Mary Whiton Calkins

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Mary Whiton Calkins

• (1863-1930)

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Overview

• Brief timeline/biography of Mary Whiton Calkins
• Historical antecedents that influenced the
  individual
• Zeitgeist in which individual was developing her
  ideas
• Specific professional obstacles/struggles of the
  individual
• Experiments/research/clinical data supporting her
  ideas/theories
• Strengths and weaknesses of her ideas/theories
• Influence of individual on the event and ideas of
  her time and on later events in psychology

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Timeline/Biography of Mary Whiton Calkins

• Born March 30, 1863
• Attended Smith College and earned degrees in both
  the classics and philosophy
• Held a teaching position at Wellesley in Greek
  and philosophy
• Showed talent in psychology and was appointed to
  head the experimental lab
• Died at home on February 27, 1930

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Historical Antecedents Family

• Eldest of 5 children
• Very Devoted to her family, close knit
• Maude
• Sister that died in 1883 after her first year at
  Smith College
• Diagnosed with inflammatory rheumatism
• It was an experience which permanently
  influenced her thinking and character
• Her first encounter with deep grief
• The following academic year Mary stayed home
  took private lessons
• She re-entered Smith College in the Fall of 1884
  as a senior and graduated with a concentration in
  classics and philosophy

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Historical Antecedents Family

• Wolcott Calkins
• Presbyterian minister
• Designed supervised Marys education
• Arranged an interview with President of Wellesley
  College
• She was offered a position there as a tutor in
  Greek she began teaching in the Fall of 1887
• Mary stayed in the Greek Department for 3 years

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Historical Antecedents Trip to Europe

• Stayed for 16 weeks
• Briefly attended the University of Leipzig
• Broadened Marys knowledge of the classics
• Became acquainted with an instructor from Vassar
  College Abby Leach
• Leach was planning a trip to Greece invited
  Calkins
• Studied modern Greece and the classics

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Historical AntecedentsWellesley College

• A professor in the Department of Philosophy
  noticed her talent for teaching
• Philosophy department was planning to introduce
  work in psychology as part of new curriculum and
  would need someone to teach courses in this new
  area
• Calkins was excited about new opportunity, but
  the position was open to her if she first
  prepared herself by studying psychology for 1
  year
• Problems meeting this condition
• Admittance was not offered to her because of her
  gender
• Go abroad?
• Study with G. T. Ladd at Yale, William James at
  Harvard, G. S. Hall at Clark University?
• It was Harvard that Calkins went to take seminars
  with William James Josiah Royce (October 1,
  1890 Harvard considered and approved petition)

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Historical AntecedentsWilliam James Harvard
University

• Attended seminars conducted by James at Harvard
  University
• Helped Calkins face barriers of prejudice and
  discrimination
• Harvard University refused to grant her a
  graduate degree, even though she had done the
  work
• Calkins examination was described as the most
  brilliant examination for the Ph.D. that we have
  had at Harvard William James
• Calkins influenced by William Jamess chapter on
  the stream of consciousness in Principles of
  Psychology

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Historical Antecedents Other

• Experimental Psychology lab (1890)
• While attending seminars at Harvard, Calkins also
  studied in an experimental psychology lab with
  Edmund Sanford at Clark University
• Influenced by the experimental procedure
• Richness Precision
• Fall of 1891, returned to Wellesley College as an
  instructor in Psychology/ the Department of
  Philosophy and introduced a new course into the
  curriculum
• Psychology approached from the philosophical
  standpoint
• 1891 Established a lab for experimental
  psychology at Wellesley College

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Zeitgeist

• Discrimination against women
• Disagreed outright with belief that there were
  inherent sex differences in mental abilities
• Variability Hypothesis
• Darwinian idea of male variability
• Notion that men show a wider range a variation of
  physical and mental development that women
• The abilities of women are seen as more average

