Early American Psychologists

1
Early American Psychologists

• Rise of American universities
• Land grant
• Practical concerns
• Liberal arts
• Research universities based on the German model
• Ph.D. credential

2
William James (18421910)

• Transition between Europe and America
• Read German psychology 1867
• Depression and free will
• Importance of active consciousness
• Metaphysical club
• Chauncey Wrightmind evolves
• Charles S. Piercepragmatism
• Truth of idea effectiveness
• Independent philosopher/psychologist
• Not systematic
• Not experimentalist
• Lab for demonstration rather than research
• Brilliant and eclectic

3
Principles of Psychology 1890

• Reading The Scope of Psychology
• Definition of psychologyThe science of mental
  life both its phenomena and conditions
• The pursuance of future ends and the choice of
  means for their attainment are thus the mark and
  criterion of the presence of mentality
• Focus on mental processes
• Science, speculation, inconsistency
• ConsciousnessChoice
• Stream of consciousness
• Stable substantive and unstable transitive
• Experience is intact
• Personal, changing, continuous, concerned with
  external objects, and selective
• Causative and adaptive
• Will attention

4

• Self
• Material, social and spiritual
• Conflict
• Self-relevance
• EmotionJames Lange theory
• Perception of physiological state
• Habit
• Based in nervous system
• Strenuous life and self-improvement
• Association and memory
• Pragmatism
• Ideas are true if they work
• Pierce observable results
• James emotional and ethical also
• Influence
• Great prose
• Consciousness as adaptive
• Applied psychology

5
Hugo Munsterberg (18631916)

• Headed laboratory at Harvard
• Role of motivation
• Popular psychology
• American Traits (1902)
• Applied psychology
• Psychology and the law
• On the Witness Stand (1909)
• Psychotherapy (1909)
• Industrial Psychology
• Psychology and Industrial Efficiency (1913)

6
Granville Stanley Hall (18441924)

• First American Ph.D. 1878 William James at
  Harvard
• Muscular Perception of Space
• Johns Hopkins Lab 1884
• American Journal of Psychology 1887
• President of Clark U. 1889
• Pedagogical Seminary Journal of Genetic
  Psychology 1891
• American Psychological Association 1892

7

• Evolutionary orientation
• Development recapitulates evolution
• Developmental psychology
• Child studies
• Adolescence 1904
• FreudClark 20th anniversary celebration

8
James McKeen Cattell (18601944)

• Student of Hall, Wundt, and Galton
• Mental abilities, measurement
• Discredited anthropometric tests (1901)
• Psychological Corporation
• Science 1895
• Psychological Review 1894

9
American Psychology

• Evolutionary
• Environmentalist
• Applied
• Reformist