Adler, Alfred (1870-1937)

Born in Vienna, the 2nd of six kids, Alfred Adler has an unhappy childhood. Suffering from rickets, and having been injured in two accidents, Adler was frail and unathletic. Although he was pampered by his parents (a wealthy grain merchant), he resented Alfred resented his older brother (his mother’s favorite).

Adler stressed the inherently social nature of man, and the importance of future goals. Like Freud, Adler stressed the importance of birth order, and a child’s early environment. He did not stress the unconscious but maintained that it was not a problem until thoughts became conscious. Adler thought Freud overemphasized sex as a motivating force, so he stressed compensation, individuality, masculine protest, the striving for power, superiority, and social interest.

Adler suggested that people compensate for their feelings of inferiority. He believed that a person’s style of life was set by the age of 5, and that early childhood memories are the best indicators of which style has been selected.

 

Al Forab (872)

 

Allport, Gordan (1897-1967).

The first modern personality trait theorist was Gordon Allport. In the 1930’s, Allport and his students searched through dictionaries to find words that described personality. They started with 17,953 adjectives but settled on 4504 of them.

Allport suggested that most of these traits were “common traits” (traits we all hold in common). Some might have a lot of a common trait but others might have only a smidge. But Allport also proposed that people can have individual traits unique to them.

His morphogenic approach combined individual uniqueness (idiographic traits) and group comparison traits (nomothetic traits). You can compare yourself to others on “agreeable,” “friendly,” and “caring.” Plus you can have your own special nobody-in-the-world-is-like-me traits. Allport bridged the “lots of traits” and the “only a few traits” debate by combining them.

Allport proposed there is a core to personality: a proprium. This central core is our sens of self. It is the “me” we know and feel ourselves to be. This proprium develops in stages. First, we begin early infancy with no sense of self. Second, we become able to tell the difference between our body and external things. This occurs in the second half of the first year.

The third stage of proprium development occurs in year 3. This is when we develop self-identify. We begin to take pride in our accomplishments. Of course, some negativism develops too. Allport’s use of the word “negativity” was sometimes reported as “reverse psychology,” and may have been the origins of that phrase.

The fourth stages of proprium development is the extension of self. In years 4-6, you develop an egocentric self. From your point of view, others are there for you. Santa, God, parents; everyone exists for your benefit. In this stage, self is extended to possessions; everything is “mine.” Self-image also emerges during this period. You begin to have hopes, aspirations, and expectations of others.

The fifth stage is the rational coper. During the period from 6 to 12, you learn to cope rationally. Like Freud’s ego and Piaget’s formal operations, you learn to think things through in your head.

The sixth and last stage is proprium striving. As a teen, you learn how to be an adult and yet remain yourself. You might rebel with the hope that your parents will stop you from doing stupid things. You want to be an adult and develop long-range plans. But you don’t want to leave your “self” behind or take total responsibility for your life.

For more on the subject, check out this video on Modern Trait Theo

 

Ambrose (340-397)

Ambrose didn’t set out to be a priest. Born in what is now Germany, he studied law in Rome and began his career as a civil service. When he was appointed governor of Aemilia and Liguria in 370, he made Milan his headquarters. He was such a popular ruler that four years after he moved there, he was asked to become Milan’s bishop. Ambrose accepted the position, became baptized, and then formally joined the church.

 

Angell, James Rowland (1867-1949).

Having studied with both Dewey and James, Angell developed the laboratory at the Univerisy of Chicago into a major training program. Coming from a long line of college presidents, Angell studied with Dewey (at Michigan) and James (at Harvard). After chairing the psychology department at the University of Chicago for 25 years, Angell became the president of Yale (1921).

 

Aquinas,Thomas (1225-1274)

Thomas  Aquinas  was born near Naples, Italy. Although nicknamed as a child as “Dumb Ox” (for his large size and slow demeanor), Aquinas is the greatest theologian-philosopher of the Roman Catholic church and the patron saint of their parochial schools. He is best known for synthesizing Greek philosophy with Christian, Islamic and Jewish beliefs.

He was born in the family castle, Roccasecea, and later imprisoned there by his family for abandoning their career plans for him. His family wanted him to be abbot like his uncle but Aquinas (then 18) chose to enter the Dominican order and a lead a life of poverty. After a year or so of imprisonment, Aquinas complemented his education at the University of Naples by moving to Paris to become a student of Albertus Magnus. Completing his doctorate at 31, Aquinas taught for 3 years at the University of Paris before moving to Rome as a papal advisor. Nine years later, Thomas returned to Paris to teach and write. It was there he made his greatest contribution to philosophy.

