History and Systems in Psychology - Chapter 8 - Applied Psychology: The Legacy of Functionalism

I. The Growth of Psychology in the United States

A. Wundt's impact

1. American psychology guided by Darwin and Galton
2. Wundt's American students did not replicate his psychology
3. Wundt's and Titchener's systems without practical applications
4. American pragmatism concomitant with rise of functionalism

B. Journal articles in 1900:

1. 25% applied
2. 3% involved introspection

C. Laboratories

1. 1880: none
2. 1900: 42

D. Dominance in numbers

1. 1903: more PhDs in psychology than in any science other than chemistry, zoology, and physics
2. 1913: United States had more of the world's leading psychologists than any other country

E. Publication language

1. 1910: 50% written in German, 30% in English 2. 1933: 52% written in English, 14% in German

F. Popularity

1. 1904 World's Fair: speakers included Titchener, Morgan, Janet, Hall, Watson

II. Economic Influences on Applied Psychology

A. 1900: three times as many PhDs as laboratories

1. applied work necessary for an income
2. applied work necessary to supplement academic salary for subsistence

B. Pressure to prove psychology's value

1. to administrators and legislators for funding
2. to the public

C. Opportunity

1. dramatic increase in public school enrollments
2. education became big business

III. Granville Stanley Hall (1844-1924)

A. Hall's career

1 .first American doctorate in psychology
2. second American student in first year of first psychology laboratory
3. began first psychology laboratory in the United States
4. began first American journal of psychology
5. first president of Clark and APA
6. one of the first applied psychologists

B. Hall's life

1 .enthusiasm for philosophy and evolutionary theory
2. University of Bonn: philosophy and theology
3. University of Berlin: physiology and physics
4. 1872-1874: taught at Antioch College (Ohio)
5. 1874: read Wundt's Physiological Psychology
6. became a tutor at Harvard, began individual program of study, did research at the medical school; PhD in 1878
7. University of Berlin: study of physiology
8. University of Leipzig: was Wundt's student, knew Fechner, did physiological research
9. United States: lectures on application of psychology to education
10. 1884: professor at Johns Hopkins University

a. first American psychology laboratory (1883)
b. taught Dewey and Cattell

11. 1887: founded American Journal of psychology

a. an arena for theoretical and experimental ideas
b. provided cohesion for American psychology

12. 1888: first president of Clark University

a. preferred to develop a graduate institution
b. receptive to women and minority students at graduate level and to Jewish faculty

c. Francis Cecil Sumner - first African American to earn a Ph.D. in psychology (Clark University in1920, became chair of the psychology department at Howard University in 1928

13. founded journal Pedagogical Seminary (now Journal of genetic Psychology) and Journal of applied Psychology
14. instrumental in founding of APA
15. founded Clark School of Religious Psychology and the Journal of religious Psychology
16. 1917 book: Jesus, the Christ, in the Light of psychology
17. early interest in psychoanalysis: 1909 lectures by Freud and Jung at Clark

C. Evolution as framework for human development

1 . growth of mind: a series of evolutionary stages2. contributed more to educational psychology than to experimental
3. a genetic psychologist: study of childhood the core of his psychology
4. extensive use of questionnaires
5. child study movement

a. established import of empirical study of the child
b. established concept of psychological development

6. 1904: Adolescence

a. his most influential work
b. recapitulation theory of psychological development

7. 1922: Senescence (first large survey of psychology of elderly)

D. Comment

IV. James McKeen Cattell (1860-1944)

A. Functionalist aspect
B. Cattell's life

1. graduate work: Gottingen, then Leipzig with Wundt
2. 1882: fellowship at Johns Hopkins

a. major interest: philosophy
b. interest in psychology due to experiments with drugs
c. took Hall's lab course
d. began reaction-time research

3. 1883: return to Leipzig

a. lab assistant to Wundt
b. PhD in 1886

4. taught in United States, then at Cambridge: met Galton
5. one of first in United States to stress quantification, ranking, ratings

a. developed ranking method
b. first psychologist to teach statistical analysis of experimental results
c. encouraged the use of large groups of subjects

