week 5 (2/27) post and reflection

Here is a link for information about Morton Prince. He was listed on the syllabus but was not mentioned at all in the readings, so I thought we could all know a little more about him, particularly that he established the psychological clinic at Harvard in 1927, placing him firmly within applied psychology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morton_Prince

I would like to reflect on the videos that Bill had us watch and how they connect to our readings this week. In the readings, applied psychology was discussed in the context of trying to benefit humanity, through the opening of psychological clinics, vocational guidance, and engineering, and in the context of selling a "product" to the public, a way for applied psychology to establish itself, but which led to less altruistic activities such as the psychology of advertising and business. In the readings, applied psychology was talked about in glowing terms of how it could others and created new professions. Indeed, this is how I conceptualize applied psychology, taking knowledge gained from research and using it towards the public good. However, the videos that Bill assigned made me think twice about this rosy picture. What was originally conceived with the best of intentions has been utilized with harmful consequences.

The first video discussed the ethics of medicating children. No doubt the professionals, psychiatrists and teachers, involved want only to help the kids. However, this can be taken too far. I agree with Sam and Emily that in principle, medicating kids is alright since it does seem to be of huge benefit for some. However, I think a line has been crossed when teachers pressure parents into medicating their children to the point that teachers wanted to medicate a three year-old. It seemed ridiculous to me when a teacher describes a the three year-old that she suspected of having ADHD as being "immature". He's only three! How "mature" can you expect him to be? I believe that there is over-diagnosis of ADHD because what is in reality normal of slightly above normal energy and inattentiveness of children is construed as a mental dysfunction. I believe that we should medicate children who truly need and would benefit from it. But when children don't conform to ideal classroom behavior and aren't the "perfect" pupil, this is not cause for medication.

The second video was about the use of psychological principles for advertising. Use of psychology in advertising in the early 20th century seemed to be for the cause of making applied psychology more widely useful, garnering more support for the discipline, and disseminating psychological ideas and making them important to the wider public. This seems innocent enough, but the psychology of advertising has turned into a money-hungry business that exploits our natural tendencies to make us the perfect consumers. Although this may be more a criticism of our culture, while it seems natural to use psychology in advertising, it should be discarded when it ceases to be in our best interests as persons and is used only to line the pockets of corporate giants and to dishonestly sway our opinions about political candidates.

Week 6: Reflection and Link

After our discussion of different applied psychologies on Tuesday of this week, I've decided to post on the topic of sport psychology. This is arguably one of the lesser known branches, and definitely a rapidly-growing one. Sport psychology focuses on the relationship between psychological factors and one's performance in sports. Those who specialize in this area must know a great deal about kinesiology in addition to the typical techniques of visualization, awareness, goal setting and control.

Some say that the first sport psychology lab in the US was opened in 1920 by a man in Germany (shocking). Over time, the focus of sport psychology seems to have shifted from attitudes to more research-based exploration of performance, including stress management and the effects of exercise. The acknowledgement that physical activity and healthy mental adjustments are correlated signifies an important moment in the history of this discipline.

One interesting fact I learned in my reading about sport psychology is the prevalence of 'criticism' in the field. Criticism is defined as an aspect of motivational theory that is necessary to improve performance. Based on delivery, criticism may drastically enhance or reduce performance. The best type of criticism is constructive, delivered through the sandwich method: First offer a compliment, then direct criticism and feedback, then finish with a compliment.

Check out the North American Society of Sport Psychology and Physical Activity here: http://www.naspspa.org/

Also, here's the website of a (psychotherapist turned) sport psychologist. Bizarre. http://www.stayinthezone.com/?gclid=CPikjMDC_ZgCFSQMDQod5AwqnA

Link for ADHD assessment

This is a link from NASP (National Association of School Psychologists). It gives a brief run-down of all the steps a school psychologist must take in order to assess a student for ADHD and how they can benefit from different education acts. It's nice and concise. Enjoy!

http://www.nasponline.org/resources/factsheets/add_fs.aspx

Reflection on ADHD meds

After watching the video that Bill posted from pbs.org about ADHD in children and reading Sam's take on the situation, I thought I should add a bit more. Treating and diagnosing ADHD is so much more complicated than we can imagine. There are parents out there that want to have to kids diagnosed so they can "benefit" from the accommodations they now can receive under the IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) like the video informs us. I think this is awful and ludicrous, but there are true cases of ADHD and many children that can benefit from the use of drugs like Adderall.

One case that I witnessed last semester while doing fieldwork with a school psychologist was that of a fifth-grade boy. The boy came into the principal's office with another student to invite him to their class's Thanksgiving supper. The boy was thoughtful, well-spoken and cheerful. After the student left, I was informed that just a month ago this student was down in the office every day for behavioral problems in the classroom. He didn't do any work and was constantly frustrated and in foul moods. It's not to say that medication is a cure-all, end-all for every student, but if medication not only helped this student perform, but also improved his moods and began to enjoy school--it makes me question my strong stance against medicating children.

Applied Psychology - link & response for this week

Searching on the web for applied psychology brings up a lot of hits about graduate programs in the field, but the most interesting website I found was from West Chester University regarding careers in 10 different subsets of applied psychology. There is a TON of information and for those of us (According to the informal poll in class, it is most of us!) who would like to go into some sort of applied psychology, it's actually pretty useful!

This got me thinking about the purpose of psychology. Wundt (the father?) defined the goal of the field as discovering "the facts of consciousness, its combinations and relations, so that" ultimately, we could "discover the laws which govern these relations and combinations." (Benjamin, 39). There is no mention about any practical purpose of psychology. Psychology arose partly from the field of philosophy, which is more a field that is used solely for the purpose of studying. Wundt's background in philosophy made him more interested in studying the question of "why?" rather than "what for?" which is the aim of applied psychology. Wundt's interest and expertise in physiology is also under question...what is the point of studying physiology (or psychology) if you can't apply it to life?

When applied psychology started becoming more popular (with the Child Study Movement at first, followed by many other subsets - business psych, legal psych, and the ever popular clinical psych), the purpose of psychology shifted from studying for the sake of studying - as with philosophy - to studying for the purpose of solving real life problems. Even its short life span of just over 100 years, I don't think any of us can really comprehend a field of psychology without the applied aspect. I would imagine that many of us would consider psychology an applied field in and of itself. Even those research psychologists are studying aspects of psychology and looking to apply them to real life. It's a simple path for our minds to take - why study something if the findings can't be put to good use?

Medicating Children

http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec01/medicating.html

This article on the APA website discussed the medicating of school children with ADHD and other options besides medication.

Last year I did a presentation on ADD/ADHD and one thing that I found very interesting was that more and more kids are becoming diagnosed with ADHD, kids as young as 4, sometimes even 2 years of age. In my personal experience, I have yet to encounter a toddler or preschool-aged child who was not running around with excess energy. It suprises me that parents are assuming the worst about their children instead of dealing with the childrens excess energy and the process of growing up naturally. A 6 year old can't seem to focus in kindergarten so we immediately assume the child has ADD, or maybe it's that young children often have a hard time focusing on one thing for a long period of time (Sesame Street Syndrome).

I have seen first hand what unmedicated ADHD in children can be like and although it may seem unbearable at times to deal with, at some point a parent can only do so much. So yes, I support the medicating of children with ADD/ADHD, however I think the guidelines for diagnosis need to be stricter and more clear-cut, because I am positive that many of the children who are being diagnosed aren't ADHD, but simply regular kids with pent up energy or other things on their mind.