Thomas Aquinas is the great synthesizer of faith and philosophy. He combined the best ideas of Aristotle, Augustine, Averroes and Maimonides. From the jumble of Gree, Christian, Islamic and Jewish thought, Aquinas sought to bring clarity. Aquinas sought a middle ground between Augustine’s dependence on revelation and Aristotle’s emphasis on empirical knowledge. He noted that sensory information is processed by the mind According to Aquinas the mind and body work together; man is both animal and spiritual (soul). Made in the image of God, man is capable of thinking and willing. Although nothing in the world is accidental, man has the psychological freedom to be the primary mover of his psychological universe. Man may be a highly specialized animal, but he possesses a soul.

Aristippus (434-356 BC).

Although a student of Socrates in Athens, Aristippus was born in Cyrene, so his philosophy is called Cyrenaicism. The basic doctrine was pleasure is all that matters. For Aristippus and his followers, the pursuit of happiness required the immediate gratification of any and every desire. People should control their circumstances, and not allow circumstances to control them. This Cyrenaic approachy allowed no thought of the consequences because knowledge is unreliable, amoral and only exists in the sensations of the moment. Although Aristippus may have argued for restraint, for many Cyrenaicism was an excuse for sexual promiscuity and physical brutality

 

Aristotle (384-323 BC)

He was born in Macedonia (northern Greece). He learned medicine from his father and philosophy from Plato. He wrote the constitution of Athens, served as counselor to Hermias, tutored Alexander the Great, and is sometimes called the first psychologist..

Aristotle proposed a tri-level hierarchy of faculties: nutrition, perception and intellect. Nutrition applies to all living things, perception to all animals, and intellect to all people. Intellect is like a sixth sense, a “common sense,” that synthesizes input from the five perceptual senses. In his book On The Soul, he proposes that the general distinction of form and matter also describes what makes us human. The soul (psyche) and the body are aspects of the same entity; they are the form and matter (respectively) of human existence.

For Aristotle, form is active and life itself is active. The psyche is the active part of intellect; consequently, psychology is the study of the principle of life, how a person acts intellectually and morally. According to Aristotle, thinking and knowing are different. Thinking uses images but knowing is more like active intuition. So intellect is not a collection of facts but the capacity to find knowledge.

Language is distinctively human, the product of a rational animal. Man alone has language because man alone has the ability to reason. By man, Aristotle meant males from the upper class of society, not women or non-Greeks. By reasoning, he meant the ability to tell right from wrong. Right is not based on moral absolutes but by balancing opposite poles. By this reasoning, courage is not a separate virtue; it’s the midpoint between rashness and cowardice.

Although the Greek culture was polytheistic, Aristotle argued for the existence of a divine principle above all the rest. Since the world had always existed, God was not thought of as a creator but as the Prime Mover (first cause) of the chain of events we call history. For Aristotle, God was pure intellect; perfect unity and unchangeable but not personal or interested in our lives.

Aristotle didn’t coin the term “logic” but he defined it and founded it as a science. Indeed, into the 20th century, all logic was Aristotelian logic. His syllogisms were chains of reasoning that began with a proposition and ended with a conclusion. This proposition-proposition-conclusion format tests the logical consistency of ideas and the validity of logic. Building on Plato’s deductive method, Aristotle’s analytic approach was both inductive and deductive. Plato believed that the world we perceive is but an imperfect copy of the real world. Aristotle held that the world perceived is the real world and there is no need to assume perceptions are imperfect copies of a separate world of ideas. Consequently, careful observation of the world perceived can lead to principles which can be applied to specific circumstances.

Ironically, it is careful observations that showed the errors of Aristotle’s scientific conclusions. Like Hippocrates, Aristotle noted four basic elements, each with its own “specific gravity.” But in addition to earth, air, fire and water, Aristotle added a fifth: ether (to describe the content of the heavens). Similarly, his geocentric cosmology, his fixed species model of zoology and his assumptions about falling objects were all overturned by careful observations and the application of Aristotelian logic.

But consider how enduring his idea were. Aristotle’s belief that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones lasted until Galileo dropped weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. With minor exceptions, Aristotle’s view that earth is the center of the universe went unchallenged until Capernicus. And is wasn’t until Charles Darwi’s careful observations that evolution replaced the belief in a fixed set of species. As for ether being a fundamental element of physics, it was completely discounted until Albert Einstien’s 1905 special theory of relativity. And in psychology, Aristotle’s 3 laws of association (i.e., similarity, contiguity, and opposites) are still thought to impact encoding processes.

