Welcome to the blog for History & System. What I would like you to do is to either browse through the first chapter of your text (if you don't have a text yet just google history of psychology) and find a couple of topics that interest you.
Follow up by searching on the internet or other sources on one or both of the topics (you will need to find at least 3 good web sites or sources of information).
Don't worry about the writing part so much - what I am most concerned about is that you have fun searching and learning about a topic that interests you and that you have the opportunity to share that interest.
Once you have an account set up for the class, write what the topic(s) is and why you thought it was interesting in the first place? When you searched on your topic what additional information did you find out? Did it become more interesting or less interesting the more you found out about it?
What are 3 things you are going to remember about your topic? Why?
What are some questions you still have about your topic?
Finally copy and paste the URLs you used for this assignment at the bottom of the blog post.
Let me know if you have any questions or need any help with this assignment.
--Dr. M
The first topic that I found interst in in the first chapter was the subject of Presentism within history and and the study of psychology. Presentism was defined as the , “urge to evaluate the past through the sensibilities of the present.” This honestly doesn’t make a whole lot of sence to me . The deffinition to me says because of what is happening in the present can only make sence of what happened in the past? The more I searched on the topic the more confused I got. One source said that in a Victorian case the Victorians were trying to be them and not like us so they dissagreed that the Presentism view with psychology is unimportant. The book then made it a little more clear.. Presentism= past based on present, and Historicism= past based on past. Looking at it this way Presentism seems to be rediculus and just not very smart at looking at certain things. The only time that Presentism would make sence is when looking at Henry Goddards’ IQ testing. The book states, “we are the product of our own personal histories.”
Historicism as stated above is both apart of presentism and completely opposite at the same time, The encyclopedia states that Historicism is a way that interpreted history in a linear, uniform process that operated according to universal laws. Why is it when you look up a deffinition you then have to look up other words within the deffinition? When looking at this topic more I think I agree with this form of history more. This is basically what we have been told over and over. That we, “ learn from the past so we don’t repeat it in the future.” This statement still keeps the past and the present separated. Issues in the past are pasted on occurances of that time, issues from the present are in conjunction with issues of the present. I think if you were to mix the two then nothing would work out. I think of it as if, they were going to change gas prices with the facts from gas prices from 1930, things would be a little complicated and not suited for the time and place of the issue.
The IQ test is another intersting topic. Personally I keep telling myself that IQ tests mean nothing if I get a low score, and say them mean a lot if I were to get a high score. The most interesting inof I found was that henry Goddard was not the one who first used the IQ testing method, he was just the one to use it on immagrants from ellis island. Alfred Binet was actually the first to create it. His major point for making it was to test children who were about to start school as to create a placement for them. My view stays the same on IQ testing as a good means of making a standarized test, mearly for placement.
http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=00BJek
http://www.iqtest-center.com/history.php
http://psychology.about.com/od/psychologicaltesting/a/int-history.htm
http://www.answers.com/topic/historicism
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Historicism
testing
testing
testing history
I decided to branch off the topic of Presentism vs. Historicism. After reading about the section, I still wasn’t quite clear about the two topics. I do understand that Presentism and Historicism are pretty much opposites to each other. I understood quite well that Historicism understood events in the ways and terms that were present back in the times that those events occurred. Presentism understand or interpret events from the past with references to modern knowledge and values. What I didn’t get or wanted to know more about was what sorts of knowledge and values Presentist used to interpret past events. After doing some research I began to learn that Presentist try to interpret the people from the past as us in today’s world now. They don’t see them as they were back in those days. Presentists apply everything with what we have learned and understand in today’s time to those events back then, when this is surely not the case. The events back then had things different than we do today or in the present time. So this made me really question why we believe and approve of things that Presentists do. However I then learned that Presentist ideas are happen all the time. We as humans naturally apply things we know to past events constantly. We have learned many things through our experiences and we highly value these experiences and use them quite often to help us understand many things in life, even the past. So after doing some research I really began to understand the Presentism and Historcism in better terms and why we do approve of Presentist’s ideas and findings.