2/17, 2/19 post and reflection

Here is a website about Darwin's perception of women. There is an interesting section on skull measurements, and a slew of quotes including our discussion of women's friendship being better than dogs’. I couldn't find anything worth posting about the sexist beliefs of Hall and Galton, so I decided to look at it from Darwin's perspective.

Why, you ask?

Well that brings me to the week in review. This week we talked about Structuralism and Functionalism: their makers, beliefs, uses, and practicality. Structuralism was practiced primarily by Titchner and emphasized discovering the structures of consciousness. Functionalism was practiced by Dewey, Angell, Hall, James, and Cattell. With respect to consciousness, functionalism sought to understand what id did, how it came to be, and what it was for.

I think functionalism is influenced by Darwin's theory of evolution, especially natural selection. The idea that we are in constant competition for resources and survival has led us to question how we came to be, why we think the way we do, and what it is for. Sexism arises with the idea that women were less variable than men, and generally less competent than men. It is interesting to see how psychologists have shaped their studies and biases around belittling women, and even more interesting how scientific perceptions can be a social weapon.

I enjoyed the discussion we had about publication censoring, whether it can be good in some cases or if knowledge is knowledge, no matter what it implies. I invite you to reply with any new thoughts on what would, or would not, be okay to publish for the sake of social norming.

Another thought: do you think there is any popular opinion today that we will look back on and think "My god, I can't believe we ever thought that and allowed such things to be studied!"

Shows to watch

Please watch the Frontline shows about medicating kids for ADHD (there is also a newer one on medicating kids for bipolar disorder) and the show about advertising (the Persuaders) at:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/medicating/watch/

and

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/

especially watch the chapter in each concerning the "science" (in the medication video the chapter might be labeled "promoting" ADHD or something like that)

Are these "applied" activities really for the greater good?

What the mid-term exam will consist of?

The mid-term exam will be an essay test that will ask you to write about the ideas we have covered so far in this course. Questions might be something like "How did the ideas of late 19th century psychology support or refute the eugenics movement?" You will be expected to use all of of the material of the course to answer these questions. The relavent material includes the readings, the class discussions, and the material provided by you and your fellow students in this blog. You will be allowed to bring to class any hand-written notes that you want but you will not be allowed to consult the texts or use a computer in composing your answers.

Science as Art - link & response for last week

From last week's readings on the development of psychology in America (with a focus on functionalism v. structuralism)...

I found Titchener's "periodic table" of the sensational elements of psychology fascinating. I wonder what the over 44,000 distinct sensations could be. I searched far and wide (well, Google searched) for a list of the "periodic table" of the sensations, but I couldn't find it. Has anyone else been successful?

Anyway, I found this article instead. It really got me wondering about the type of thinking involved with inventive psychology. During the late 1800's, when psychology was just a baby, it took a lot of creative thinking to come up with some of these schools of thought. A couple weeks ago in class we had a discussion about James and his artistic background. The article I pulled up on Titchener made me believe that he, too, had an artistic mind. The language he uses is very visual, descriptive, and I think he's done his best in trying to impress specific sensations upon the reader. The imagination abilities involved with making great strides in science are great; it takes more than just a knowledge of the basic theories of science, it takes creativity.

However, the way Titchener has written this piece makes me want to find his list of sensations even more!!

Link for Week of 2/17 - 2/19

Here is a link for the Psychology of Women Quarterly which is published by Division 35 of the APA, which Sam mentions in her post below. I thought it was important to put some positive information out there about where women are today in the field of Psychology.

http://www.wiley.com/bw/journal.asp?ref=0361-6843

Introspection by analogy

This is a link to a biography of George John Romanes, the developer of the method known as "introspection by analogy." We learned about this method during our text's mention of Margaret Floy Washburn and, unfortunately, the link only elaborates a bit more on that particular method. It does, however, describe Romanes's work and the fact that he believed animal intelligence to be equal to that of humans. I find this idea, along with the concept of introspection by analogy, to be interesting, but I don't quite know what to make of it.
I certainly believe that animals are intelligent (although I am perhaps not as fond of inscent intelligence as Romanes was), but I don't know if analogizing human intelligence to animal intelligence really works. Based on principles of evolution, it seems that at least some of the mental processes would have to operate in the same way. But I tend to believe that there is something unique about human intelligence, or at least primate intelligence. I am not particularly swayed by Romanes's assertion that Jellyfish consciousness is the same as human consciousness. What do you think?

Reflection and link for 2/19

http://www.apa.org/divisions/div35/

This link is for the Society for the Psychology of Women. The society gives out many grants and awards and is working towards building bridges between the research and application in every day life. They promote independence and equality.

I would like to comment on the reading about the Psychology of Women. This was brought up in class in terms of the quiz and I got really confused even looking at my notes of the reading. What exactly is the variability hypothesis and what controls variability. The reading contained so many different explanations as to why males were more variable and then contradictory explanations as to why females should be more variable. What really suprised me was that early on many psychologists believed that women should be educated, because to not educate them denies them the chance to make contributions to society. Although this may be slightly sexist of me I found the concept of men and women being similar to yin and yang kind of endearing. The concept of women complimenting men and vice versa is nice, however when it comes to intelligence and emotions I think that they got it wrong. In my opinion, there may be many areas where a man is smarter then a woman in some areas and vice versa, but to say that men are intelligent and women are emotional is ridiculous and sexist.

Reflection for Week 2/17 & 2/19

The more discussions we have in the class the more internal conflicts I have about the way I form my opinions about psychologists of the past. I know that today I have certain beliefs about what is right and wrong and what is true or false; i.e. women are not inferior to men and men having sexual relations with boys is wrong. The issue of "presentism" seems to keep appearing before me and I have trouble judging whether research of the past is good or bad. Were the agendas of some psychologists racist or sexist...or was it just all they knew?

I am assuming that we can't judge these researchers too harshly because although we know more now, we also have so many more questions to ask then they did.

I definitely agree with our discussion about Gould and how he said "we just make things up to tell ourselves a story about evolution." Humans are natural story tellers and truth seekers. It is innately in ourselves to "problem solve" and share with one another.

P.S. Of course NAMBLA is trying to produce research that supports their mission, isn't every organization? I hope we can discuss the topic again about what studies should be published and which should be withheld.

reflection and post for 2/19

Here's a pretty good site that gives a basic breakdown of structuralism and functionalism.

http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/structuralism.htm

As we were discussing the differences between functionalism and structuralism I wondered why all the psychologists of the time were taking such firm positions one way or another. It seems to me that both schools of thought make sense and could each provide a lot of benefits to the overall study of psychology. I found it a little funny that people would get defensive about their position and spent so much time trying to show why their school of thought was better than the other. In a lot of my classes whenever we have learned about conflicting views the class generally comes to the conclusion that you can take a little from each view and create a hybrid version that can benefit all of us. The more I read about these two schools of thought the more I realized that each has a lot to offer and it is great that these great minds of psychology helped further both views while psychology was so new as a science. I really felt like their had to be someone who decided to try and combine both views but our books did not mention it, hopefully this will come up in further readings because I would be very interested to see how successful they were and the response they got from their peers.

NAMBLA discussion

Sorry, I couldn't resist this topic of conversation that we had today regarding NAMBLA and Rind.

So...They have an actual site.... www.nambla.org

It was formed in 1978. Membership is open to everyone sympathetic to man/boy love and personal freedom. (Now, I'm all about personal freedom.... but still....)

Here's a sampling of a question asked on their FAQS page:

Q: Ok, but if a boy does come on to you, wouldn’t it be better simply to refuse the advance?

