Origins of scientific psychology in America 4

Munsterburg’s condluded that americans greatest wekaness was what?

Greatest American weakness is inability to sustain attention

Hall (1844-1924)

earned the first Ph.D. in philosophy/psychology granted in the US

How did Hall get the job at JHU?

Hall in part by being the most conventionally religious candidate; pedagogical work also

important

Hall founded the APA (American Psychological Association)

Founded several journals

– Directed the Ph.D. of Francis Sumner, the first Black psychologist, who would chair department at Howard

– Authored numerous books and scholarly articles

Hall’s psychology was centered in development across the lifespan including:

– Childhood

– Adolescence

– Senescence.

Senescence.

examines how the mind, behavior, and emotional well-being change across the later stages of life

What did Halls advocated about?

Halls advocated a biological approach to psychology.

• He argued for a wide range of approaches to the study of childhood.

Hall’s Child Study Movement 1883 - 1917

The contents of children’s minds on entering school 1883; based on Boston school

children’s

• Vague goals

• Multiple sources of data – 200 questionnaires

• Data analytic capacity essentially did not exist; calculated simple percentages

Hall and Recapitulation theory n humanity’s behavior

Recapitulation theory – male adolescent behavior recapitulates uncivilized

humanity’s behavior – aggressive, uncontrolled

“semi-criminal behavior is normal”

Calkins (1863-1930)

completed the requirements of the doctoral program at Harvard

Calkins defined psychology as the science of the conscious self. Her emphasis on the self continued the tradition of personalism

Calkins developed the paired-associate method to study memory.

– She conducted one of the first formal studies of dreaming.

– 14th president of APA

calkins and the self

Calkins saw The self as multi-faceted: unchanging, changing, unique, social

Titchener

British, PhD from Wundt, hired to teach at Cornell in 1892

• Structuralist, rigid introspection

• APA wasn’t scientific enough, so he founded another group, Society of Experimental

Psychology

Cattell (1860 – 1944)

Son of a Presbyterian minister

• Initially did graduate work with Wundt, Lotze, then Hall at Hopkins, PhD under Wundt 1886

Influenced by Galton (1888), conducted research on mental processes, such as

sensory acuity and reaction time, or “anthropometric” testing

Cattell had all incoming Columbia students tested, beginning in 1894

Established a tradition that lasted into the 1970s

• Accumulated 10 years’ worth of data

Pearson

1896 Pearson published regression formulas and proofs in PTRSL, crediting the formulas to earlier mathematician (who did not prove the best fit)