Lecture 6 Flashcards
Who was E.W. Scripture (1895) and what did he do?
Summary: popularization of experimental psychology includes sport psychology, music psychology
Published “thinking, feeling, doing” a book intended to explain the new experimental psychology to gen. public.
- Attempted to say that basic lab methods could improve everyday life.
- e.g. reaction time research could be used to study “psychological elements involving sports, gymnastics and athletics.”
- Adapted reaction procedures to measure reaction times for boxing, track and fencing. - early pioneer in sports psychology.
Also pointed out that advertisers could benefit from what psychologists knew about attention and memory.
Discuss John Dewey and William Bryan presidential addresses
John Dewey (in 1900): Warned of the dangers inherent in emphasizing pure laboratory research. “it could give us artificialities, mere scientific curiosities unless subjected to interpretation by gradual approximation to the conditions of life”
William Lowe Bryan (in 1904): “Theory and Practice” made a plea for the value of applying the results of theory-based psychological research to improve everyday life.
List reasons for the drive for application
US pragmatism
The prestige of science
Disproportion of psychology Ph.D.s to labs
Poor pay for experimental faculty
Discuss US pragmatism in more detail
- Americans accustomed to thinking that science should be used to improve their lives.
- For the American people, technology meant progress, which should help improve their lives (e.g. telephone etc).
- to get funding for equipment, needed to convince university administration that their new science would bring credit to the university by being helpful to society.
- PhD’s in psychology outnumbered laboratories 3 to 1, so to get a job people needed to look elsewhere, so having applied knowledge was useful
Discuss the prestige of science in more detail.
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Describe James McKeen Cattell and his relation to mental testing
- Doctorate with Wundt, research on reaction time. Did not have a high opinion of Wundt’s research operation.
- Cattell more interested in Galton’s work in mental testing and the study of ID’s. Cattell imported these ideas from Briton to America.
- Cattell coined the term “mental test” in his article in “mind” titled “mental tests and measurements” in which he tested Pen students on 10 different tests.
- In this article, Cattell opens with “psychology cannot attain the certainty and exactness of the physical sciences, unless it rests on a foundation of experiment and measurement.
- Said their usefulness might be that people would find their results interesting, and that they might be useful in regard to training, mode of life or indication of disease.
- At Columbia, wanted to test every student to see condition and progress of students. Relative value for different courses etc.
- but major fail, very weak correlations.
- Turned to professionalizing Psychology: fourth president of APA, helped launch “Psychological Review” journal. Rejuvenated “Science” journal.
- Lobbied heavily for academic freedom. Fired from Columbia for protesting the government sending conscientious objectors into WWI.
Discuss Alfred Binet
- Developed a research program centered on studying individual differences. “individual psychology” vs “general psychology”. Needed measurements of mental processes.
- thought method of diagnosing mental functioning in children was poor (three doctors would come up with three different diagnoses) - so he developed first intelligence test.
- “Binet-Simon scale” assessed mental level of child. A normal five year old could solve tasks at the five year level, but a subnormal five year old might be able to score only at the four year level.
- thought mental level could increase with training, and that it was multifaceted, so someone could be good at math but not English, and vice versa.
Discuss Henry Goddard
- Tested children in laboratory settings akin to Clark’s to research feeble mindedness. But, poor results
- Found out about Binet-Simon scale and translated it into English. Goddard was impressed with validity (saw results matched children’s behaviour).
- Defined “idiot’s” as being children who scored at mental ages 1 to 2 on the scale, imbeciles as mental ages of 3 and 7. For “debile”, Goddard proposed new name “moron”, has Greek roots (“foolish) - mental ages between 8 and 12.
- Differed from Binet in the sense that Goddard believed that intelligence was inherited and was a very fixed property.
- In 1912 came to Ellis Island with two research assistants to find “defective” immigrants. Administered Binet-Simon test and reduced number of immigrants by 80%. But immigrants were probably confused by the whole ordeal, and were asked questions that they would have no knowledge about (questions about Briton)
- at the end of his career, he recanted many of his previous positions, and became more like Binet.
Lewis Terman and Leta Hollingworth
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Discuss Henry Goddard
- Tested children in laboratory settings akin to Clark’s to research feeble mindedness. But, poor results
- Found out about Binet-Simon scale and translated it into English. Goddard was impressed with validity (saw results matched children’s behaviour).
- Defined “idiot’s” as being children who scored at mental ages 1 to 2 on the scale, imbeciles as mental ages of 3 and 7. For “debile”, Goddard proposed new name “moron”, has Greek roots (“foolish) - mental ages between 8 and 12.
- Differed from Binet in the sense that Goddard believed that intelligence was inherited and was a very fixed property.
Lewis Terman and Leta Hollingworth
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Discuss Lewis Terman and Leta Hollingworth
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Discuss Robert Yerkes
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Discuss Walter Dill Scott
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Discuss Hugo Münsterberg
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