A: If your concern is for the safety of the man (any man), in today’s climate, then the answer is probably, yes -- walk away, and stay away, and just don’t have anything to do with kids in general. But boys take rejection very hard, and they take isolation even harder. It has a deeply negative effect on their outlook, which can have lifelong implications -- and broad implications for society. Unfortunately, this kind of self-segregation of men from boys has become a major social problem in its own right -- a problem which will never be solved while man/boy love is stigmatized as harshly as it is now.

And to add some of Rind's research in there...

Q: But isn’t the harmfulness of sex supported by scientific research?

A: Actually, no it isn’t. Peer-reviewed studies have shown clearly that there is nothing intrinsically harmful about sexual experiences between boys and men. For a full explanation, see: Outcomes: Can Science Shed Some Light?

The available research supports the following conclusions:

1. Most sexual contacts between boys and older partners are consensual -- in academic terms, they are not forced or coerced.

Baurmann, M. C. (1983). Sexualitat, gewalt und psychische folgen. Wiesbaden: Bundeskriminalamt.
Sponsored by the German Ministry of Justice, this is probably the largest study of sexual violence against minors ever conducted. The researchers reviewed every reported case of rape against a person under 21 and every reported case of illegal sexual contacts with a person under 14. The sample included approx. 8,000 girls and approx. 800 boys. A subset of the cases, including 114 boys, were closely examined using two objective psychological tests and two different methods of subjective evaluation in each case. While half of the girls had reported being coerced or forced (this group was primarily teenaged girls raped by males in their twenties), none of the boys in the sample reported coercion in their experience.
Rind, B., Tromovitch, P., & Bauserman, R. (1998). A meta-analytic examination of assumed properties of child sexual abuse using college samples. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 22-53.
A “meta-analysis” is a study of multiple studies, in which samples are statistically combined to achieve a more statistically powerful result. The method has been used in many fields of study and is highly regarded among researchers. This meta-analysis included 59 different studies of “child sexual abuse.”
Finkelhor, D. (1979). Sexually victimized children. New York: Free Press.
Finkelhor is a masterful spin-doctor, but in this book he makes two mistakes: It seems evident here that his career is based on a desire to discredit the social movements of the 1960s, but more importantly, the text tells several bald-faced lies about the data he collected. He reports that among his non-clinical sample of 84 boys who had sexual contacts with older partners, 33%

2. Boys who have sexual contacts with older partners usually feel the experience was harmless or beneficial.

Baker, A. W. & Duncan, S. P. (1985). Child sexual abuse: A study of prevalence in Great Britain. Child Abuse & Neglect, 9, 457-467.
This study of a nationally representative population sample, is among the largest and best-sampled studies ever conducted on sexual experiences of the general population. The actual findings of this study are extremely eye-opening, despite the authors' apparently strong sex-negative bias.
Li, C. K., West, D. J., and Woodhouse, T. P. (1993). Children’s sexual encounters with adults. Buffalo: Prometheus.
West was the Director of the Institute of Criminology, and Professor of Clinical Criminology at the University of Cambridge, where he was a Fellow of Darwin College.


3. Boys who have sexual contacts with older partners usually do not feel negatively about the experience.

Finkelhor, D. (1979). Sexually victimized children. New York: Free Press.Fromuth, M. E., & Burkhart, B. R. (1987). Sexual victimization among college men: Definitional and methodological issues. Violence Victims, 2, 241-253.Goldman, R. J., & Goldman, J. D. G., (1988). The prevalence and nature of child sexual abuse in Australia. Australian Journal of Sex, Marriage, and Family, 9, 94-106.Li, C. K., West, D. J., and Woodhouse, T. P. (1993). Children’s sexual encounters with adults. Buffalo: Prometheus.Rind, B., Tromovitch, P., & Bauserman, R. (1998). A meta-analytic examination of assumed properties of child sexual abuse using college samples. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 22-53.Schultz, L., & Jones, P. (1983). Sexual abuse of children: Issues for social service and health professionals. Child Welfare, 62, 99-108.

4. Many boys who have sexual contacts with older partners report strongly positive feelings about the experience.

Okami, P. (1991). Self-reports of “positive” childhood and adolescent sexual contacts with older persons: An exploratory study. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 20, 437-457.Sandfort, T. G. M. (1982). The sexual aspect of paedophile relations. Amsterdam: Pan/Spartacus.Sandfort, T. G. M. (1984). Sex in pedophiliac relationships: An empirical investigation among a non-representative group of boys. The Journal of Sex Research, 20, 123-142.Sandfort, T. G. M. (1987). Boys on their contacts with men. Elmhurst, New York: Global Academic Publishers.Tindall, R. H. (1978). The male adolescent involved with a pederast becomes an adult. Journal of Homosexuality, 3, 373-382.

5. Boys who have non-coerced sexual contacts with older partners are not psychologically less adjusted than other males.

Bauserman, R., & Rind, B. (1997). Psychological correlates of male child and adolescent sexual experience with adults: A review of the nonclinical literature. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 26, 105-141.Coxell, A., King, M., Mezey, G., & Gordon, D. (1999). Lifetime prevalence, characteristics, and associated problems of non-consensual sex in men: Cross sectional survey. British Medical Journal, 318, pp. 846-850.Rind, B., Tromovitch, P., & Bauserman, R. (1998). A meta-analytic examination of assumed properties of child sexual abuse using college samples. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 22-53.6. The degree to which a boy feels free to guide or to end the contacts, i.e. the degree of consent, is the single largest determining factor in whether he will feel negatively about the experience and whether it will affect his psychological adjustment.Bauserman, R., & Rind, B. (1997). Psychological correlates of male child and adolescent sexual experience with adults: A review of the nonclinical literature. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 26, 105-141.Constantine, L. L. (1981). The effects of early sexual experience: A review and synthesis of research. In L. L. Constantine & F.M. Martinson (Eds.), Children and sex (pp. 217-244). Boston: Little, Brown and Company.Constantine, L. L. (1983). Child sexuality: Recent developments and implications for treatment, prevention, and social policy. International Journal of Medicine and Law, 1983, #2, 55-67.Coxell, A., King, M., Mezey, G., & Gordon, D. (1999). Lifetime prevalence, characteristics, and associated problems of non-consensual sex in men: Cross sectional survey. British Medical Journal, 318, pp. 846-850.Finkelhor, D. (1979). Sexually victimized children. New York: Free Press.7. The age at which someone has a sexual experience is not a useful predictor of their later psychological adjustment.Rind, B., Tromovitch, P., & Bauserman, R. (1998). A meta-analytic examination of assumed properties of child sexual abuse using college samples. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 22-53.8. The particular physical act that occurs during consensual sexual contacts between a boy and an older partner is not a useful predictor of his later psychological adjustment.Bauserman, R., & Rind, B. (1997). Psychological correlates of male child and adolescent sexual experience with adults: A review of the nonclinical literature. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 26, 105-141.Rind, B., Tromovitch, P., & Bauserman, R. (1998). A meta-analytic examination of assumed properties of child sexual abuse using college samples. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 22-53.9. Men who love boys cannot be distinguished from other men on standard personality inventories and other psychological tests.Okami, Paul and Goldberg, Amy "Personality Correlates of Pedophilia: Are They Reliable Indicators?" Journal of Sex Research, Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 297-328, August, 1992.

I'm shocked there were this many types of studies done regarding this topic. However, it falls into our discussion today, is NAMBLA merely biasing this information towards their goal? How many of these studies have been skewed towards NAMBLA's belief system? This certainly makes me think twice about the next time a new study comes around on the news... How much can this information really be trusted? It proves our discussion in class regarding research.