As a Macedonian, not an Athenian, Aristotle had to deal with the stigma of being an outsider (from a different city-state). Perhaps this is why he was not selected to succeed Plato (the job went Plato’s nephew). In any case, he left Athens after the death of Plato. About the same time, Aristotle married (at age 38). He had a daughter by his first wife, remarried after her death and had a son by his second wife. He was 42 when he began tutoring 13 year old Alexander the Great. And 50 when he returned to Athens opened his school. Officially Aristotle’s school was named the Lyceum but informally it was called the “walking school.” His students learned by strolling around the grounds with their teacher and became known as peripatetics. After death of Alexander, anti-Macedonian sentiment again arose in Athens and Aristotle moved to his mother’s estate on the island of Euboea, where he died the following

 

Augustine (354-430)Aurelius Augustinus.

Raised in a philosophically-mixed family (his mother was a Christian, his father was not), Augustine converted to Christianity as an adult. He advocated introspective meditation, denunciation of the flesh, and the importance of self understanding. Since true knowledge comes from God, examining the world is of limited value. For Augustine, the soul is composed of memory, understanding and will. Sometimes called the first of the Christian philosophers, Augustine’s views dominated western Europe for nearly 1000 years. Augustine believed that truth comes directly from God through introspective self-examination. For Augustine, the soul is a self-contained entity with no physical dimension. It is a trinity of memory, understanding, and will.

 

Averroës (1126-1198).

His full name was Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Rushd. Born in Cordoba, Spain, Averroës was the son a judge. He studied medicine, philosophy and Muslim law (which has both moral and legal aspects). His commentaries on Aristotle were translated into Latin and Hebrew and influenced both Hellenistic Judism and scholastic philosophy. Averroes became a judge, chief physician for the caliph of Morocco and believed that the world has no beginning and no miraculous creation. God is “prime mover” of the universe and the human soul comes from Him. Averroes emphasized both reason and revelation so much so that his opponents referred to it as “double truth.”

 

B

Bacon, Francis (1561)

Bain, Alexander  (1818-1903). 

The son of a weaver, Bain was born, raised and educated in Aberdeen, Scotland. Indeed, except for several years in London, he lived whole life in Aberdeen. In 1876, Bain wrote the first journal devoted exclusively to psychology (Mind). He also provided the first books on psychology as such. Until William James wrote Principles of Psychology (1890), Bain’s books (The Senses and Emotions) were widely used as textbooks of psychology. A friend of JS Mill (who he met during his London years), Bain was an empiricist and a utilitarianist. He emphasized the law of contiguity, but differentiated between voluntary and reflexive behavior, held that people are capable of spontaneous activity which becomes increasingly purposive as it is rewarded by pleasure, and was a mind-body parallelist. He held that every sensation has both a physiological and a mental reaction. Bain is sometimes called the first modern physiological psychologist because of his detailed descriptions of sense organs and how they worked. He is best known for his description of the reflex arc.

 

Bandura, Albert (1925 -1921).

Although trained in behaviorism, Albert Bandura (1925-present) maintained that it would take too long for people to learn everything by associating stimuli or being rewarded. We are much more capable than that. According to Bandura, people primarily learn by watching others.

Vicarious learning resonates with personal experience. Most can remember learning how to do something by watching their parents, siblings or friends do it. We watch people we know to learn how to fit in, what to do in a crisis, how to behave in public, and how to treat those we love. We watch famous people and learn how to wear our clothes, have elaborate weddings or adopt children from other countries. Demonstration learning is also a popular pastime on television: how to cook, how to buy a house, how to play golf, and how to behave when you’ve made a winning goal.

The process of observation learning is pretty straightforward. We watch what someone does. We make a mental note (representation) of how they did it. And we use our mental model as a guide of how we should behave. Bandura suggests four stages in the modeling process: attention (tracking the environment), retention (converting observations into a cognitive rule), reproduction (being able to apply the rule correctly) and motivation (having a reason to do the behavior).

When I was growing up, I watched my older brothers, and used them as models of how (and how not) to behave. I learned how to tie a Winsor knot, lift weights, snap a wet towel at a friend, and, most of all, how to look cool. On more than one occasion, I watched what they with the intention of learning from them. I found that modeling can help but it’s not without its difficulties.

Before digital  photography, making even a small contact print seemed like magic. With the lights on, you opened the lid of a little box, and put a negative on the glass. In the dark, you put a piece of photosensitive paper on top of the negative, closed the door, pushed a button to turn on a light which would shine through the negative onto the paper, counted for a few seconds, let go of the button (to turn off the light), placed the photosensitive paper into a tray with some chemicals, counted for several seconds, moved the paper to another tray with different chemicals, counted for a while, moved the paper to another tray and swooshed it around for a bit. If you did all of this correctly, an image formed on the paper, and you were the greatest (or at least proudest) photographer in the world. Simple, right?