6. interested in Galton's eugenics
7. 1888: professor of psychology at University of Pennsylvania
8. 1891: professor of psychology and chair at Columbia
9. 1894: began Psychological Review and acquired Science
10. other journals and periodicals
11. at Columbia

a. more PhDs in psychology than anywhere else in United States
b. emphasized independent research by graduate students
c. urged increased faculty governance: AAUP

12. 1917: dismissed on grounds of disloyalty to United States
13. 1921: organized Psychological Corporation

C. Mental testing

1 .1890: coined term mental tests
2. to be a science, psychology requires a foundation of experimentation and measurement
3. his intelligence tests: elementary sensorimotor measurements
4. 1901: concluded such tests not valid predictors of intelligence

D. Comment

1. strongest impact: as organizer, executive, administrator, and link to scientific community
2. contributed through his students
3. reinforced functionalism

V. The Psychological Testing Movement

A. Alfred Binet (1857-1911)

1. self-taught psychologist
2. first true psychological test of mental ability
3. provided effective measure of cognitive abilities
4. initiated modem intelligence testing
5. cognitive functions reflect intelligence, sensorirnotor responses do not
6. Binet and Simon test

a. 30 problems
b. ascending difficulty
c. foci: judgment, comprehension, reasoning

7. mental age concept
8. shift to United States for test development

a. Henry Goddard
b. Lewis Terman
c. Stern: IQ concept

B. The impact of World War I

1. army

a. group test easy to administer and efficient
b. literate and illiterate recruits
c. Yerkes group: Army Alpha and Army Beta
d. psychology's stature enhanced

2. group test development

a. Woodworth: Personal Data Sheet

3. Edison's phony test

C. Metaphors from medicine and engineering

1. purpose: psychology is a "science"
2. medicine: "patients ... .. tests," training"3. engineering: education "factories"

D. Racial issues

1 .1912: Goddard at Ellis Island

a. northern Europeans and non-Jews "normal"
b. legislation to prohibit "inferior" racial and ethnic groups

2. 1921: mental age of World War I draftees was 13
3. Horace Mann Bond: racial differences in IQ due to environment
4. 1994: The Bell Curve (Herrnstein and Murray)

E. Contributions of Women to the Testing Movement

1. Florence L. Goodenough

- Ph.D. from Stanford in 1924

- developed "Draw-A-Person Test" - (Goodenough-Harris Drawing Test)

2. Maude A. Merril James

- helped Terman revise the Stanford-Binet in 1937

- Terman-Miller test

3. Thelma Gwinn Thurstone

- Ph.D. University of Chicago in 1927

- helped to develop the primary mental abilities test batery

- professor of education at UNC-CH

- director of the Psychometric Laboratory at UNC-CH

4. Psyche Cattell

- Ed.D. from Harvard in 1927

- developed the Cattell Infant Intelligence Scale

- test used with infants as young as three months

5. Anne Anastasi

- Ph.D. from Columbia in 1930

- THE authority on psychological testing

- president of the APA in 1971

VI. Lightner Witmer (I 867-1956)

A. Career

1. 1896: first psychology clinic
2. began "clinical psychology"

a. assessed and treated learning and behavior problems
b. today is "school psychology"

3. first college course on clinical psychology
4. functionalist: helped people solve problems

B. Witmer's life

1. experimental psychology with Cattell
2. PhD with Wundt
3. also studied with Kulpe; classmate of Titchener
4. criticized Wundt's methods
5. 1892-1896: University of Pennsylvania

a. experimental research on individual differences and pain
b. goal: application of psychology to abnormal behavior
c. demand for educational psychology courses

6. 1896: "Practical Work in Psychology"
7. 1907: founded Psychological Clinic

C. Psychology clinics

1. no precedent for diagnosis and treatment methods
2. team approach
3. recognition of import of environmental factors
4. early childhood enrichment
5. direct intervention deemed appropriate