Reflection and Link: Week of 2/16

This week I would like to focus on women in psychology. Enjoy the following link; it is called the Society for the Psychology of Women. The link is www. psych.yorku.ca/femhop- it is a site that documents the role of women in the history of psychology. It has sources that may be relevant to the topics some of you have for the final project.

Chapter 5 dealt with Titchener who was a student of Wundt, but didn't agree with most of his teachings and took his ideas of structuralism and made that the focus of his 'science.' He believed that the mind and consciousness were not one in the same. The mind is the sum-total of mental processes occurring in the life time of an individual and consciousness is the sum-total of mental processes occurring now. He used introspection as his chief method for investigation. Titchener's methods and ideas were refuted by functionalist. I found structuralism as a random science that should not have been considered a science. Those who were structuralist and used introspection found that among themselves they could not always come to the same conclusions. Titchener believed his ideas and for that I commend him for that. 

I also commend him for taking female students into his doctoral program. Margaret Floy Washburn. She was Titchener's first graduate at Cornell. She went on to do a lot more than her teacher. She was the 2nd woman to hold the position of president of the APA. While she was limited in where she could teach, she was a pioneer for women in the field of psychology.

The reading then took a look at functionalism which was a broad and had diverse methods, and covered everything from animal behavior to clinical psychology. One big functionalist was Angell. He identified the 3 conceptions of functionalism. While both sides eventually died out, functionalism was more widely accepted because it lent itself to new studies of psychology.

reflection for 2/12

In class we discussed which psychologist we would have most liked to work with out of the ones we had learned about so far. I may have been alone in class in wanting to work with Galton. I know Eugenics is a controversial topic, especially if it is based on race but he did a lot of cool stuff other than that. I was very impressed by the invention of finger printing and weather mapping. The thing that most intrigued me about his work was the one topic that would have gained me no recognition or academic honors (and may have tied me in with unwanted negative feelings about Eugenics) but it would have been fun to test. I really would have enjoyed measuring peoples senses and testing to see if they correspond with intelligence. I would have liked to compare my own results on such tests with other people and colleagues. I have always been interested in tests that have been developed to measure athletic skill and I feel like these tests are similiar to those.
It would have also been very interesting to work with or just observe Calkins. Both because of her brilliance but also because of the fact that she was a woman in a time when not many woman were able to study at higher levels let alone with the best minds in the field. I really think she would have been first person i would choose to meet if given the opportunity. she really seems like an interesting person both for her intelligence and waht she was able to accomplish. I also thought it was really cool when she denied the honary degree from the womens school, stating simply that she did not study there she studied at harvard.

Anti-Introspection Link

Here's an interview transcript with a famous documentarian who feels "psychology is one of the major faults of our civilization nowadays." He specifically hates the idea of introspection and feels there are better ways to know yourself and others.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20050620-000014.html

Competition in the Field

I will take this time to reflect on last week's discussion of the competition between the three (and more) moving forces in the field of psychology in the late 1800's. Psychology was a pretty new science during this time. In fact, William James was teaching psychology even before the date which we consider to be the "birth" of psychology (1879 - Wundt's lab). I found it interesting throughout the readings that the professors and practitioners of psychology were forming their own new and innovative ideas. Not only that, but they didn't necessarily agree with one another. It was interesting because James & Hall were pretty close in age, and Hall studied under James. However even though this science was brand new, they both (including Cattell later) went off to do their own things. Both Hall and Cattell also did a term with Wundt. You'd think that they would have had similar paths of study considering the close time frame and the novelty of the field and just the lack of diverse ideas in the field. Yet they all contributed different things... James and his stream of consciousness, Cattell and his mental testing, and Hall and his sexism (just kidding, Hall contributed alot besides his sexism and obsession with adolescent girls like the APA and the Child Study Movement). The fact that they all went their separate ways with the basis of philosophy, physiology, biology, and physics just goes to show that psychology has been and always will be a very diverse field with many approaches.

Child Study Movement

I know this is kind of late...because this is dealing with last week's readings, but here it is!

I looked up more about the Child Study Movement and found an interesting article giving more details and a different overview of the movement than our book. It does include much of the information we already knew about Hall, but it also includes information about some of Hall's colleagues on the project. This article also goes past our time frame, which is nice to kind of put it in a broader context.

Week of 2/16 Reading

For Tuesday, please read ch. 5 in the blue book, and for Thursday, please read the asigned pages in the brown book.

Week 3 (2/13) Post and Reflection

Here is a link to a modern Eugenics website with several articles and even a photo gallery with pictures of our friend Rushton! I was surprised that there was still interest in eugenics today so I wanted to learn more about it.

http://www.eugenics.net/

Of all the psychologists we read and learned about this past week, James was the one that resonated with me the most. I am very intrigued by the fact that began as a painter and had a promising career as an artist, but sadly gave it up. I tried looking for pictures of his artwork online, but haven't been able to find any. However, I did find a book in the library that has a few photos of his art in it, which I will try to remember to bring into class on Tuesday. I liked David E. Leary's analysis of James's psychological theories and how they were influenced by his experience with art. I think this gave him a unique perspective of the field of psychology and human consciousness. I think his art background also allowed James to be one the more open-minded or grandly philosophical of his peers and colleagues. While positvist Cattell was occupied with gathering facts and Hall was busy organizing the new field, James sought to understand the "big" questions. Not satisfied being confined to a labratory, where presumably James knew that the nature of human experience and the entirety of human conscious could not be known. I believe that it is James's intricate, grandiose theory that has sustained psychology through the generations and inspired latter work. It seems that the field needed a grand vision from someone who thought outside the "psychology box" to really become its own domain, one that would truly further the understanding of our own humanity.

Week 4: Reflection and Link

This week, I decided to center my reflection around Mary Calkins - her struggle with credibility among the predominantly male field of psychology as well as her accomplishments. Though we read that one of Calkins' greatest achievements was the development of "self psychology," the text did not do a great job of explaining what exactly this entailed. Biographical information on Calkins can be found here : http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/marycalkins.html

In essence, self psychology is a "reconciliation between structural and functional psychology." She stressed an important division between internal and external facts, with the former containing images, memories, thoughts, emotions & volitions, while the latter consisted of events of the outside world (physical facts). The other sciences concern themselves with studying these external facts, while psychology separates itself as a discipline by focusing on consciousness and the self. The reason most of us likely didn't know much about self psychology is attributed to its eventual phasing out in the field. Calkin's ideas were replaced with later theories of personality, specifically from Gordon Allport. In the beginning, apparently, Calkins was credited a great deal with helping to make advancements in the field. Eventually, though, her ideas were more or less swept under the rug. One can't help but wonder if her being a woman played any role in this, as the field of psychology was still largely male-dominant at the time. The notion that sexism plays a role in psychology is still very much apparent, as one can find out with a simple search on google or amazon books.

Ps - Harvard has apparently still not conferred any degree in honor of Calkins and sees no reason to.

Darwin and Intelligent Design in the news

Today I came across a few articles in the news that just so happen to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Darwin's Origin of Species. The first one is about how people are yet again attempting to replace evolution with intelligent design, and the Vatican is now involved:
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/religion/post/2009/02/62699799/1

The second one is about Darwin and evolutionary psychology. It discusses how the classic branching "tree diagram" may be wrong, and how he may have gotten some other concepts wrong too.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/feb/11/evolution-charles-darwin
I say, so what?
People are sometimes wrong. In this case Darwin may have been on the wrong track about a few things but for the most part people still believe him.