I watched my brother do it thousands of times (according to ten-year-old world view). I was sure I could do it too. He didn’t want to be bothered with me, so he went off to do something else. But I could use his equipment, as long as I swore (repeatedly) not to break the equipment or screw up. So I started. I put the negative in place, added the paper, counted carefully, moved the paper, counted…I did everything just as I’d seen him do. But it didn’t work.

I tried it again; still didn’t work. Finally, sheepishly, I asked him for help. After yelling a bit at me for wasting his valuable paper and time, he (at my parents’ urging) asked me exactly what I had done. I told all of the steps I’d taken: placing the negative and the paper, closing the lid, counting..everything. “What about pushing the button?” he asked. “Button?” I said. “What button?”

While watching him, I was able to observe everything he did, except pushing the button; it was on his side of the table. And since he wasn’t explaining the process to me (his tolerance only extended to allowing me to be present), I didn’t know there was a button to be pushed.

I had correctly encoded what I saw. I also retained the rule and was able to apply it correctly. My retention, reproduction and motivation stages were above reproach. I even correctly encoding what I saw. But clearly, if our knowledge of the environment is incomplete, we won’t encode the model properly. Of the four stages, attention is the most important.

Most people don’t have a problem with the retention stage of modeling. We are very efficient at converting our observations into cognitive rules. Parents are often surprised when their children put a rule into action: swearing when you bash your finger with a hammer, kicking the cat when you’re angry, yelling at cars who have cut you off, licking your fingers while eating, and shopping when you’re depressed.

Reproduction, however, is not quite as simple. I’ve watched many Olympic and professional athletes. I’ve seen basketball players who can jump up, backwards and throw the ball at the same time. I’ve seen marathon runners, speed skaters, and pole-vaulters perform. But I can’t reproduce those behaviors. I get the idea of how to play golf (use a stick to hit a ball into the hole) but I can’t do it well. Reproduction of ideas into practice is the most difficult stage of modeling.

The last stage, motivation, is where Bandura is most at odds with Skinner. According to operant conditioning, reinforcement is necessary for learning to occur. But Bandura believes learning and performance are separate items. Acquiring the rule and applying it occur is separate stages. According to Bandura, learning occurs prior to performance. You watch and learn, even if you don’t do the behavior. Reinforcement only impacts the likelihood of applying what you know.

To understand people, we must look at the environment and behavior, but we also must include the person: how the model was encoded, which goals were in operation. Bandura calls this interaction between person, behavior and environment “reciprocal determinism.” His theory is behaviorism+. Environment-behavior plus what happens inside the person.

Bandura points out that people are motivated by their goals and dreams. People more likely to perform a modeled behavior if the consequence is something they value (helps reach their goal). Consequently, we tend to model ourselves after people who are similar to us or those we admire (want to be similar to). We provide our own rewards (self-reinforcement), and are capable of delaying gratification. Learning occurs by observing others to getting an idea of how to behave, and using this information as a guide of what to do in future situations. Learning is more than imitation. It is a process of active discovery.

Discovery learning is more than just observing. The key difference is active encoding. Observing is the first step but then the observations have to be converted into symbols. The encoding of a model produces bettern retention than simply observing. Whether the information is converted into words or images (Bandura doesn’t specify how the model is encoded), the conversion of an observation into a mental representation improves retention.

Modeling can, of course, be extended beyond behaviors. It can also be applied to modeling attitudes and emotions. TV commercials are essentially modeling sessions. You watch people you admire use products the sponsors want to sell. The reasoning is if you admire the model or the outcome goal, you’ll want to buy the product. For Bandura, modeling explains the acquisition of behaviors and attitudes.

One application of Bandura’s theory is self-regulation. A three-step process, self-regulation is essentially using standard as a model. The first step is self-observation. Look at yourself and track the behavior you want to change. If you wish, you can use a behavioral chart or diary for documentation. The second step is judgment. Compare your behavior with a standard: you internal standard or an external one (what your friends do, what your doctor says, etc.). Judging also implies the establishment of a goal (walk a mile per day, read a book a month, etc.). The third step is to convert your personal rule into action. This “self-response” step includes rewarding yourself when you meet your standard and punishing yourself when you don’t.

Self-regulation also includes things that didn’t make it into the steps. Some form of environment planning and intervention is also included. You should alter your environment to make reaching your goal easier. Throw out the cookies, cakes and ice cream, so you won’t eat sweets. Or pour the booze down the sink. Remove things that might interfere with your goal, or at least avoid some of the cues. Bandura also recommends personal contracts. The contracts should be specific, written, and witnessed. They should clearly state the behavior to be performed and the respective consequences for compliance and non-compliance.

