Dead Psychologists Society A dialogue on teaching the history of psychology

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Dead Psychologists Society? A dialogue on
teaching the history of psychology

• Gira Bhatt Randal TonksCamosun CollegeMay 8,
  2003

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Why the History of Psychology?

• Does Psychology need its own history?
• Should we have an insider family history?
• Should we have outsider professional
  historians?
• These questions address the nature of our
  identity as a discipline and invite questions
  regarding the identity of the history of
  psychology

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Our commitment to history

• We have been teaching the history of psychology
  for many years
• Gira is past Chair of the History Philosophy of
  Psychology section at CPA
• Randy is current Chair of the section on History
  Philosophy of Psychology at CPA
• Recently we have explored the identity of History
  of Psychology and the role it plays in
  undergraduate curriculum for our section

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The OriginWhen did Psychologists begin to
Examine the History of Psychology?

• 1912
• B. Rand "Classical psychologists Selections
  illustrating psychology from Anaxagoras to Wundt
• G. Stanley Hall "The founders of modern
  psychology
• G. S. Brett "A history of psychology" (first of
  the three massive volumes)

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The Origin

• 1913
• J. M. Baldwin published his two small volumes
  which are considered to be the first American
  textbook on the history of psychology in the 20th
  century. (Hilgard, Leary, McGuire's, 1991).
• 1929
• E.G. Boring "A history of experimental
  psychology".
• Gardener Murphy "Historical introduction to
  modern psychology",
• Pillsbury "The history of psychology".

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So what was significant about the time frame of
this origin?

• Boring's 1929 history textbook- an attempt to
  defend the pure scientific nature of psychology
  from its "applied" sibling.
• Graham Richards (1996) contends, these early
  books on the history of psychology were written
  because of the pressure that was experienced by
  the discipline "to prove its scientific
  credentials" (p. 2).

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The Present History of Psychology across
Canadian Universities
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Undergraduate History of Psychology Across
Canadian Universities
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Why Do We Teach History of Psychology?

• Michael Wertheimer (1980) critically summarized
  various reasons and justifications provided in
  the prefaces of various books on psychology's
  history.
• There seems to be a taken -for-granted attitude
  among the authors of psychology's history.

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• None of these writers bother to specify in a
  preface or introduction why they believe study of
  the history of psychology is worthwhile. There
  even are prolific contributors of the history of
  psychology (such as Josef Brozek) who have not
  bothered to say at length in print why they
  believe the history of psychology is a topic
  worth pursuing. By taking its value for granted,
  these scholars imply that it must be self-evident
  to any thinking person. Devoting space to
  justification of the endeavor might even suggest
  that there might be some doubt about it in the
  first place! (Wertheimer, 1980, p. 5).

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Why Do We Teach History of Psychology?

• It helps avoid the past errors and repetitions,
• It provides a fertile source of new ideas
• It may offer resolutions of current problems
• It provides a healthy dose of humility and
  tolerance
• It improves the general education of the
  psychologist
• Simply because"- everyone enjoys a good story
  it is inherently interesting

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Why Do We Teach History of Psychology?

• "It has been a tradition - a legacy since the
  Titchener era.
• Wertheimer (1980) calls it a "ritual" which is
  akin to an initiation rite that all teachers of
  psychology must take a course on the history of
  psychology, and in turn it implies"do unto
  others as others have done unto us" (p. 6).

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Why Do We Teach History of Psychology?

• "Look at our illustrious ancestors" or a
  "gee-whiz" approach.
• Wertheimer (1980) calls this a form of
  self-legitimization, and points out, as we noted
  earlier, that Boring wrote his history textbook
  to legitimize the "pure" against the "applied"
  psychology.

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Why Do We Teach History of Psychology?

• It strengthens one's job prospects
• Wertheimer (1980) observed that regardless of
  one's specialization, adding a history of
  psychology course to one's teaching credentials
  raises one's marketability, since the course on
  the history of psychology is an integral part of
  the undergraduate psychology curriculum.