Which leads me into the discussion of this week's reading on the 3 American psychologists.
I thought our class discussion of Hall especially related to this article. Hall get many concepts completely wrong, such as the entire adolescent girls thing and segregated genders in classrooms for the purpose of becoming more feminine or masculine. But this doesn't mean that we disregard everything that he ever accomplished. Heaven knows that would be a mistake! It seems to happen a lot. Many of the 'quack' ideas may have had some basis behind it at one point, and now it is not relevant anymore (such as animal magnetism). So we move on and learn more.

From the J. Philippe Rushton archives

So I was looking for a little more information regarding this man, and passed upon an interesting site that he reviews for.

Check it out... http://vdare.com/rushton/06322_iq.htm

He speaks about a book that Richard Lynn has released entitled "Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary analysis."

The premise of this book... "The world IQ is no more than 90, equivalent to the mental age of a white 14 year old."

How these researchers are able to make such biased claims is unbelievable to me! I was shocked to find out in class that this research continues on in this day and age, and is funded to boot. Why does anyone waste time and money on this racist man? Go figure, one of his major supporters is David Duke, former grand wizard of the KKK. Definitely someone I want backing my research someday. (cough, cough with some sarcasm mixed in)


And I'd like to end this with my favorite quote of all from Rushton himself...

"Blacks, according to Rushton, have larger genitals, making them more promiscuous, and smaller brains, making them less intelligent than whites and asians." (I'm sorry, can't stop laughing about the genitalia part)

A couple of interesting quotes...

Straight from J. Philippe Rushton's mouth....

"Blacks in the Caribbean, Britain, Canada, and sub-saharan Africa as well as in the United States have low IQ scores relative to whites."

"The biological factors underlying race differences in sports have consequences for educational achievement, crime and sexual behavior."

(This man is a trip...)

Link + Reflection

Here is a link to The Galton Institute. They are still very active in studying and publishing about genetic inheritance. I looked through the site and didn't find any kind of eugenic sentiment, but it's still interesting to check out.

http://www.galtoninstitute.org.uk/index.html

The idea of genetically inherited traits is amazingly complex. I do believe that there are some traits people inherit and have a genetic pre-disposition towards. For example, my cousin had no "special" upbringing. He attended public school in Madison and was raised like any other young boy. However, he is an absolute genius and showed evidence of that from the age of 2. When I think about him I can't help but believe he was just born that way... it's really the only possible explanation. We all have our tendencies and natural gifts, and the only way we explain it is simply by assuming it's how we were born. And yes, I believe some are naturally smarter than others.
With that said, I disagree that there are intelligence differences between races. I think that if each child of every race was raised in the same environment with the same opportunities we would see equal intelligence measures. I think J. Phillipe Rushton is not accounting for social and environmental variables in his research, and is instead coming to false conclusions. Only time will tell how his research is judged, but I believe history will show that he was mistaken.

Seth

Pioneer Fund

http://www.pioneerfund.org/

Here is a link to the Pioneer Fund that we discussed in class. The site shares what research they've supported in the past and what they're looking to do in the future. I think you'll be surprised by how many different researchers from different universities have been funded. It's worth a look.

Oops-here's the link!

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/24/louisiana-sterilize/

Frightening! Eugenics Today.

After reading and discussing positive and negative eugenics I decided I wanted to learn more about current eugenics issues. I was alarmed to find that in just last September a Louisiana representative announced his plan to write basically a negative eugenics plan. He wants to pay poor women $1,000 to have their tubes tied. He says this is necessary because too many people are having children that don't have the means to support them and Social Services are overloaded. Representative LaBruzzo (R)... acknowledges that he will receive backlash from his proposal and he will be criticized for being racist, but he feels like this is something that should be done. The program is voluntary, but I'd imagine from the looks of responses to his proposal on-line it doesn't look like he has received a lot of support. ***If you go to this site be aware that some responses are vulgar and encourage Representative LaBruzzo to get rid of some of his own reproductive goods...***

2/10 reflection

Hall's discussion on same-sex education really interested me because I went to an all girls high school. For me, the experience was horrible, I don't feel as though I learned any better or any worse then I did in middle school when I had boys in my class. Hall's arguments stem from gender roles. He states that boys should be in a school where they learn how to be strong leaders with a knowledge of sex education, but that they should not be in school with girls so that they are not distracted by sex and girls. For girls, they should be in a separate school because it is their role as girls to make sure their menstrual cycle becomes regular and to prepare for motherhood and marriage.
The irony of Hall's arguments made me laugh. Same-sex schools are better so that boys aren't distracted by girls and so that girls can prepare to become proper women. Well, in my school girls were just plain promiscuous. My sophomore year there were four pregnant seniors, by graduation I knew for sure that at least three girls in my class had had abortions and at least three gave birth within a year of graduation. My same-sex school definitely prepared girls for motherhood, but not necessarily in the way Hall was implying (at least I don't think so).

Same-Sex Education link

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/education/25gender.html

This link is an article about the Education Department of the Bush administration creating single-sex classes and schools as long as enrollment is voluntary.

Reliability and Validity?

Reading about Ebbinghaus' original study on human learning got me thinking about the reliability and validity of his study on himself. Though we still credit him for much of the information we currently know about memory, and many many studies have been performed since that show that his results were reliable and valid, what did his contemporaries think?

He had no subjects, and tested himself. He tried to control as much of his life as he could to keep it constant. He did a good job of creating "nonsense" syllables and reading them at a fast pace, but after many repetitions and the self-designed nature of his study, would he have had a better chance at learning the syllables than an unbiased participant?

We know now of course that these studies can be (and have been) replicated to produce similar results. And I have to give the guy credit; he spent a lot of time doing tedious work so that the rest of us in the psychological field can benefit from his discoveries about memory and learning. Yet I can't help but wonder how bogus it may have looked at the time. Here's this guy, alone in his house, repeating over 2,300 syllables that he printed on cards (how long did it take him to even create the cards?!) to test his ability to learn the material.

It's no wonder that 20 years later, in 1928, Titchener claimed that Ebbinghaus' contributions were the most significant in the field since Aristotle!

Mnemonic Devices

According to Young (1985) - our reading from last week regarding the consequences of Ebbinghaus' work - Ebbinghaus shied away from studying the use of mnemonic devices in his memory studies by creating words and syllables that were 1) said quickly and 2) nonsensical. I found the idea of mnemonic devices pretty fascinating and in my perusing of the Web, I found this site with mnemonic devices FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY! It may not help our understanding of human learning in the way Ebbinghaus would want, but we may learn a lot of random trivia...?

2/5's Week in reflection.

This week we learned about the birth of a new science: Psychology. Throughout the reading, I noticed a reoccurring theme of consciousness among Wundt, Brentano, and Kulpe. This underlying similarity led them to study memory, cognition, all umbrellaed by the idea of metacognition. It is interesting to see the definition of consciousness from Brentano's act psychology in the 1870s:
"Act psychology postulated intentionality in conscious acts. Individuals intended to do things, to see things, to experience things... a purpose to consciousness"
-LB-B pg. 49.
Where it was first noted that it was impossible for observers to report with accuracy their own states of consciousness. In the 1890s, Kulpe brought in the metacognition aspect linking our conscious behavior to a mental activity, associated with thinking about an event. Lastly, Wundt in 1912 made the assertion that:
"[Consciousness] consists of the sum total of facts of which we are conscions... the events present for the observer... [and] what the observer makes of that content (apprehension)."
-LB-B pg. 39.

I believe it is true that we have advanced so far because of metacognition; namely our conscious awareness and our ability to retain what we consciously process (hence the memory infatuation). What we are able to remember and the way we remember it speak to our differences among eachother. Moreso, our ability to remember and analyze our conscious events separate us humans from other living organisms; arguably a defining characteristic of what makes human minds superior. Studying individual differences of the mind lead to the birth of Psychology.