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Zeitgeist

• Mary Calkins presented her system of
  self-psychology and contrasted it to the rival
  systems of the day
• Structuralism, functionalism, behaviorism, hormic
  psychology, Gestalt psychology, and
  psychoanalysis
• Wundt Titchener
• In 1900, Calkins presented her self-psychology
• Departure from Wundt and Titchener system that
  was dominant in American Psychology
• Structuralism
• Study of the contents of consciousness
• Introspection as the main source of data

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Zeitgeist

• Functionalism
• James System of psychology concerned with mind
  as it is used in an organisms adaptation to its
  environment
• Behaviorism (1913)
• Watson Focused solely on observable acts that
  could be described in objective terms
• Hormic Psychology
• McDougall emphasis on the emotional and
  purposive (goal-oriented) side of human nature
• Gestalt Psychology
• Opposition to elementalism holistic
• Psychoanalytic Movement
• Freud Emphasis on instinctive and emotional side
  of human nature the unconscious mind

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Calkins Struggles and Obstacles

• Educational Struggles
• Struggles at Harvard
• Struggles for her Ph.D.
• Other Struggles

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Professional Obstacles

• Calkins had the opportunity to teach a philosophy
  class at Wellesley College, but had to study
  psychology for one year
• There were few Psychology departments for Calkins
  to study in. Also few departments accepted
  females as students
• Could have studied at Yale or Michigan
• Both schools were too far away from Calkins home
• Neither included a laboratory, which was
  important for Calkins to study physiological
  psychology

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Struggles at Harvard

• Calkins was not allowed to study at Harvard
• President Eliot said, her presence would receive
  an angry reaction for the governing body at
  Harvard
• Her father and the President of Wellesley college
  petitioned to let Calkins study at Harvard
• On October 1, 1890 Calkins was allowed to
  sit-in on the lectures at Harvard. William
  James and Josiah Royce also supported her
• Calkins wanted to further her education by
  working with Munsterberg who was coming to
  Harvard to do research
• Once again she was refused the opportunity to
  study at Harvard with Munsterberg
• She was later allowed to sit in but not as a
  student only as a guest

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Struggles for her Ph.D.

• Calkins finished all of her work for her Ph.D.,
  but she was refused her Ph.D. because she was a
  woman and also she was not a student
• Munsterberg wrote a letter to the president and
  fellows of Harvard that Calkins should be a
  candidate for her Ph.D. His request was
  considered and refused
• A group 13 psychologist who were Harvard
  graduates and professors of prestigious
  institutions sent in a petition to the president
  of Harvard requesting that Calkins should get her
  Ph.D.
• Harvard said No adequate reason for granting
  Calkins the degree
• Calkins was offered her Ph.D. from Radcliffe
  college the Harvard for women. She refused the
  offer because she earned her degree at Harvard
• Calkins thought that Harvard was making a
  distinction between the sexes by withholding the
  Harvard Ph.D. from female students who did the
  work, took the same exams at Harvard like their
  counterparts

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Other Struggles

• Calkins opposed the Variability hypothesis and
  the differentiation between men and womens right
  to vote because these issues held her back from
  reaching her goals
• Calkins came up with the technical method for
  studying memory called paired associates
  however, Titchner took full credit for it

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Experiments/Research/Clinical Data Supporting her
theorys and ideas

• Dream Research
• - studied the contents of individual dreams by
  having them record, in detail, their dreams over
  a seven week period
• - discovered that there was a close connection
  between the dream-life and waking life, and that
  the dream will reproduce in general, the persons,
  places, and events of recent sense perception.
• -rejected Freuds theory of dreams dreams did
  not represent ones unconsciousness.

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Experiments/Research/Clinical Data Supporting her
Theorys and Ideas Cont.

• Paired-Associate Tasks (Memorization Method)
• - wanted to look at how frequency, dominance,
  regency,
• and vividness influenced memory
• - research method involved showing individuals a
  series of colors paired with numbers
• - tested how many numbers the individual could
  recall that had been paired with colors
• - discovered that individuals were more likely
  to remember any number that was joined with any
  given color vs. numbers that were vividly colored
  or a number that was last paired with a color.

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Experiments/Research/Clinical Data Supporting her
Theorys and Ideas Cont.