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Two worlds of the history of psychology

• Insider view involves
• uniform single history, (like stairs or ladder)
• Celebration
• Whiggish presentism
• Old History (i.e., Boring, 1929/1950)
• Natural science perspective

• Outsider view involves
• critical and "situated plural perspectives
• Grounding in sociology and philosophy
• New History (i.e., Danziger, 1990)
• Human science perspective

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Two worldviews Tonks (1997)

• Natural Science
• Objective
• Deductive Explanation (Erklaren)
• Literal
• Univocal Laws
• Universal(Etic)

• Human Science
• Subjective
• Interpretive Understanding (Verstehen)
• Expressive
• Equivocal Pluralism
• Contextual (Emic)

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Experimental-Behavioristic vs. Humanistic from
Staats (1987)

• Experimental
• Objective events
• Atomistic
• Laboratory
• General (nomothetic)
• Precision Measurement
• Prediction Control

• Humanistic
• Subjective events
• Holistic
• Naturalistic Observation
• Individual(idiographic)
• Qualitative Description
• Understanding

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Staats cont

• Scientific Determinism
• Mechanistic in Causation
• Passive Respondent
• Conditioning Modification
• Valueless Science

• Self-Determination Freedom
• Spontaneity in Causation
• Originality, Creativity Activity
• Self-actualization Personal Growth
• Values in Science

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How Do we Teach the History of Psychology?

• Kuhn (1970) suggested that "consensus", as a
  defining characteristic of normal science, is
  lacking in psychology
• This lack of a "normal science" status for
  psychology is also reflected in the ways in which
  the history of psychology is being taught

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How Do we Teach the History of Psychology?

• Tracing the ancient roots is one of the favored
  ways of teaching the history of psychology as
  these roots are relatively easy to order
  chronologically.

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How Do we Teach the History of Psychology?

• First there was the golden age of the Greek
  scholarship, then came the Dark Ages, then came
  the Renaissance and the British empiricism,
  followed by the German physiologists

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How Do we Teach the History of Psychology?

• The neatly ordered chronology however, is lost
  upon entering the 20th century as diverging
  fields began to emerge all over.
• The major three distinct beginnings of psychology
  as Leahey (1980) calls it, grew simultaneously.

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How Do we Teach the History of Psychology?

• 1) Wundt and his volunteeristic psychology of
  consciousness
• Involving creative synthesis of personal and
  collective minds

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How Do we Teach the History of Psychology?

• 2 ) Charles Darwin and William James and their
  functional approach
• Involving adaptation and pragmatism

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How Do we Teach the History of Psychology?

• 3) Freud and his psychoanalytical psychology
• Involving the unconscious and hidden motives

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How Do we Teach the History of Psychology?

• Also, fields within fields, specializations
  within specializations dominated the growth of
  psychology
• Importantly, this growth has not been linear, but
  rather scattered in varied directions

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Dialogue over the method of teaching the history
of psychology

• Danziger (1994) raised critical concern over the
  classical insider perspective on the history of
  psychology
• Cultural centres counter the American Hegemony in
  psychology
• Ongoing debates over the scientific vs.
  professional activities in psychology

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Back to the future

• Danziger (1994) suggested that the traditional
  content of the history of psychology needed to
  change from a 'celebratory' 'insider' view to a
  more critical 'outsider' perspective.
• The positivist 'Whig' approach to history has
  largely been celebratory where history merely
  plays a supportive role for current dogma and
  ideologies of psychology.
• Rather, he contends, the history of psychology
  needs to offer a critical historiography of the
  discipline.

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Problem of Historical Amaturism

• we find histories that are no more than
  literature reviews extended backward in time, we
  find story telling substituting for history, we
  find the cult of 'anticipators' and the awarding
  of good and bad marks on the basis of some
  current scientific orthodoxy, we find gross
  insensitivity to historical context, we find the
  formulation of 'timeless' problems in the
  language of the present, we find the construction
  of spurious lines of ancestry, we find the
  mythology of progress. What historian of
  psychology could feel smug in the face of such
  shortcomings? (Danziger, 1997, p. 108)

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Dialogue Continues

• Rappard (1997) responded to Danziger's concerns
  over the future of the history of psychology by
  suggesting that the "insider" perspective is not
  so bad after all.
• He contended that by giving our history away to
  professional historians (critical outsider) we
  are likely to have an irrelevant history, one
  that would look more like philosophy than
  psychology. (Rappard, 1998).

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Danziger concludes

• No matter how hard one tries, one cannot step
  outside history in order to write about it. Every
  historian occupies a particular place in a
  historical world and can only describe the
  historical process as it appears from the
  perspective afforded by that place. ... That is
  why history will always be rewritten." (1998,
  p.670).

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Is there a Future for the History of Psychology?

• Danziger (1994) has contended that the very fact
  that the discipline lacks cohesion and has
  remained filled with divisions has necessitated
  the study of the history of psychology within the
  discipline

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Is there a Future for the History of Psychology?

• It follows that as long as there are "isms" and
  systems and theories, undergraduate psychology
  students will need a course on the history of
  psychology since it is the only course that would
  put all these isms into a larger "scientific"
  perspective.