Being the dedicated sleep scientist that I am, I wonder if our sleeping state was viewed as a conscious awareness or an unconscious state during Wundt's time. Or if it was even thought about. Wundt's definition of consciousness is loose enough to incorporate the sleeper's awareness, although I disagree with Brentano's definition given that we lose intentionality in our dreams. What is your definition of consciousness? And where, if at all, do dreams fit in to that definition?

Consciousness

Here is an interesting site on consciousness that addresses Fechner's work, and later, Wundt's. This cite does a good job of showing how the theories of consciousness have changed over the introductory years of psychology. This link appears to be a textbook excerpt of sorts, so there are lots of links for further exploration into consciousness, the brain, biology, and science in general.

Feb. 10 and 12 Readings

Team 1 (Bryan and I) are presenting this week. For Tuesday please read Chapter 4 of LB-B and the Hall reading that was emailed. For Thursday please read pp 79-122 of LB-CR.

Criticism of Comte

http://www.brocku.ca/MeadProject/Bodenhafer/Bodenhafer_1923b.html

This is a link to a paper written by a professor of sociology at Washington University. In this paper Dr. Bodenhafer goes more in-depth about Comte's views towards psychology. I wanted to read more about Comte because ever since Bill mentioned in class that Comte's main objection towards psychology is that the "mind cannot study the mind" I have been asking myself about this. I enjoyed reading more about Comte's thought process towards rejection of psychology. After reading it I think Comte may have been able to accept what psychology is today, he just was very unnerved about where the field was when he learned about it.

More on Volkerpsychologie

So, I found an interesting article that focuses a little more on Wundt and his ideas contained in Volkerpsychologie at http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/wundt/Folk/trans-preface.htm.

One part states, "Volkerpsychologie is a truly monumental work. The analysis and interpretation of language, art, mythology, and religion, and the criticisms of rival theories and points of view, which occupy its five large volumes of over three thousand pages, are at once so judicial and so suggestive that they may not be neglected by any serious student of the social mind."

It's short and sweet and informative...and was written locally-- Northwestern University. Check it out!

Week 2 post and reflection

Here is a link to more information about Wundt's Volkerpsychologie, and Wundt in general:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wilhelm-wundt/#Vol

I wanted to find a link to more information about Volkerpsychologie because so little is known about, but it was hard to find and this link doesn't provide that much more information that what was already in the texts. I find it remarkable that Wundt, the acclaimed founder of psychology, could have such a great influence and so much written about him and be studied so much, when half of his work is negelected. According to this website and our texts, Wundt saw voluntarism and Volkerpsychologie as equally essential parts of his psychology. Volkerpsychologie was an alternative to experimental psychology, a way to gather other forms of evidence that could not be found through experimentation but were equally valid and worth study. He spent the last thirty years of his life writing this ten-volume work, and yet no one seems to think it's worth studying. Wundt did place great emphasis on experimentation, but the popular view that he was interested in no other things, which is supported by the lack of scholarship on Volkerpsychologie, is distorted.

post and reflection 2/6

I found a website that offers an experiment/test of serial memory. http://www.essex.ac.uk/psychology/experiments/memtask.html


This week we discussed Wundt and Ebbinghaus a lot in class. We also performed an experiment of serial memory and associations. I had a very hard time trying to remember the list of words once the list became longer than about six or seven. If I remember right Bill told us that Wundt went well into the 40's with the length of his lists. I can't imagine how long it would have taken me just to remember 20 words.

I do not have a lot of background in the history of psychology and I was very impressed with the work done by Wundt. I thought it was very interesting how his ideas were just disregarded at the time he was presenting them and now so much later we have accepted his ideas and began to further the work he started. Its amazing how people can completely buy into one way of thinking and completely ignore other ideas for so long untill deciding to pursue another view. I wonder how much different the study of psychology and the areas Wundt specialized in would be different today if people would have jumped on his band wagon from day one?

Week 3: Link & Reflection

So, seeing as how next Friday is payday for any student employee at the college, I think you should all consider investing in your own tachistoscope, found for the shockingly low price of $4,999.99 here: http://www.kpsurplus.com/products/view/9760

I was really interested to learn more about tachistocopes because a) chronoscopes bored and confused me and b) I can't imagine something with such an absurd name NOT being awesome. So, I did some further research and learned that tachistoscopes have been used to help those with dyslexia improve their reading abilities. As we talked about in class, these instruments were used originally to project images for the purpose of either improving recognition or flashing stimuli too fast to be recognized consciously. Tachistoscopes have come a long way since their invention by German psychologists in the 19th century, and have been implicated in a variety of experimental conditions in the field of cognitive science.

In an article published in Brain and Cognition, twelve dyslexic children underwent a four month treatment with tachistoscopic presentation. A list of words was presented in a standard lateral manner on a pc screen for one group, while the other group received the same stimuli in random lateral position. Though the method of this study is slightly confusing, I was able to gather the conclusion that the tachistoscopic treatment helped reading accuracy of both words and nonwords significantly for both groups. The link to the article is here: http://csaweb113v.csa.com/ids70/view_record.php?id=2&recnum=1&log=from_res&SID=2l26bc5sfs1r77cp1512fmbjh1&mark_id=search%3A2%3A0%2C0%2C2

In another realm, tachistoscopes are apparently popular for subliminal advertising purposes. The idea is that, although those subject to these stimuli will claim to never have read or even seen them, their brief appearance is supposedly enough to register with our subconscious and persuade us to act in accordance to their message. There is an interesting article on how the "t-scope" is used in advertising (and how it can be an arduous process) here: http://www.sykronix.com/researching/tscope.htm

G. Stanley Hall, racist, sexist, Nazi

An interesting Biography of G. Stanley Hall by Clarence Karier can be found at:
http://mises.org/journals/jls/7_1/7_1_2.pdf in which he is characterized as an important historical intellectual, but also as a sexist, racist, pre-nazi.

Some quotes from the article below:

Through his "scientific" studies of human development came his elitism, his racism, his sexist chauvinism, his penchant for primitivism, as well as his authoritarianism: all the integral elements of his personal value system. So we find him recommending that, "there are many who ought not to be educated, and who would be better in mind, body, and morals if they knew no So, too, he argued, that to educate girls to be self-supporting is "wrong and vicious," for to scientifically follow nature, "Every girl should be educated primarily to become a wife and mother." He further insisted that Dressur was necessary for elementary students because the preadolescent was passing through an abbreviated form of the savage stage. In like manner, he believed the adolescent was passing through the stage when civilization and reason began to dawn and therefore courses in "heroalogy" were appropriate to teach the noble lesson of service to the collective soul of the people. Long after the recapitulation theory had been discredited, Hall continued to cling to this evolutionary structure. He fought a delaying action when confronting movements which ran counter to his belief system. Typical of his approach was his resistance to the women's rights movement. In a variety of public arenas he argued that women belonged in the home. However, when women began to gain some entrance to higher educa-
tion he insisted that at Clark University they were treated fairly. Nevertheless, in a private letter to Col. Bullock, one finds him saying, "I am strongly opposed to giving women the slightest foothold in the college, even if we could do so under the founder's will. I feel that they would crowd out the best men a little later." Hall went on to say that he was inclined to leave the doctoral degree open to women because so few had gone through in the last ten years. Besides, he added, "it would save us a good deal of pounding by feminists; and by depriving it we would needlessly shut off possible bequests from women who have borne a pretty large part in the endowment of universities."