While searching for information for this topic I began to get a bit frustrated because I felt like I was reading the same things over again and it didn’t help me understand it better. When I read more about how it is impossible to avoid using present day experiences, which is when I began to understand this concept much better. I actually then got more interested in the topic and kept trying to find some more information on it, to better help me understand it and its importance.
The three things that I am going to take away from this topic are definitely the definitions of the words and second the concept behind each of them. I now understand more in depth what each means and understand the ways in which people can go about understand or interpreting past events. The third thing I’m going to take away from this topic is the fact that presentism happens all the time and that people do it constantly. People have just learned from their experiences and value them in helping them to understand life and many other things.
http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=00BJek
http://www.cardus.ca/comment/article/1044/
http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=5551&cn=394
I decided to write about historiography because I think it's important to know where your history is coming from and how accurately it's being reported to us. I find it very interesting that historians argue a lot about specific events that happened and why they happened. I don't think the why is so important since it already happened, I mean it somewhat is, but I think whats more imprtant is figuring out how to stop it from repeating itself, especially if it was something bad like a war or hitler. I find the idea of historical forces very interesting and would love to learn more about that. I don't think something can become an irresisitable force unless a whole bunch of people conform to it. Even then it's still everyone choosing to do it. I also find it interesting that other countries are getting mad because we aren't writing what happened in their history correct. If we have people who are specifically designed to research certain times and only that time then I think they should be able to do it correctly.
http://www.cusd.chico.k12.ca.us/~bsilva/ib/histo.html
http://www.fact-index.com/h/hi/historiography.html
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/BPL_Images/Content_store/Sample_chapter/0631209751/001.PDF
The topic I chose to focus on was the personalistic approach to history versus the naturalistic approach.
The personalistic view is one that centers around the idea that individual people shape the course of our history, that their discoveries/ideas are solely their own and have they themselves have molded and changed our world throughout the years. The reason this idea is so often relied upon is because at first glance it seems so obviously correct. Looking back, it appears that people like Darwin, Napoleon, or Newton all came up with these completely original and life changing ideas that changed the entire course of history. When we read and learn about the past, this is often all we learn-- that these great minds came up with these single great ideas and the world was never the same again. We are to think these men held the sole responsibility of changing our world and that they were all creative geniuses alone.
On the other hand, the naturalistic view of history is that the world continues to grow and evolve, and when certain determinants fall into place, specific social outcomes will follow. In other words, evolution and inventive theories are inevitable, life will go on and new discoveries are bound to happen with time. It kindof centers around the idea that we are all connected-- we are all part of the natural world and everything that happens has a scientific, natural explanation. It's interesting in that it tends to belittle people who we think were great minds of their time, like those I said before (Darwin, etc) because they were just the individuals to take the extra step with the theories/discoveries and give them definite life, and that if they hadn't done it, somebody else surely would have anyway.
This topic became much more clear and more interesting as I learned more about it. It almost had a controversial undertone kindof like "evolution is what brought us to where we are today vs. everything is and always was how god created it to be" in the sense that the personalistic view centers around the human or individual internally coming up with outstanding ideas and discoveries, whereas the naturalistic approach is centered around the fact that we are all connected and once everything falls into place, new discoveries are uncovered.
I think by learning about these things it will give me a better understanding of the perspective in which the authors are writing about history, and I think I'll be able to determine whether or not the authors are taking a more biased stance toward a personalistic or naturalistic view. I think it's important to have kind of a neutral understanding of both sides because that's usually the best road to take-- that way you can understand each side and basically take your own personal stance on how things truly happened throughout history.
I think if I wanted to know anything else about these subjects I would like to know what stance authors often take when it comes to teaching and re-telling history-- although I would assume it'd be a more naturalistic view.