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Is there a Future for the History of Psychology?

• Does the lack of cohesion and consensus then
  ensure the presence of the history of psychology
  courses at an undergraduate level?
• Leahey (2000) the past president of the Division
  26 of APA (History of Psychology) observed that
  in contemporary psychology, there seem to be no
  major "isms" and no "big pictures" anymore that
  students need to know. Need to ponder the course
  content in the changing discipline.

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The Problem and the Threat to the Teaching of
Psychology's History

• Deciding on the direction and the content of the
  course Insider/Outsider Celebratory/Critical
• Justify its relevance to one's colleagues and
  decision makers in a psychology department the
  hiring of an expert to teach the course.

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Direction and Content

• Old history Insider involves celebrating and
  enumerating achievements, students, listing
  contributions along with dates
• New History Outsider involves critical
  examination of social context, political
  struggles, idea and movement development within
  personal and social contexts

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New History- Human Science

• Human Science perspectives offer interpretations
  of identity within the social and political
  contexts of lived experience
• Erik Erikson provides several examples of a human
  science approach to understanding personal and
  collective identity
• He draws from the Hermeneutical tradition of
  Wilhelm Dilthey where he articulates the
  individual life as it is lived in a
  socio-historical context

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Psychohistory making

• Identity is integrated as the nexus of the past
  present and future where we find meaning in our
  present identity by interpreting it against our
  historical past our context of understanding
• Looking at our future we also must turn to our
  past in order to maintain continuity of identity
  both personal and collective
• Erikson draws from R.G. Collingwood (1965) who
  contends that history is thought (p. 7) and
  thought is life (p. 15).
• Interpreting present practices and values against
  our traditions and histories is what gives us
  life as psychologists and and human beings

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The Problem and the Threat to the Teaching of
Psychology's History

• Not replacing the retired "history of psychology"
  faculty
• Hiring "external" faculty to teach the history of
  psychology course
• Scrapping the history of psychology courses as a
  requirement for major at an undergraduate level
• Not offering any history of psychology course at
  the graduate level
• Shortening the credits assigned to the course

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Voices of ConcernComments from teachers of the
history of psychology

• "While I was on my last sabbatical, proposals
  were floated to dilute my history courses. Given
  only a year left before my retirement, and the
  negative mood in the department, I decided to
  give up"

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Voices of Concern

• " 25 years ago when I arrived at this
  university there was a history concentration.
  This is now whittled down to one course,
  optional, at the third year level. Some of this
  had to do with the fact that three people went on
  to become dept. chairs, deans etc. Some of this
  had to do with the complete inability and lack of
  energy on my part to engage in departmental
  politics.So it has dwindled away, and interested
  students have gone to the York program".

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Voices of Concern

• "One faculty member has expressed interest in
  teaching the history class, but it would have to
  be at the expense of other courses offered, and
  we cannot entertain that possibility at the
  present time"
• "Our department has never appointed anyone with
  explicit interests in history and I expect it
  will not in the immediate future (even as we have
  made 8 new appointments this past year and expect
  to make another six or so next year"

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Voices of Concern

• "Being strictly a science department, it is
  unlikely that we would ever have a position
  devoted solely to the history of psychology"
• "I am taking an early retirement package No
  initiative to replace me with a full-time
  professor with a specialization in History has
  been made and it is unlikely that such a move
  will take place"

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Voices of Concern

• "There are no plans to hire a historian, although
  I will argue for this. Unfortunately, I am
  pessimistic. My department has officially
  announced that it is an "applied" department
  (clinical and applied social), which to me
  signals a further moving away from intellectual
  and critical investigation of the discipline. On
  a more positive note, there are two recently
  hired tenure-track faculty in my department
  with interests in teaching history

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Is there a Future for Historians of Psychology?

• Katalin Dzinas (1995), reflected that
• We worry whether we will be able to secure a job
  as historians of psychology None of us wish to
  work as closet historians, pretending at all
  times to be something we are not and doing
  research on problems in which we are not
  particularly interestedWe worry that we may
  not be able to secure grant money to fund our
  research We might not have the opportunity to
  supervise students who wish to work in this area.
  (1995 P. 33)

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Conclusion

• Teaching the history of psychology has a varied
  history where multiple methods and perspectives
  have been advocated.
• Debates continue over the nature and role that
  history of psychology plays in the undergraduate
  ( graduate) curriculum
• Some see a shaky future to the teaching of the
  history of psychology and ponder whether or not
  history is history.