Here Hall was practicing explicit institutional chauvinism. What would appear to many on the outside as a relatively open system was, in fact, highly discriminating in intent as well as practice. Hall knew women had a place and for hi it was not in the advanced centers of learning. He romanticized women as something very special, close to nature, hearen of the race, and, indeed, the conduit through which "Mansoul" might some day become a "supermansoul." Hall's personal values were perhaps best revealed when he reacted to his son's announcement that he had found a girl whom he wished to marry. Hall said, "I hope she is physically strong and with good heredity. What's her complexion? Send me her photo." Hall had raised physical and mental health to a near cult. His book on Morale, which was subtitled "The Supreme Standard of Life and Conduct," was addressed to the physical and moral athlete, calling for a new collective ideal firmly rooted in the collective Yolk. As he described it: Thus my book is a plea for nothing less than a new criterion of all human worths and values. I would have the home, the state, the church, literature, science, industry, and every human institution, not excluding religion, and
perhaps it most, rejudged and revaluated by the standard of what they contribute to individual, industrial and social morale. This would give us a new scale on which to measure real progress or regression.

Hall's scale for measuring progress toward a new order was clearly a totalitarian one. While the social system could thus be improved, Hall also stressed heredity as of great importance and argued that a pound of heredity is "worth a hun-
deadweight of education." Thus it is necessary to pay attention to better breeding:
"The nation that breeds best, be it Mongol, Slav, Teuton or Saxon, will rule the world in the future." Eugenics, he insisted, was not merely medical certificates for fitness to marry or taxing bachelors for failing to breed their kid, or even steps to prevent the unfit from propagation, but rather it meant the constant encouragement of the "Abrahams" of the race to breed a better race. If farmers who can breed cattle. shew and horses. can also learn how to breed good men and women, the problem is solved: Germ plasm is the most immortal thing in the physical wodd. Backward it connects us by direct and unbroken lines of continuity with our remotest ancestor, be it Adam, the anthropithicus. the amoeba or whatever else ... [T]he best survive and the worst
perish.

His complete vision ultimately would include breeding for a super-race. Hall went on, If God, [one should be reminded here that "God for Hall is a collectiveterm for "Mansoul" l the great stim-culturist of man were to create or choose ... an ideal environment for improving the human stock where the pure air and water and right, simple living and high thinking with correct adjustment of all the influences that work for the right balance between those supreme human
forces. individuation ... is struck, and thus establish a nursery for the slow evolution of the superman who will in body and soul realize ail the richest human ideals and make what we have already dreamed must sometime come to the world, a new paradise, what better cradle or nest in which to incubate the overman of the future could he [be] found than here? The new Paradise which Hall had in mind was the superstate9' which he portrayed in the "Fall of Atlantis." In Hall's ideal kingdom men practiced religion in all forms, from fetish and nature worship to Mansoul worship according to each person's development on the evolutionary scale. Everyone in this society dedicated his total self to the interest and service of the society under the enlightened guidance of those Hall called "heartfomrs" (psychologists). The entire society was organized into groups according to their working productive function in that society.' Each group was dedicated to the ideal of being the very best of what they were destined to be. Thus, service was emblazoned on everyone's consciousness. At the top of the social hierarchy could be found the supermen, in the form of scientific researchers, constantly seeking more and more knowledge of Mansoul. Hall's message was clear: through selective breeding, genetic psychology, and a well- planned educational system, the real nature of Mansoul could flower in the form of the superstate. However, something went wrong. Hall's idyllic state eventually ended in chaotic destruction. Individual freedom at the expense of the collective ideal had eaten away at the very foundation of Hall's totalitarian collective ideal. Here, Hall's second message was also clear: if America was to arrive at the promised land of "Mansoul" it would have to learn to tighten up and discipline itself to the collective ideal of Morale. This, then, was Hall's ultimate vision and promise for America.

Charles Burgess best captured the sense of what Hall strove for when he said: ... with the colossus of a Christ-like superman standing on Liberty's vacated pedestal, with sublimation of self to the State therefore permeating every hierarchical layer from the slave to the uebermensch, Hall would at last be able to say that his battle had ended. The dawn of the new day would be upon the world.9' Before World War I, Nietzsche's view of the uebemnsch often served as Hall's model man. In many ways Hall's superman was virtually the same as Nietzsche's. However, after the disillusioning experience of the war, Hall came to believe that his superman was unlike Nietzsche's which he believed had succumbed to German militarism. Nietzsche's uebemnsch became for Hall a superman of sheer power. In contrast he believed his superman was more moral and cultural. His was more a Christ-like colossus, a product of the evolutionary Mansoul. For Hall, the Germany he had loved so dearly had destroyed itself by its turn toward militarism. This militarism, he believed, could also infect other cultures and nations and would ultimately lead, if not checked, to the destruction of all culture. While Hall's ideal state was not a militarized state, it was clearly a totalitarian state, for Hall had the mind of a totalitarian. He envisioned not only a total culture where all would be subservient to the ideal, but a total humanity where ultimately the best would come to see, as he, Christ, and Buddha had seen, that view from the mountaintop.

Hall had thus preached a new religion, a totalitarian, naturalistic faith fortwentieth century man, where the psychologist replaced the priest and where sickness replaced the age-old concept of sin. Hall, however, was more. He was also a prophet of the twentieth century's totalitarian man. Being tuned into the deeper under-currents of western culture, he felt the pangs of man's alienation and intuitively sensed the symbolic structure for which such vulnerable people came to yearn. Thus he not only sensed the truly reactionary longings of an alienated man, but also intuitively grasped the kind of symbols which could satisfy those longings and, in doing so he seemed to touch the future. Hall was not long in his grave when western man began to hear those strange Hallian themes of hack to nature, soil, fatherland, hearth and home, health, strength through joy, agrarian virtue, world order, new order, charismatic leadership, supermen and superrace, ancestral calling, thinking with one's blood, and ultimately the Triumph of the echoing off those cold gray walls of the sports colossus at Nuremberg. Hall had touched the symbolic structure which the National Socialists would use to weld Germany into an ironclad soul of "obedient servants." Perhaps Hall was correct in arguing that it was not German cultural ideology that led Germany astray in World War I but rather the growth of German militarism that was to blame. Nevertheless, the unanswered question remains: what role did these complex ideological, cultural currents play in keeping the trains running on time to Auschwitz and the fires burning in the crematoriums? It might be, as Hall had argued, that these "cultural currents" of Mansoul were innocent "victims" rather than "perpetrators" of the catastrophe which ensued. The fault lies, he might have said, with a growing cancerous military mind. Then again it just might be the case, as another enlightened utopian visionary once claimed, that, "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of men, is a demand for their real happiness. The call to abandon their illusions about their condition is a call to abandon a condition which requires illusions."' Perhaps if we were to look more carefully at those conditions which require illusions, we might find those cultural ideological conditions which helped propel Germany not only into National Socialism, but into militarism itself. It is possible that Hall was wrong in blaming solely the military. Perhaps some combination of cultural conditions along with militarism concocted that witch's brew. The current American trends toward longing for a reactionary past, charismatic leadership, health cults, back to the soil, nature, religious cults, as well as a search for mystical roots and the simple virtues of "manhood," "womanhood," and "motherhood," stand pale in isolation. However, it may well be that such an ideological pallor in conjunction with the growth of American militarism in our atomic age may be the spark that will light the path of Mansoul to an even greater if not final catastrophy.

However one interprets these American developments, it does seem that Lawrence Cremin was correct when he said of Hall: "he injected into the mainstream of American educational thought some of the most radical-and I happen to think virulent--doctrines of the twentieth century, and there is no understanding the present apart from his contribution."