Like Skinner, Bandura is not in favor of using punishment excessively. He proposed three possible consequences for excessive punishment: (a) compensation (acting as if you were superior to cover your failures), (b) inactivity (being bored, depressed and inactive), and (c) escape (into fantasy, drugs, etc.). Bandura didn’t specify why one outcome would be more or less likely for an individual…which pretty much makes the prediction useless. But his general rule still stands: don’t be mean to yourself.

 

Bechterev, Vladimire (1857-1927).

A contemporary of Pavlov and a major competitor, Vladimir Bechterev began the first experimental psychology lab in Russia (at the University of Kazan). Following his graduation, Bechterev studied with Wundt, DeBois-Reymond and Charcot.

Apparently jealous of Pavlov’s success, Bechterev insisted on using his own notation. Instead of Pavlov’s conditioned reflex, Bechterev called it an “associated reflex.” Instead of studying secretions (a very physiological orientation), Bechterev studied motor reflexes.

For Bechterev, behavior was completely explainable within a S-R (stimulus-response) format. Indeed psychology was for him simply “human reflexology.”

 

Beck, Aaron (1921-2021).

He combined Rogers and Freud to create Cognitive Therapy. From Rogers, he takes the importance of developing a relationship with the client, and Roger’s emphasis on how you see the world (phenomenology). From Freud, Beck takes the importance of treating severe conditions, the value of a good medical education (Beck got his MD from Yale), and the great impact that internal processing has on external behavior.

But instead of Freudian conflicts, the heart of Beck’s approach is the impact of beliefs on behavior. What we believe impacts what we do. Just as our perceptual processes can be distorted, our thinking can be biased.

If we have an internal representation of ourselves as hopeless or unlovable, that cognitive bias will impact our behavior. We can make ourselves miserable by over-generalizing a bad day as all life being bad. We might magnify a small issue into a big issue, make everything all about us, or jump to conclusions before we have any evidence. All of these are problems of thinking. Beck’s approach, then, is to fix behavior by fixing the thinking and its underlying assumptions.

These assumptions are called schemas. They are assumptions about how the world operates. We generate rules about ourselves, other people, and the world in general. We decide whether we are good, whether others can be trusted, and whether the world is neutral, on our side or against us.

Some of these schemas are very general but many are specific to our experience and unique to us. We might have a general rule of life (be kind to others) and a very specific rule of how to act at home (never ask for advice from your mother unless you want to be criticized).

Schema and values are interchangeable. Values that are at the center of who we are. Think of them as super-schema or super-rules. A schema influences some behavior but values influence a lot of behaviors. If these core values are healthy, they are beneficial to us. But if our core beliefs are based on distortions of reality, we will systematically make errors of reasoning throughout our lives.

If our belief is that we are incapable of making good decisions, this cognitive bias will result in our being indecisive. Similarly, if we believe we are incompetent, we might expect failure and try to get other people to run our lives for us. If we believe we can’t make it through life without help, we might over-value our relationships. Alternatively, if we believe we must make it on our own, we might underestimate the value of intimacy.

The good news is that our personality is not fixed. For Beck, we are what we think. We construct our view of the world from our past experiences and internal processes. If our past twists our thinking, our challenge is to untwist it. Since our thinking causes a lot of our misery, we can make our lives better by examining our assumptions, testing reality and straightening out our thinking.

Despite his emphasis of cognition, Beck is surprisingly behavior oriented. In therapy, clients are taught to specify their behaviors, track them, and modify them. For Beck, thinking and doing are closely tied. Systematic cognitive distortions don’t really matter if they don’t show up in behavior. And teaching people to identify their dichotomous thinking (it has to be this or that; nothing in between) is of little value unless it produces a change of behavior. For Beck, it’s a thinking-doing combo.

 

Bell, Charles (Sir) (1774-1842)

Knighted in 1831, Scottish surgeon, Charles Bell, was the first to show that different parts of the brain held different functions, and that there was a difference between sensory and motor nerves. Formally known as the Bell-Magendie Law (since both made the same discovery independently), Bell showed that sensory and motor nerves are not bi-directional communicators but one way conductors of information.

 

Berkeley, George (1685-1753).

Born in Kilkenny, Ireland, Berkeley waseducated at Oxford, spent several years in Italy and America, and served for 18 years as the Anglican Bishop of Cloyne, Ireland.

In psychology, he is best known for his work on vision, his emphasis on associations and his belief that complex perceptions are composed of simple mental elements. In philosophy, he founded idealism and challenged Newton’s concepts of time and space. In 1866, Berkeley, California was named in his honor.

Berkeley’s 1709 book on vision explained how we perceive 3 dimensions with eyes which can only see in two dimensions. According to Berkeley, we perceive depth by associating the convergence of the eyes with other sensations (e.g., the size of an object is smaller as distance increases). His interest in perception also tied to Berkeley’s philosophy. He maintained that perception is the essence of being. In an attempt to counter what he perceived to be attacks on God, Berkeley proposed an imaginative argument against dualism and materialism.