However, I think that for the sake of understanding, that more personalistic views are taught when we are younger because they are more obvious and easier to understand. If I were a teacher or historian, I would try to convey both in a way that made sense so that children and adults had a more well-rounded idea of history and how it unfolds.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Historical-Roots-of-Human-Analysis&id=1282467
http://core.ecu.edu/psyc/evansr/EVANS1.htm
http://www.centerfornaturalism.org/descriptions.htm
My topic is Edwin G. Boring. I chose him as my topic because his name was not one I had encountered before in my psychology studies. Honestly, I chose to do more research on him because his last name was Boring. In the book it states that he was an advocate for a separate department of psychology and he wanted to do more actual research rather than just applications. In my research on him I found out that he had his hands in more things than listed in the book.
His work focused mainly on sensory stimulation and nerves, but he also studied a variety of other names and was even given the name, “Mr. Psychology” at one point. In his earlier years he is most known for his work in sensory and perceptions, but he also widely known for his historical contribution to psychology which occurred later in his life. In my research I found him to be more interesting than when I had decided to search him due to the fact that he had so many things going on with his research, both experimental and for the usage of history.
Three things I will remember about Edwin G. Boring:
1. He was a student of E. B. Titchener’s and he was dedicated to separating psychology into its own department at Harvard University.
2. He was the one who developed the picture of the old woman/young woman for sensory and perception. It is referred to as the Boring Figure
3. He was the president of the APA in 1928 and he worked vigorously to promote the world of psychology and make it something independent from all of the other subfields.
I would like to be able to do more research about him so I don’t have any specific questions. There was not a lot of solid information that I was able to find, and the information I did find began to repeat itself after a certain point. I would like to look more into his work of sensory and perception and how he came to find the specifics he did.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Edwin_G._Boring
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/74187/Edwin-G-Boring
http://www.colorsystem.com/projekte/engl/36bore.htm
Our textbook!
The topic that I first discovered and wanted to learn more about in this chapter was presentism versus historicism. The book defined presentism as the view of past historical events from present day values and knowledge. However, historicism is defined as viewing historical events from the time in which they actually happened. Because of the fact that historicist tries to put historical events in the context of the times in which they happened it is sometimes called “a contextual approach to history.” I found it interesting to see that there are different views on how to interpret the past. However, as I continued to read more in the book and on different sites I decided that there really isn’t a whole lot more to it than that. Basically, presentism defines the past by thinking from a present-day view point, whereas, historicism defines the past by thinking from the time that it had occurred in.
http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=00BJek
http://books.google.com/books?id=iZwXnfYAo3oC&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=historicism+in+psychology&source=bl&ots=czlOjemLMq&sig=xhSrtLwPSh7KZbqPJMKKsCja1DE&hl=en&ei=1DIxTePrGoKBlAe1nNHOCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&sqi=2&ved=0CEoQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=historicism%20in%20psychology&f=false
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4087/is_200610/ai_n17194400/
I went online and googled “History of Psychology” and came across a timeline which listed ‘First Psychology Clinic’ which struck my interest and I looked up Lightner Witmer, who is known as the “Father of Clinical Psychology.” Whitmer came from a well-to-do family and was able to study under Wilhelm Wundt himself for his PhD. He followed Raymond Cattell at the University of Pennsylvania as professor of all psychology classes.
Its interesting because Witmer has never been mentioned in my classes, and I haven’t heard mention of him elsewhere. He also does not have an obituary on APA’s website which is apparently unusual. It has been said that he was ahead of his time and that when he started clinical psychology many thought that psychology was not meant to help people sort out defects.
Witmer had the first clinical psychology lab and did a lot to assist with the beginning of school psychology and applied psychology as well as special education. He felt that “Teaching to weakness” was best and would perform little experiments on his ‘cases’ in order to understand their issues before trying to teach them. The work he did went a long way for special education. Among other things he was interested in intelligence, speech problems, over-excitability and nervousness.
I think in my research I learned a good amount about Witmer. I don’t have any questions as a result but I think that what I learned was still interesting.
http://www.learner.org/discoveringpsychology/history/history_nonflash.html
http://www.psych.upenn.edu/history/witmertext.htm
http://psyencelab.com/images/Discovering_Lightner_Witmer
http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/Witmer__Lightner.html
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Witmer/clinical.htm
In the first chapter the thing that I found most interesting was the Presentism Versus Historicism. These two topics are completely different ways to think meaning that presentism thinkers take historical events and reference the events to modern knowledge. Historicism thinkers take an event and tries to understand the event at the time of the event. By reading this I have learned that I think as an historicist. I do not link historical events to modern knowledge, I take events for what they are and how why they happened in that era of time.