D. Comment

1. special education
2. vocational guidance

VII. The Clinical Psychology Movement

A. Stimuli

1. 1908: A Mind That Found Itself (Beers))
2. 1909: Psychotherapy (Munsterberg)
3. 1909: first child guidance clinic (Healey)

a. early intervention
b. team approach

4. S. Freud's work: psychological therapies

B. Burgeoning

1. 1940

a. clinical a small part of psychology
b. few treatment facilities for adults
c. clinical psychologists

1) no specialized education programs
2) few jobs for clinicians

2. Horace Mann Bond: racial differences in IQ due to environment
3. 1994: The Bell Curve (Herrnstein and Murray)

VIII. Walter Dill Scott (1869-1955)

A. Career

1. first to apply psychology to advertising, personnel selection, management
2. first "professor of applied psychology"
3. founded first psychological consulting company
4. first psychologist to receive army Distinguished Service Medal

B. Scott's life

1 . trained to be missionary to China
2. 1898: began study with Wundt at 'Leipzig
3. 1900: Northwestern University
4. 1902: asked to apply psychology to advertising
5. 1903: The Theory and Practice of advertising
6. personnel selection and management
7. 1919: The Scott Company: personnel selection and worker efficiency

C. Advertising

1. consumers: not rational, easily influenced
2. focused on emotion and sympathy
3. law of suggestibility

D. Personnel selection

1. rating scales and group tests of successful employees
2. group tests of intelligence and other abilities

a. how people used their intelligence, not their base levels of intelligence

E. Comment: pure versus applied issues

IX. The Industrial/Organizational Psychology Movement

A. The impact of the world wars

1. during the wars: testing, screening, classifying recruits
2. after the wars: need for industrial psychologists

a. subspecialty: human engineering

B. The Hawthorne studies and organizational factors

1. 1920s: selection and placement of job applicants
2. social/psychological conditions of the workplace
3. influences on employee motivation, productivity, satisfaction
4. development of organizational psychology

C. Lillian Moore Gilbreth: first 1/0 PhD: Brown University, 1915
D. 1/0 psychology: highest rate of increase in women PhDs

X. Hugo Munsterberg (1863-1916)

A. Munsterberg's life

1. intended to study medicine
2. a course with Wundt: revealed opportunities not available in medicine
3. 1885: PhD with Wundt
4. 1887: MD at Heidelberg
5. published on psychophysics

a. criticism by Wundt: excluded the feeling states

6. 1892: director of psychology laboratory at Harvard
7. 1902: American Traits (well received by American public)
8. began study of normal problems psychologists might solve
9. against women's education, careers, teachers, jury members

B. Forensic psychology

1 . magazine articles

a. crime prevention
b. use of hypnosis to question suspects
c. use of mental tests to detect guilt
d. lack of trustworthiness of eyewitness testimony

2. 1908: On the Witness Stand

a. false confessions
b. power of suggestion in witness interrogation
c. use of physiological measures with suspects

C. Clinical psychology

1. 1909: Psychotherapy

a. therapist centered
b. mental illness: behavioral maladjustment
c. no subconscious

2. methods

a. force disturbing ideas out of awareness
b. suppress undesirable behaviors
c. forget the emotional difficulty

3. problems addressed4. briefly used hypnosis

D. Industrial psychology

1. 1909: "Psychology and the Market"
2. 1913: Psychology and Industrial Efficiency

E. Comment: psychology must be functional and useful

XI. Applied Psychology in the United States

A. Between world wars

1. applied psychology respected
2. sufficient jobs and funding in academia
3. 1920s: public enthusiasm for psychology
4. The Depression years: attacked for failure to cure

B. World War II

1. different set of problems
2. psychology in Germany revived

C. By 1990s: shift from experimental to applied psychology

XII. Comment

A. Precursors

1. Darwin
2. Galton
3. American pragmatism
4. shift in academic research from content to function
5. contextual factors

B. Reinforced by behaviorism