Materialists reasoned that matter is all that exists so God cannot exist. Dualists maintained that this world is a bad copy of a separate world of ideas. Berkeley started with the premise that God exists and argued that without Him nothing would exist. Berkeley’s argument rested on 2 premises: (a) nothing can be perceived without a mind and (b) there are things the human mind can’t perceive. His conclusion was that there must be a mind that perceives everything seen and unseen: God. It is not so much that we perceive therefore we are (to paraphrase Descartes) but that we are, therefore someone is perceiving us. Although Berkeley’s philosophy was not widely accepted, his criticism of materialism and dualism founded a new approach called idealism.

 

Binet, Alfred (1857-1911).

He is best known for his development of the first widely used test of intelligence. Binet believed that intelligence is a cluster of abilities and is greatly influenced by environment. Consequently, Binet argued that normal children could be trained to learn more and that even mentally “subnormal” children could increase their intelligence if given special attention. He devised a system of “mental orthopedics” to improve attention and increase intelligence.

Binet’s parents separated when he was young His father was a successful physician; his mother was an artist. His family was wealthy and Binet attended the finest schools in Nice and Paris, graduating from the Sorbonne with a degree in law, In addition to his formal education, Binet read the works Darwin, Galton and JS MIll. He was interested in a wide range of topics and had the time and money to pursue them all. Although financially secure, Binet was not an instant success. He worked with Jean-Martin Charcot and studied hypnosis. Charcot maintained that hypnosis was a physiological process but his opponents at the School at Nancy held that hypnosis was a matter of suggestion. Binet became a defender of Charcot’s position.

In a related matter, Binet, under the auspices of Charcot, studied the healing powers of magnetism. Working with several clinical patients with symptoms of pain and distress, Binet found that by moving magnets over their bodies he could move the pain. When the magnets were moved to the end of body and then off, the pain followed and disappeared. The same procedure could be used to eliminate fears. Unfortunately, Binet’s findings couldn’t be replicated. Patients who knew what Binet expected to happen responded the magnet therapy. Patients who didn’t know what to expect showed no improvement nor could their pain be moved around in their bodies. In 1890, Binet had to admit that his results were due to suggestion and poor experimental design; he resigned in shame.

Using his time wisely, Binet read widely, began a longitudinal study of how well his two daughters remembered and learned (which he published in 1903), and joined (at his own expense) the physiological laboratory at the Sorbonne. He studied childhood fears, introspection, graphology, inkblots, eyewitness testimony, memory, and how to measure the unique individual differences in people. In 1895, he became director of the lab, founded the first psychology journal in France, and opened a clinic for discovering new techniques for teaching children. The following year, Binet and Victor Henri published “Individual Psychology,” which listed a number of variables and how to measure them.

In 1899, three things happened: Theodore Simon (who worked with mentally retarded children) asked him to be his doctoral supervisor, a grad student at Cornell criticized the Binet-Henri tests for having low correlations between the tests, and Binet joined the Free Society for the Psychological Study of the Child. Binet and Simon began working on ways to measure intelligence and help children learn better. It was an area that had interested Binet for a long time. The tests and puzzles he had devised to study his own children had worked well for tracking mental development but would have to be bundled into a more cohesive collection to be of general use.

At the start of the 20th century, France passed a series of laws requiring all of its children be educated. In 1903, Binet was appointed to a commission charged with advising the government on what to do with “subnormal” children. Although Galton’s tests could be used to evaluate some children, those who were blind or deaf could falsely be labeled as retarded. The following year Binet and Simon created a series of tests designed to distinguish between normal and retarded children aged 2 to 12. They used a trial and error approach; Working with a sample of approximately 50 each category. the children were given many types of items.

In 1905, the Binet-Simon test of intelligence was published. It was normalized on a sample of subjects and was composed of a 30-step hierarchy of tests, ranging from visual coordination and grasping of a cube to more difficult items such as folding-cutting paper and distinguishing between abstract terms. Given in order of difficulty, the test items were used to distinguish between retarded and normal children, not between different levels of normal intelligence. Testing was done by a trained person and given to one student at a time.

The 1908 revision of the Binet-Simon scale, had almost twice as many tests (58) and was normalized on large samples. Based on the assumption that intelligence increases with age, each test level had a passing score of 75% or better. The 1908 Binet-Simon test was very popular and was translated into several languages. Henry Goddard (who coined the term “moron”) translated the test into English and brought it to America. When William Stern coined the terms “mental age” and “intelligence quotient,” Binet didn’t like them. He thought they were to restrictive but the names captured the public’s fancy and stuck. Consequently, those scoring low on the test were not “abnormal” but younger in mental age (retarded). In 1916 Lewis Terman refined the idea more and coined the term “IQ.” By the beginning of WWI, the Binet-Simon test of intelligence was a world-wide phenomena.