I also liked the part about the IQ tests and how they were used to find "degenerate" immigrants. Being a Social Sciences Ed. major I love history so this instantly grabbed my attention. I had some knowledge about the use of IQ tests and I do know they were used, I did not know they were adapted from France. I find this ironic because the US had some French immigrants, but the French emigrating was not a prominent as those from other parts of Europe such as Germany. Imagine being French and you want to emigrate to the US and you cannot because you are found to be a "degenerate" by taking the very test that was developed in your country of France!
I found an interesting resource that explained how exactly presentism works:
http://foresightculture.com/2009/01/23/presentism
I found another link about different kinds of historicism:
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Historicism
And here is a link about the history of IQ testing:
http://psychology.about.com/od/psychologicaltesting/a/int-history.htm
I chose to write about the Archives of the History of American Psychology at the University of Akron. It interested me that some people went through a lot of effort to put a large amount of psychology’s history in one place. This would make research on a topic simpler. The amount and variety of information at AHAP surprised me, like the envelope that the first dose of cocaine was contained in. One of the first things I learned when doing more research is that AHAP has been added on to with the Center for the History of Psychology. This is a gallery for people to walk through and see several artifacts from important studies in Psychology such as Milgram’s shock experiment and Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment. I think this would be a great place to visit and see some of these objects. I also found on AHAP’s website that they have pictures of their apparatus collection. It was interesting to see the actually to see the different objects AHAP holds. I also learned that the archives was used to solve a rat controversy. Norman Maier and Clifford Morgan both had different ideas of what was causing rats to have seizures. At the time people believed Morgan was right, but after looking through the archives it was discovered that Maier actually had the correct interpretation. This showed that we do not always get things right the first time and with using the archives to look back through studies, wrongs of the past can be corrected. As I was reading through these websites, this topic became more interesting. There is such a vast amount of information there that people who are interested could learn so much from. I think it is great the Popplestone and Mcpherson put this together because it is a great benefit to the Psychology community. The things I will remember most about this topic is the new Center for the History of Psychology that just opened up, the solving of the rat controversy, and the fact the first dose of cocaine was found here.
http://www.library.ohio.gov/marketing/Newsletters/TheNews/2010/October/CenterHistoryPsychology
http://www3.uakron.edu/ahap/apparatus/categories.phtml
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle.cfm?id=1170
The topic I found most interesting from chapter 1 was naturalistic history. Naturalistic history is an approach to history that says that individuals aren't responsible for creating history, outside forces act on these individuals and make them do the things they have done to change their time.
I couldn't find much information on it, so I decided to look up the section I found most boring which was historiography. I didn't read the book's definition of it because it was very wordy. After looking it up on my own I found it was simply the writing of history. I also found the writing of history is not very simple. People who write history must choose their sources carefully and write a story that is true and will stand the test of many experts' opinions. Historiography isn't the actual study of history; it is the study of the writing of history and how interpretations of history change over time.
Three things I will remember about my topic is: Historiography is the writing of history, historians don't always agree on what happened at a historical event, and to understand history, you also have to understand the historians who wrote it. After doing further reading on this subject, I thought it was much more interesting than it appeared in the book.
http://www.fact-index.com/h/hi/historiography.html
http://www.writing.ku.edu/~writing/guides/historiography.shtml
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/267436/historiography
The topic that I found interesting in chapter 1 was that of presentism. Presentism is how people view the past with today’s knowledge and values. At first, this seemed very confusing to me but the example about the computer made me realize that presentism is very difficult for us to avoid. How is it possible for us to understand why people in the past did what they did when we are so caught up in our own world? The topic of presentism also raises many questions about the quality of the history of psychology that we have today. Isn’t the history of psychology why we did what we did in the past? How are we to judge and criticize the work of previous psychologists? Maybe it’s not what we would do today but it may have been very valid back in the day.
