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Social Sciences and Psychology

PSY 200 - History of Psychology

About this Class

This course focuses on the historical and philosophical roots of psychology and counseling. Topics include structuralism, functionalism, behaviorism, psychoanalysis, gestalt, and existentialism, as well as contemporary perspectives including evolutionary psychology, positive psychology, postmodernism, and feminist psychology.

  1. Describe the key figures in the history of psychology and their major contributions.

  2. Relate the major perspectives in the field of psychology to the individuals responsible for articulating them.

  3. Describe how historical trends and events have influenced the development of psychology as a scientific discipline.

  4. Describe the major perspectives in psychology.

  5. Demonstrate an understanding of the major questions that have driven psychological thought throughout history.

  6. Articulate the connection between historical trends in psychological thought and contemporary perspectives.

  7. Apply the tools of historical analysis to specific events and trends in the history of psychology.

Special Assignments

Article Review

This course focuses on a “story” of the field of psychology.  It attempts to reveal the source of ideas and how those ideas were influenced by the times in which they happened and how those ideas influenced the times!

However, the scientific study of the history of psychology is a different thing.  The researchers who examine the stories of psychology set out to accomplish a number of goals.

The goals of the Study of the History of Psychology are:

  1. Showing how events in psychology’s history can be fit into a broader historical context - psychology is both creator of culture and a product of it and cultures change across time and place.
  2. Illustrating the dangers of presentist thinking - interpreting history through the lens of current thinking and understanding
  3. Challenging the typical student belief that if it’s in the text book, it must be true - some of psychology’s most popular ideas endure because they are popular, not because they are true.
  4. You cannot understand modern psychology without understanding history - the focal points of current psychology and the ideas it has left to the past are a product of its history.
  5. Historians rely heavily on archival materials - old records, journals, letters, and other historical documents are the clues that these researchers use to put together the story of psychology

Current research, in particular the research found in the journal produced by APA Division 26 Society for the History of Psychology.

History Timeline

The study of history, particularly the study of the history of a field like Psychology, is filled with names, dates, and places.  But sometime, we lose the frame of reference for the sequence of events.  Sometimes we learn things in a particular sequence but it is not clear that two successive events were happening at the same time.

Also, as a study of human behavior, connected to other sciences in the world, the history of world events plays a role in formulation of ideas.  For example, we can see clearly in this course how the World Wars impacted the development of Psychology.

Library Resources

Films on Demand

History of Psychology

Segments:

  • Mind, Self, and Soul
  • Freud, Jung, and Psychoanalysis
  • Ethics, Logic, and Truth

The History of Educational Psychology

Segments:

  • History of Educational Psychology
  • Behaviorism Replaced Functionalism
  • Education and Development
  • Instilling Morality
  • Learning Theories
  • The Child Study Movement
  • Behaviorism
  • Social Cognitive Theory
  • Motivation
  • Neuroscience

EBSCO Books

Books about the history of psychology

Museums and Departments

History of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania

Psychology at Penn

Historical Articles

The scientific study of the history of psychology is in pursuit of 4 goals:

  1. Showing how events in psychology’s history can be fit into a broader historical context - psychology is both creator of culture and a product of it and cultures change across time and place.
  2. Illustrating the dangers of presentist thinking - interpreting history through the lens of current thinking and understanding.
  3. Challenging the typical student belief that if it’s in the text book, it must be true - some of psychology’s most popular ideas endure because they are popular, not because they are true.
  4. You cannot understand modern psychology without understanding history - the focal points of current psychology and the ideas it has left to the past are a product of its history.

The following is a list of articles that exemplify this pursuit in one or more ways.  These are also the articles that students will use for the Article Review Special Assignment.

Benjamin, L. T., Jr., Rogers, A. M., & Rosenbaum, A. (1991). Coca-cola caffeine, and mental deficiency: Harry Hollingworth and the Chattanooga trial. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 27, 42-55.

Benjamin, L. T., & Crouse, E. M. (2002). The American Psychological Association's response to Brown v. Board of Education: The case of Kenneth B. Clark. American Psychologist, 57, 38-  

Burnham, J. C. (1972). Thorndike’s puzzle boxes. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 8, 159-167.  

Coon, D. J. (1992). Testing the limits of sense and science: American experimental psychologists combat spiritualism. American Psychologist, 47, 143-151. [Full text available at no charge by request*]

Dewsbury, D. A. (1990). Early interactions between animal psychologists and animal activists and the founding of the APA committee on precautions in animal experimentation. American Psychologist, 45, 315-327. [Full text available at no charge by request*]

Fuchs, A. H. (1998). Psychology and “the Babe.” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 34, 153-165. 

Furumoto, L. (1992). Joining separate spheres—Christine Ladd-Franklin, woman-scientist (1847-1930). American Psychologist, 47, 175-182. [Full text available at no charge by request*]

Gelb, S. A. (1986). Henry H. Goddard and the immigrants, 1910-1917: The studies and their social context. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 22, 324-332. [Full text available at no charge by request*]

Goodwin, C. J. (1991). Misportraying Pavlov’s apparatus. American Journal of Psychology, 104, 135-141. [Full text available at no charge by request*]

Goodwin, C. J. (2005). Reorganizing the Experimentalists: The origins of the Society of Experimental Psychologists. History of Psychology, 8, 347-361. 

Green, C. D. (2003). Psychology strikes out: Coleman R. Griffith and the Chicago Cubs. History of Psychology, 6, 267-283. [Full text available at no charge by request*]

Harris, B. (1979). Whatever happened to Little Albert? American Psychologist, 34, 151-160. [Full text available at no charge by request*]

Leahey, T. H. (1992). The mythical revolutions of American psychology. American Psychologist, 47, 308-318. [Full text available at no charge by request*]

McReynolds, P. (1987). Lightner Witmer: Little-known founder of clinical psychology. American Psychologist, 42, 849-858. [Full text available at no charge by request*]

Nicholson, I. (1998). Gordon Allport, character, and the ‘culture of personality”, 1897-1937. History of Psychology, 1, 52-68. [Full text available at no charge by request*]

O’Donnell, J. M. (1979). The crisis of experimentalism in the 1920’s: E. G. Boring and his uses of history. American Psychologist, 34, 289-295. [Full text available at no charge by request*]

Pickren, W. (1997). Robert Yerkes, Calvin Stone, and the beginning of programmatic sex research by psychologists, 1921-1930. American Journal of Psychology, 110, 605-619. [Full text available at no charge by request*]

Richards, R. J. (1983). Why Darwin delayed, or interesting problems and models in the history of science. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 19, 45-53. [Full text available at no charge by request*]

Rutherford, A. (2003). B. F. Skinner’s technology of behavior in American life: From consumer culture to counterculture. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 39, 1-23.

Smith, L. D. (1992). On prediction and control: B. F. Skinner and the technological ideal in science. American Psychologist, 47, 216-223.

Sokal, M. M. (1981). The origins of the Psychological Corporation. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 17, 54-67. [Full text available at no charge by request*]

Winston, A. S. (1990). Robert Sessions Woodworth and the “Columbia Bible”: How the psychological experiment was redefined. American Journal of Psychology, 103, 391-401. [Full text available at no charge by request*]

Winston, A.S. (1996). “As his name indicates”: R. S. Woodworth’s letters of reference and employment for Jewish psychologists in the 1930s. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 32, 30-43. [Full text available at no charge by request*]

 

*Contact library@kvcc.me.edu to place requests (digital copies usually provided within one to two business days).