Binet’s concept of mental orthopedics never caught on as well as his test. He believed that everyone can learn and that intelligence can be increased by exercises in attention, will and discipline. Heredity may set the upper limit of intelligence but training can improve the scores for those at the lower levels.

 

Bingswanger, Ludwig (1881-1966).

Although he studied psychiatry under Bleuler and Jung, Ludwig Binswanger is best known for his existential beliefs. One of the first psychoanalysts in Switzerland (and a personal friend of Freud), Binswanger combined Heidegger’s phenomenology with Freud’s psychoanalysis.

Binswanger stressed the interconnectedness of people with their environment. We have no existence aside from it. We are responsible for creating our own world design (“Weltanschauntg”). This design can be open or closed, or expansive or constrictive. Stressing the importance of living an authentic life, he proposed three modes of existence: unwelt (around world), mitwelt (with world), and eigenwelt (own world.

He emphasized the here-and-now, rejected determinism, and championed freedom of choice. People should act in their own best interest, Binswanger maintained. We are not a product of heredity or the passive victims of environment. We have the ability to live an authentic life but are responsible for our actions.

Since we are thrown into the world, our “thrownness” determines the limits of our freedom. The circumstances within which we can exercise freedom is called our “ground of existence.” People should seek to grow beyond their limits; it is a process of becoming. Refusing to “become” causes neurotic or psychotic problems.

 

Bois-Reymond Emil du Bois-Reymond (1818-1896)

Boyle

 

Brentano, Franz (1838-1917)

Trained in the priesthood (he left the Church when the Vatican Council proclaimed infallibility of Pope), Franz Brentano emphasized empirical observation but not experimentation. His “act psychology” focused on what the mind does. In contrast to Wundt, Brentano was not interested in the mind’s content or component parts but in the active process of thinking. He held that the mind was responsible for idea-ing (having ideas), judging (affirming the presence or state of an object), and feeling (generating attitudes).

 

Broca, Paul (1824-1880)

Paul Broca is best known for his discovery that the brain has a specific area responsible for speech. Broca hypothesized that his patient’s aphasia was caused by a brain lesion. After the patient died (of unrelated causes), Broca performed an autopsy and found a lesion on the third frontal convolution of the left cerebral hemisphere. This portion of the brain which controls speech is called “Broca’s area” More of a clinician than experimenter, Broca taught surgical pathology in Paris, founded a society of physical anthropology, and served in the French Senate.

 

Brown, Thomas (1778-1820)

Like Reid and Stewart, Brown’s rationalism was a reaction against Hume’s empiricism. Brown re-proposed Artistotle’s three laws of suggestion: contiguity, resemeblans, and contrast.

 

C

 

Calkins, Mary

Noted for her contributions to experimental psychology, personality theory and philosophy, Mary Calkins (1863-1930) strove to reconcile structural and functional psychology.

She created the paired associate procedure, established one of the first psychology labs in the United States, and studied emotions, dreams, color perception, memory, and the attributes of sensation.

Born in Hartford (Connecticut), Calkins grew up in Buffalo (New York) and graduated high school outside of Boston (Newton, Massachusetts). Her father was a minister and very interested in the education of his children. Mary, the eldest of five, entered Smith in 1882, graduating in 1885 with a double major in philosophy and classical languages.

After graduation, Mary and her family took an extended tour through Europe. Upon her return in 1887, Calkins tutored Greek at Wellesley, not far from the family home. In 1895, she accepted a faculty position and remained at Wellesley until her retirement in 1927.

In opposition to the behaviorism of the time, Calkins conceived a theory of “self-psychology.” She emphasized self as an active participant in the creation of one’s psychological reality. According to Calkins, self is not a passive receptor of sensations but an active expression of will.

In philosophy, her system of “personalistic absolutism” builds on Josiah Royce’s religion of loyalty and on Hegel’s absolute truth. According to this view, we are a part of the universal mind (logos), which gives both moral and natural order to the universe. The mind is the true reality and the highest good is a person’s devotion to a cause. Although scientific description of the natural order is valuable, it is secondary to the appreciation of the truth beyond ourselves and our loyalty to the world-wide community.

Although Calkins completed the work for a Ph.D., she was never formally admitted as a student at Harvard (which was a men’s college at the time) and was never granted a degree. Although allowed to “sit in” on lectures, even this informal arrangement was met with opposition from the administration. In 1902, Calkins was offered a PhD from Radcliffe, the women’s college associated with Harvard) but declined.