http://wordsmith.org/words/presentism.html
http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/2002/0205/0205pre1.cfm
A topic I found to be interesting was Personalistic versus Naturalistic History. The book defines personalistic history as events that resulted from the actions of individuals. According to this view, these individuals are responsible for the great history of science. I think that this outlook on history is attention-grabbing because great scientists are given an enormous amount of credit for their findings. The second part to this topic is Naturalistic history. Naturalistic history is essentially history that goes beyond the control of individual humans. This approach recognizes that individuals can have an impact on how things happen, but it suggests that there are still unanswered questions about those individuals and how they were affected by their world. I thought this was interesting because it still gives credit to individual scientists, however there is just a little more to it than that. Both of these allow for us to see some of the different approaches to understanding the history of psychology. I like the fact that the book looks at both of these views together in order to help us learn about people who have contributed to history as well as the environments they did their work in.
Both Personalistic and Naturalistic history became a little more interesting after searching online. There was only a limited amount of information I could find pertaining to these topics. I did find that Personalistic was called the Great Man Theory because many of the traits these individuals had were masculine. Also, some individuals are born with qualities that allow them to be a better leader. This can be relevant to those individuals discussed in our text.
I also found that Naturalistic history involves humans in the natural world and how we as humans act within the universe. The naturalistic world causes us to behave in certain ways that help benefit us and help us to make the right decisions.
Three things that I will remember about these two topics are the their basic definitions. The fact that Personalistic history results from actions of individuals and that Naturalistic history deals with the environment and how humans act in it. Also, I will remember that in a sense Naturalistic history includes Personalistic history because it does involve the individual person but just adds the environmental factor into it.
I believe these two topics are pretty self-explanatory and I think I have a good understanding of them. As of right now I do not have any further questions.
http://managementstudyguide.com/great-man-theory.htm
http://www.ask.com/wiki/Great_man_theory?qsrc=3044
http://www.centerfornaturalism.org/descriptions.htm
The topic I chose to take a closer look at is personalistic versus naturalistic history. Personalistic history, or the “Great Man” theory, is one that sees the actions of individual historical characters as primary in bringing about history. That means people like Darwin, and Freud are individuals whose actions are believed to be critical in shaping events. Naturalistic history emphasizes the overall intellectual and cultural climate of a particular historical era or the forces of history that act on individuals.
Additional information I found on the topic was about the different forms of each theory. There are two different forms of the personalistic theory. One is the “great man as emissary” which states that individuals act out roles chosen by supernatural forces. The other is the “great man as individual” which states that individuals carry out roles independent from supernatural forces and carry out their own fate. There are also two forms of the naturalistic theory; the physical form and psychological form. The physical form of the naturalistic view emphasizes the influences of the physical world in determining human behavior and development of society. The physiological form depends on a given individual placed in a particular situation can be expected to act in a particular manner. The more I learned about it, the more interesting it became.
At first I didn’t really have an opinion as to which one I agree too more. Now it would be easier to make an argument about one or the other. Due to my atheistic approach, I agree more with the “great man and individual” form of the personalistic theory. I would like to know more about how they compare and how someone would tag a topic as either personalistic or naturalistic.
www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/wei/Psych401Spring2004/chapter1.ppt
http://books.google.com/books?id=1Yn6NZgxvssC&pg=PA420&lpg=PA420&dq=Naturalistic+history+vs+personalistic&source=bl&ots=rAnMHp8o3G&sig=ESE5gpiByb5_9rLOxOah3875lh0&hl=en&ei=SRs1TZW2KsP_lgei95W6Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCMQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://core.ecu.edu/psyc/evansr/EVANS1.htm
Throughout the first chapter, I enjoyed learning about the difference between personalistic and naturalistic history. Personalistic history dictates that important events in the past have resulted from the heroic or evil actions of certain individuals. Whereas naturalistic history is focused on the environmental or situational factors that have shaped history. My favorite part of this section was when our humanistic desire for a hero was mentioned because it is so true! As a culture we have even gone so far as to create countless fictional heroes with various powers that allow them to save the world when essentially it is because of the great minds of the past that made our world worth saving. Additionally, I really liked Boring’s argument referring to history as “continuous and sleek” and that our great historical figures are the “handles that you put on its smooth sides.” However, what stuck with me the most and made this section really stand out for me was the philosophical aspect of the topics that really got me thinking about what I believe about the cause of history. Initially I found myself defending the personalistic standpoint because of what I have learned about the accomplishments and discoveries of our historic figures. However, as I read on, I found myself wondering if it really was just their environment or situational factors that led them to make such discoveries, and if someone else could/would have made similar findings later on or if they were in a related setting. Furthermore, could history really have been due to individuals shaping the environments that influenced our historic figures? Where should it end?
