Lecture 10 - James, Hall, Calkins, and Thorndike

What did the 1900s mark for psychology?

new century = new developments continued in Europe

psychology was becoming a worldwide activity with labs in US, Russia, Canada

• Didn’t just boost geographical diversity but the kinds of things psychologists were doing

How did WWI influence the development of psychology?

first mechanized war

e.g. Thomas Edison worked on anti-submarine and other research in Florida, he foresaw the impact of technology "Science is going to make war a terrible thing…"

Due to the large spread of the war and technology, required much more logistics, personnel management/placement

• Good to have people that were mechanically inclined and could test brightness/aptitudes

• Psychologists drafted into the war effort

What caused the North American expansion of psychology?

psychology mainly a European story until late 1800s

Wundt attracted a lot of foreign students looking for hands on training and some went to NA after

• Titchner, Witmer, Hall went to US

Side: Psychology in Canada in 1900s

mid-late 1800s, psychology taught in various academic departments in Canada

Baldwin studied with Wundt and later set up first lab at UofT

Tait studied at Harvard with Munsterberg (who had studied with Wundt) and set up first psychology lab at McGill in 1922

When and who founded the first and second psychology lab in North America?

at Harvard by William James in 1875

second by G. Stanley Hall in `883 at John Hopkins

Who was William James? What textbook did he write?

1842-1910

first psych lab in America

wrote The Principles of Psychology

His work stressed the usefulness of psychological ideas, consistent with a philosophical view he called pragmatism

He was attracted to the idea of psychology and wanted to put everything together

He had some interest in psychic phenomena and spiritual values

What idea did James doubt in previous psychology research and why?

he was ambivalent about the strong mechanistic emphasis in psych

he had a panic attack and didn’t see how European psychology could explain this

stayed in psychology but adapted his approach/NA psychology

What was James’ approach to psychology?

in terms of mechanistic aspect, James developed a Kantian solution

• useful to not take it personally

• believed in free will and religion

orientation more theoretical

set the stage for clinical psychology

Blended old ideas, new physiology, and intuition to set the stage/predict later developments (a lot of them spot on)

How did James describe a habit? Who’s idea does it sound like?

it wasn't just behaviour but he emphasizes it must be encoded on a neurological level: "down among his nerve-cells and fibres the molecules are counting it, registering and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes"

• Sound a lot like Hebb’s later cell assembly theory

What did James believe about consciousness? Who does it sound like?

stream of consciousness

somewhat Leibnizian

• trend away from viewing the mind as typically rational and in control

What is the James-Lange theory about emotion?

"you don’t run from a bear because you are afraid, you run and then realize that you are scared"

“We suffer a great loss, weep, and feel sorry”

• There was some event that caused the initial running

• Emotion in terms of your conscious awareness of it

Who was G. Stanley Hall?

1844-1924

studied with James

first to earn PhD in psychology in NA

worked with Wundt and returned to NA

founded American Psychological Association in 1892

leader in child study and developmental psychology/genetic psychology

established the American Journal of Psychology in 1887

What was developmental psychology and what did Hall believe in?

genetic psychology - nod to Darwin

recapitulation (“ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny)

• idea that stages of each person’s intellectual, emotional, and psychological development pass through the same stages as our pre-human ancestors

What did Hall say about the adolescent period?

previously children/teenagers were simply seen as mini adults

adolescence - a time of Sturm and Drang (storm and stress)

What was the Child Study Movement that Hall contributed too?

focus on improving eduction with less discipline and more flexibility

What were early findings about fear and children? What did this lead to?

finding that many young people reported fears of things (e.g. snakes or things that were unlikely to experience in their daily lives)

Hall concluded that there is a quality of some fears that has ancient origin

• this directly influenced learning theories of Thorndike

What was the conference where Freud was first introduced to NA?

the Famous Clark Conference

Who was Edward Thorndike? What kind of studies did he do?

1874-1949

comparative psychologist

studied with James

studies of trial and error learning

• formulation of law of effect

What were Thorndike’s chicken learning studies?

• It worked out not just practically but theoretically

• Showed that some animals might exhibit some ability to reason

• Before people believed animals showed memory for sure but difficult to show reason and the ability to profit from learning

  • even if just initially trial-and-error learning, the fact that even chickens can do it very challenging

What was the basis of Thorndike’s law of effect studies?

When certain stimulus-response sequences are followed by pleasure -> tend to be stamped in

When responses are followed by annoyance or pain -> tend to be weakened or stamped out

How did Thorndike's research on learning and education evolve?

He shifted from animal learning to human learning with Woodworth, tested transfer of training (which was unsuccessful), and later focused on intelligence testing

Who was Lightner Witmer? What term did he coin?

not as famous but:

another American who trained with Wundt

more practically oriented than the others and established first psychological clinic in 1896

established the Psychological Clinic journal

coined term clinical psychology in 1907

• blended practice and research