In a time when women were not highly valued for their intellects, Calkins was surprisingly successful. Although she invented the paired-associate technique, Titchener tried to claim credit for it. Although she pioneered a psychology of self, Allport (who at first gave her credit for her ideas) didn’t cite her contributions. And yet Calkins not only served as president of the American Psychological Society but also was elected president of the American Philosophical Association. In addition to her theoretical contributions, she established one of the first experimental psychology labs in the country. And perhaps most telling, her general psychology textbook was widely used, even at universities that would not have accepted her as a student.

 

Cattell, James McKeen (1860-1944).

Born and raised in Easton, Pennsylvania, James McKeen Cattell attended Lafayette College, where his father (a minister) taught Latin and Greek. Following his graduation in 1880, he traveled several times to Europe for further study. In 1883, Cattell received his PhD under Wundt. He also spent a 2 year fellowship at Cambridge with Galton.

Although a student of Wundt and founder of the first psychology laboratory for undergraduates, James Cattell was more influenced by Galton’s testing than Wundt’s experiments. Best known for coining the term “mental tests,” Cattell maintained that intelligence can be measured by sensory-motor tests (such as reaction time and hand strength). He proposed 50 tests be used for college entrance and 10 tests (a subset of the 50) be used for measuring intelligence in the general public. His efforts failed, however, because there was little correlation between the tests and no evidence that they could predict college success.

Cattell proves that not everyone has to be a great researcher or theoretician in order to impact psychology. A great organizer, Cattell founded Science Press, the Psychological Corporation, and the American Association of University Professors. In 1894, he and James Baldwin founded the journal Psychological Review. Cattell also founded, edited or owned the American Naturalist, School & Society, Science and Popular Science Monthly. He was involved in the founding of the American Psychological Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Cattell returned to the University of Pennsylvania and established the first psychology laboratory for undergraduates. In 1891, he moved to Columbia and remained there for 26 years. His application of psychology to education gave functionalism a practical usefulness that can be seen in the works of his students, including Woodworth and Thorndike. Cattell’s use of statistics and his emphasis on the importance of testing helped lead psychology toward an increased reliance of quantification.

 

Cattell, Raymond (1905-1998)

 

Chrysostom, John (347-407)

 

Confucius is the Latin version of K’ung-fu-tzu (Master K’ung). His family name was K’ung, and he was called Ch’iu K’ung or simply K’ung. He devoted his life to learning and teaching. To be well-learned in his day was to have mastered the six arts: arithmetic, music, calligraphy, archery, chariot handling and ritual. In addition to the six arts, Confucius studied justice and history, particularly the ways of Emperors Yao (2300 BC) and Shun (2200 BC). He was interested in rituals and how they met the needs of the community. He reasoned that traditions should not be discarded but revitalized.

Confucius was born during the Chau Dynasty (1100-221 BC) which had once been a powerful force. Chou Kung, the Duke of Chou (d. 1094 BC), had developed a cultural system similar to the original organization of the United States of America. The Chou dynasty encouraged strong states with agreement for interstate commerce and mutual defense. The cohesiveness of the system was maintained by a strong king who had both ethical and religious power. More often than not, the king ruled through moral persuasion. If one state was out of sync, the king would martial the power of the other states to bring it back into line.

The kings received their power from Heaven. The states were ruled by the king who in turn was ruled by the Lord-on-High of Heaven. If the kings misused their power, God would remove them and entrust someone else with power to rule. By the time of Confucius, the Chou Dynasty had degenerated into such corruption that it was in danger of being replaced by divine intervention. Confucius sought to revitalize society by emphasizing both personal and corporate virtue.

Confucius identified 5 essential virtues: kindness, decorum, wisdom, faithfulness and honesty. His focus was not on the supernatural but on reason and self-cultivation. Confucius believed that ordinary people can do great things. People can be taught and can shape their destiny by continuous self-improvement. Consequently, all men should be educated. Education should be a life-long process that improves the individual and ultimately leads to public service and the restoration of the nation. Confucianism is more of an inclusive humanism than an organized religion. It is a belief that inspires moral behavior and political action.

When he was 22, he began the first private school; a sort of an executive finishing school specializing in teaching personal conduct, government and justice. In 518 BC, when he was 33, Confucius moved to the imperial capital of Lu (Lo-yang) but fled to a neighboring feudal state with the prince of Lu when an uprising occurred. When the rebellion was put down, Confucius returned to Lu and studied music. In his early 50s, Confucius was in government service, including as prime minister of Lu. In his late 50’s and most of his 60s, Confucius continued teaching and learning, wandering through China and sharing his philosophy. He was in his late 60s when he returned to Lu. Confucius died at the age of 73.