While many of Hall's doctrines can be viewed as "virulent" in the context of the twentieth century, it is equally and perhaps more importantly clear that the conditions which gave rise to such ideas need further, more intensive examination. It is, however, also clear that just when it seemed that America was about to lose its traditional religious moorings, G. Stanley Hall, as a priestly prophet of the twentieth century, did more than any other single individual to help construct that new faith, that new religion of psychology, in which so many have now come to believe.

Wundt Books

I found some books that you can look through. They were written by Wundt. Through amazon.com you can look through "An Inroduction to Psychology". The link directly to the book is:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/1443723088/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link. If the link doesn't work you can search "wundt" in the search box on amazon and this book will be the frist one. There are also other books that you can search through about Wundt.

There are also Wundt books in the library!

post and reflection

Looking around for websites, and by searching under the name Wundt, I found a piece on many of the psychologists we have recently been talking about. Given it is a wikipedia article, but it still has some interesting concepts. (search Wikipedia: Mathematical Psychology, sorry couldn't make the link work)

I have been interested in particular by reading about the sensory theories (such as placement theory, etc.) I also am still a little bit confused as to the exact reason why Wundt has had so much emphasis as the start of Psychology when it seems like Fechner has done just as much. I know that it was the "marriage" between physiology and philosophy, but Fechner seems to have started more and possibly accomplished more (although it doesn't seem like anyone could have written more than Wundt!)

Reflection on Schmidgen

The reading on Wundt as a chemist I didn't find very convincing. I mean there are many early psychologists who initially started out as chemists, physicists, or physiologists. The fact of the matter is other then Wundt's knowledge of scientific experiments Schmidgen really didn't bring any other proof of Wundt's connection to chemistry. The idea of Wundt being influenced in psychology by being overseen by a chemist was far-fetched. I just don't believe that Schmidgen supported his claims well enough. I will say this though, I found his retelling of Wundt's experiment on table salt and urine was quite interesting. As a young scientist Wundt really seemed to have a grasp on the proper way to conduct experiment, even on his own. He was able to bring in all his methods such as varied conditions, repetition and comparative measurements into psychology which proved quite useful in experimental psychology years later.

As a history minor I have written and researched plenty of historically significant events. As a historian I do not believe that Schmidgen provided a full or clear picture of his thesis. As a good historian one must present both sides of the story, providing enough evidence to support one's thesis. Referring back to Blumenthal's writing on Wundt, Blumenthal writes that although in his early years Wundt did refer to Mill's chemical analogy, Blumenthal continues saying that Wundt did not believe that this analogy went far enough and eventually he disclaimed the analogy all together. By referring back to Blumenthal's writing on Wundt it is evident that Schmidgen did not read far enough into Wundt's opinions and instead only read into his educational and professional background to prove his thesis.

Quotes

As I was searching for links for this week I came across Wundt and Ebbinghaus quotes. Although it seems a bit trivial, reading these quotes helped to make sense of Wundt's and Ebbinghaus' beliefs about psychology and memory. They're a good thing to go over along with the readings.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/hermann_ebbinghaus.html

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/wilhelm_wundt.html

Psych Museum in Akron

http://www3.uakron.edu/ahap/

Check out this sight! It shows all the manuscripts that the museum has along with aids to help you find sources available online. There is also a news page so you can read up on events happening at the museum, etc.

Reflection Week 1

This week I was particularly interested in were the ideas of John Locke about  'tabular rasa' (blank slate). It's interesting that the Nativist thought that everyone was born with innate ideas about God (believing that God was inside us. John Locke did not believe this, he believed that the mind becomes furnished (we gain knowledge through two sources): sensations- meaning our experience with the world and 2: reflection on all that we have experienced. Locke was a radical in his day and thankfully he was because his ideas are a huge factor in what we think of how humans process everything they experience. He got a lot of people thinking and doing research in this area of human cognition.

This week we also focused on a few areas of the brain-Broca's and Wernick's areas. Broca's area is where speech is produced while Wernick's area has to do with the comprehension of language. It is truly fascinating that we have learned the most of these areas by people being hurt (Phineas Gage and stroke patients) and then scientist do subsequent tests on animals to confirm their findings. I really just find how we figure out what the parts of the brain do fascinating.

The Outrageousness of Science?

After reading the first few chapters in our textbooks and the pieces about Fechner last week, I have been left wondering: what makes a quack? What makes someone's ideas about psychology, or any science for that matter, more ridiculous than the next? Or more valuable than the next? In the first couple chapters of our book (and I'm assuming through most of our readings on the history of psychology), we encounter many individuals who contributed greatly to the field. Yet during their time, many were often thought of as outrageous with unfounded beliefs. Those who were denied these claims by crying "uncle" in the form of: "It's science!" Even more scientists of the time had ideas that were greatly admired yet seem common sense to us now.

Here's an example of a scientific idea that was respected during its time (and afterwards). Maybe I am missing something, or maybe it's good that I am in the field of social science and not natural science, but Fechner's research on psychophysics is difficult to understand. HOW specifically did he measure sensation? HOW specifically did he measure stimulation? If, in fact, according to Wozniak, "mental processes are internal, private, subjective, and cannot be measured directly," how did Fechner come across a way to measure these things? Fechner measured his findings "in terms of the relative increase in physical energy required to bring [mental intensity] about." I'm struggling to see the way in which Fechner could substantiate this data. In fact, if he found a way to measure mental processes - the private, subjective, inner workings of our minds - I think a lot of psychological researchers would be out of a job!

Back to my first point, I've started to wonder... what psychological ideas, methods, processes, and theories do we have now that will look outrageous fifty years down the line?

reflection week 1

This week we discussed histography, or the "science of history". Histography refers to the philosophy and methods of doing history (Benjamin, 2009). We also discussed the various types research used to examine history. The three types of history that we discussed were archival, oral, and quantitative methods. Each type of history has its own advantages and disadvantages and we must examine all three in order understand history as completely as possible. It seems to me that it must be very hard for historians to gain a clear picture of history because each of these forms of research have a lot of loose ends. With archival data it can be hard to obtain and translate if necessary. Even if the works are complete and legible, it is impossible to debate or question the creator of the works. This leaves a lot up to the interpretation of the reader. With oral history it can be hard to obtain a uniform story because perception and time can change peoples memory and their story. Finally qualitative methods are not exact and only provide a general idea about relationships.
After discussing these types of research I really have a lot more respect for historians. They clearly have a very difficult and time consuming job. Another hard aspect of this type of work is there is no measure to ensure that you are right, so much is left up to interpretation that two historians could potentially have a completely different analysis of the same set of data.
We also did an interesting experiment to demonstrate the just noticeable difference. JND is very important in psychology because it was the first comparable unit that could be determined experimentally. The experiment demonstrated that the amount of change necessary increases as the compared stimulus becomes stronger/more intense. When we originally started the experiment I thought that it would be harder to detect the chasnge in weight for the lightest and heavesist weights, but that the same change in weight would be easy to identify among the middle weights. After the experiement I applied the same idea to lifting weights and it made perfect sense. As the weight increases it takes a greater increase in order to detect that a change as occured.

Random Snippets of Psychology Knowledge

Browsing the internet, I found a very primitive psychology forum that seems to have a lot of interesting posts about the history and theory of psychology (hence the name). I didn't read through all of them but these posts could supplement our readings in class, our projects, etc. If you have time, I suggest exploring this site (from the 1990's?!). Of course, keep in mind how scholarly the site actually is...