• Self-Psychology
• - Believed that the self is the central factor
  in psychology
• - Three important elements of the self the
  self, the object, and the selfs
  relationship/attitude toward the object

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Self-Theory

• Self includes
• The self that his changed
• The self that remains the same
• The self that is unique
• The self that is a unity of perceptions,
  memories, thoughts and feelings
• The self that is related to the larger social and
  physical community in which it lives
• Calkins said the soul is a conscious being. It is
  the self.
• This is different than the Structuralist view,
  which asserted that it was the organism that was
  experiencing sensations, not a indefinable being.

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Strengths of Self-Theory

• The theory allowed for individual differences
  in studying mental processes
• Calkins did not deny the validity of atomistic
  (idea) psychology. She believed they were two
  equally valid approaches
• Original theory put forth by a female
  psychologist in a an aversive climate

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Weaknesses of Self-Theory

• The self is indefinable (Calkins, 1915)
• Tested through introspection, which had
  questionable empiricism
• Connected to her ideas about ethics and morality
  (Wentworth, 1999)

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Calkins Influence Then

• The timing of Calkins theory did not mesh well
  with the scientific ideals of her peers (Not
  objective experimental methods)
• We still find certain residues of the soul
  theory, masquerading in modern discussion as
  accounts of empirical or quasi-empirical
  realities (Troland, 1929)

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Calkins Influence Later

• Psychoanalytic self psychology
• Heinz Kohut, MD (1913-1981)
• Theoretical basis for most of the therapeutic
  benefits of contemporary psychoanalysis. 
• Rejects importance of innate Freudian sexual
  drives in the organization of the human psyche
• First major psychoanalytic movement in the United
  States to recognize the critical role of empathy
  in explaining human development and
  psychoanalytic change. 

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Summary

• Family huge influence
• Studied under James, Royce, Sanford
• Never received her degree from Harvard
• Contrasted all her work against the Zeitgeist,
  Variability Hypothesis
• Paired-Associate Task was a big influence on
  learning theory
• Self-theory was a contrast to the times, and it
  was not embraced by her contemporaries

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References

• Bumb, J. Mary Whiton Calkins. Retrieved March
  4, 2004, from
• Calkins, Mary W. An Introduction to Psychology.
  New York Macmillan Co., 1904.
• Calkins, Mary W. A First Book in Psychology. New
  York Macmillan Co., 1911.
• Calkins, M. W., (1917). The case of self against
  soul. Psychological Review, 24, 278-
• 300.
• Calkins, M.W. (1911). General standpoints Mind
  and body. Psychological Bulletin, 8,
• 14-19.
• Calkins, M.W. http//www.earlham.edu/harriem/cont
  ributions.htm
• Christopher, Green D. Autobiography of Mary
  Whiton Calkins. Classics in the History
• Of Psychology. 27 Jan. 2004. Mar. 2000
  http//www.psychclassics.yorku.ca
• Furumoto, L. (1980). Mary Whiton Calkins
  (1863-1930). Psychology of Women Quarterly, 5,
  55-68.
• Furumoto, Laurel, Mary Whiton Calkins. Psychology
  of Women Quarterly, Vol 5(1).

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References

• Madigan, S. OHara, R. (1992). Short-term
  memory at the turn of the century Mary Whiton
  Calkinss memory research. American
  Psychologist, 47, 170-174.
• Minton, H. L. (2000). Psychology and gender at
  the turn of the century. American Psychologist,
• 55, 613-615.
• Schultz, D. P. Schultz, S. E. (2004). A
  history of modern psychology (8th Edition).
• Wadsworth Belmont.
• Seigfried, C. H. (1993). 1895 letter from Harvard
  Philosophy department. Hypatia, 8, 230-231.
• Wentworth, P. A. (1999). The moral of her story
  Exploring the philosophical and religious
• commitments in Mary Whiton Calkins
  self-psychology. History of Psychology, 2,
• 119-131.
• Women's Intellectual Contributions to the Study
  of Mind and Society. Mary Whiton
• Calkins. http//www.webster.edu/wollflm/calkins.
  html