story begins in 1898 when he wrote an article for an American magazine in which he told teachers that the findings of experimental psychology had no relevance for education, setting off a firestorm of controversy among his colleagues in psychology and education. This article describes Münsterberg's early denigration of applied psychology and his subsequent transformation as applied psychologist. Reasons for that transformation are discussed as well as issues involving the stigma associated with applied psychology and the popularization of psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The transformation of psychology: Influences of 19th-century philosophy, technology, and natural science.

Reviews the book, The transformation of psychology: Influences of 19th-century philosophy, technology, and natural science edited by Christopher D. Green, Marlene Shore, and Thomas Teo (see record 2001-01476-000). In the following review, I have found it convenient to divide the 11 chapters of this volume into three groups, one devoted to the philosophy of psychological science, one devoted to theoretical and biological psychology, and one devoted to applied psychology. The first of these groups contains chapters by Andrew S. Winston on Ernst Mach, by Charles W. Tolman on G. W. F. Hegel, and by Thomas Teo on Karl Marx and Wilhelm Dilthey. The second grouping of chapters is concerned with theoretical/biological psychology and includes five contributions. The final group of chapters concerns applied psychology. What I liked most about this book was the genuinely innovative character of every chapter; there is no "old hat" stuff anywhere. The editors and contributors are to be congratulated on a fine and timely work of scholarship. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Broad and cutting-edge training in applied psychology: A clinical science perspective.

In discussing a clinical science perspective on the Commission on Accreditation's breadth requirements, we believe that rather than focusing on the acquisition of passive knowledge in areas that are beyond applied specialties, training should enhance students' inclination and ability to translate knowledge into clinical applications and research. Moreover, though breadth is important, so too is depth, both in terms of quantity of knowledge within a particular domain and in terms of the ability to think deeply about the material. We believe that flexible, customized training is superior to a one size fits all approach. To achieve and assess competence, ordinary survey courses and exams are not necessary, nor are they sufficient. We end by summarizing our recommendations and discussing their implications for the American Psychological Association's Commission on Accreditation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reflections on the main schools of the world psychology in the Czech interwar psychology.

The author deals with the reasons for the different level of acceptance of the three important psychological perspectives (Gestalt psychology, behaviorism, and psychoanalysis) in the Czech interwar psychology. Gestalt psychology was probably the most accepted approach, which was at least partly caused by its founding in the neighboring Germany. It was an academic perspective that was convenient for the professional ambitions of its representatives as well as for their endeavor to establish psychology as a serious scientific discipline. On the contrary, the acceptance of behaviorism was rather negative or indifferent. Czech psychologists perceived it as a predominantly foreign, extraneous school of thinking. They preferred the studies on consciousness and the method of introspection over empirical research. Psychoanalysis also has never taken deeper roots in Czechoslovakia. Some Czech intellectuals accepted the existence of unconsciousness but they criticized Freudian sexual symbolism (Peroutka, ?apek). Negative attitudes of the politicians Masaryk and Bene? also contributed to the cool reception of this school. With sporadic exceptions, the psychoanalytic thinking was developed only in a small Jewish-German-Czech circle. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the validity of psychoanalytic constructs in the 20th century.

Responds to comments by F. Dumont (see record 1994-42094-001) about J. J. Magnavita's (see record 1993-42219-001) discussion of Freud's purported discovery of unconscious processes. Dumont underestimates the extent to which Freud both synthesized and advanced the knowledge of unconscious processes to create a metapsychological system that forms the foundation of many current psychotherapy models. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The concept of personality in 19th-century French and 20th-century American psychology.

Since the 1920s, the road to the acknowledgment of personality psychology as a field of scientific psychology that has individuality as its object began with the founding of the discipline by Gordon W. Allport. Historians of psychology have made serious attempts to reconstruct the cultural, political, institutional, and chronological beginnings of this field in America in the 20th century. In this literature, however, an important European tradition of psychological studies of personality that developed in France in the 2nd half of the 19th century has been overlooked. The aim of this article is to cast some light on this unexplored tradition of psychological personality studies and to discuss its influence on the development of the scientific study of personality in the United States. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Issues in the education and training of women in Canadian psychology.

The high attrition rate of female students in graduate programmes in psychology is documented. Some of the literature (largely American) on the problems of female students is explored for possible reasons for this high rate. The problem areas identified are: admissions practices, financial support, inflexibility of graduate programmes, faculty attitudes toward graduate students, scarcity of female role models, and psychology as a "masculine" discipline. Recommendations for action by the Canadian Psychological Association are made in each of the problem areas with a special plea for the inclusion, in both graduate and undergraduate psychology programmes, of courses on the female experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The teaching of psychology and the psychology we teach.

"Does the psychology we teach deserve its present place in the liberal arts curriculum? Have we the moral right to ask our students to spend their time learning the stuff we teach as psychology?" Each subject in the curriculum should be evaluated against criteria such as its contribution to: (1) transmission of significant components of our culture, (2) elicitation of and challange to thought and action, (3) growth of the individual as a person, and (4) preparation for a career. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Passionate men, emotional women: Psychology constructs gender difference in the late 19th century.

The author examines British and American scientific psychology's portrayal of natural and ideal masculinity and femininity in the late 19th century to show how purported differences in emotion and reason were critical to explaining the evolutionary foundation of existing social hierarchies. Strong emotion was identified with heterosexual manliness and men's purportedly better capacity to harness the power of emotion in the service of reason. "Feminine" emotion was portrayed as a comparatively ineffectual emotionality, a by-product of female reproductive physiology and evolutionary need to be attractive to men. The author argues that constructions of emotion by psychology served an important power maintenance function. A concluding section addresses the relevance of this history to the politics of emotion in everyday life, especially assertions of emotional legitimacy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Russian psychology at the turn of the 21st century and post-Soviet reforms in the humanities disciplines.

The author traces the changes in Russian psychology in the past 25 years and links these changes to the earlier Russian legacy of Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) and Aleksei N. Leontiev (1903–1979). The move into the 21st century coincided for Russian psychology as well as for the Russian society at large with the reforms of perestroika, leading to greater openness in the academic sphere. In particular, Russian psychology was able to connect in a more free and fundamental way with its own heritage and with various developments around the world. The author discusses how these factors affected continuity and innovation with regard to the 2 dominant theoretical perspectives in Russian psychology—the cultural–historical theory of Vygotsky and the theory of activity, initially developed by Leontiev. The author argues that while there are now original and substantial shifts within Russian psychology—namely toward the new paradigm characterized by various researchers as “organic psychology,” “nonclassical psychology,” or even “post-non-classical” psychology—the issues of agency and meaning, which were central for the previous generation of Russian psychologists, such as Vygotsky, Leontiev, Luria, Zaporozhets, Rubinstein, and others, continue to inform the development of the discipline in the 21st century. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)