http://www.jstor.org/pss/1456087
http://jaar.oxfordjournals.org/content/XVIII/1/3.full.pdf+html
http://geopolicraticus.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/the-naturalistic-conception-of-history/
I chose to look at the APA and APS. The APA is an acronym for the American Psychological Association and the APS is an acronym for Association for Psychological Science. Basically they are two separate things because there is a difference between psychologists who are practicing psychology and the ones who are researching it.
I went to the APA's website and I found their mission statement: The mission of the APA is to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people’s lives. The organization has over 150,000 members.
Another thing I found to be utterly surprising is the format for writing papers and other things for school "APA format" is the American Psychological Association's format. I never made the connection. When I googled APA there were a bunch of links for both and suddenly I figured out it is not only because they have the same acronym it is because the format is theirs. What an "ah-hah" moment.
The APS's mission statement on their website is: The Association’s mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in research, application, teaching, and the improvement of human welfare. They have far fewer members, ringing in at aprox. 20,000.
It is important not only to understand the difference between the two, but also to understand why we need both. The two organizations have two completely different missions and are both needed in the field of psychology.
http://www.apa.org/about/index.aspx
http://www.psych.org/
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/about
The topic I found most interesting in the first chapter would be the section on the problems with writing history. This is especially interesting to me because my major is history teaching. According to our book, there are two main problems with the writing of history which include data selection problems and interpretation problems. When it comes to data selection problems, there can be any number of things that could cause problems. Whether it is a judgment call on what is put in your writing, the act of finding the information itself, or the bias of other people on what is archived. Whenever the telling of a story is put into a person’s own words, certain beliefs and biases will creep into their writing. This is often done unintentionally.
The other problem with writing history would be the interpretation problems associated with it. There are so many different factors that can influence the interpretations that people make. For example, someone could be writing with a certain feeling in mind not related to the subject and that inflection could come through the writing. On the same token, someone could be reading that same writing with separate feelings and pull something entirely different from it. E.G. Boring makes a great point in dispelling a misconception that history happened in the past and that’s the end of it. Boring’s point was that, “historical analyses are in continual need of revision in light of new information and new ways of examining old information.” This is a great point that shows the importance of studying history and also gives purpose to what we are doing in this class.
This topic was an interesting look into why it is difficult to write about history. There are many misconceptions that I didn’t dive into, but there are always things to learn about your field of expertise and I’m sure I will never be done learning about history.
http://www.mantex.co.uk/2009/09/15/writing-essays-common-problems/
http://fbc.binghamton.edu/iwchv-hi.htm
http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/gwschlabach/10commnd.htm
The most interesting thing to me was the way we look at history in order to present historical truth. Simply the way one looks at a view of history and really anything in life can drastically change it's position in history. For example, if you were to read about the Middle-Eastern wars 100 years from now in an American textbook, it would be about how the Middle-East sprang terrorism and violence and was overall a meaningless and horrific series of battles.
Now if you look at that from say, a Middle-Eastern extremist point of view, they would say they are purging infidel's from their land and doing Allah's work. What they are doing they believe is good in their eyes.
So who is right? 2 different point of views. Are either right or wrong? I don't like too look at history as something being right or wrong. Was it wrong for Hitler to butcher millions of Jews? Most likely. But in the same way, why do millions still follow a church that butchered hundreds of thousands of pagan's during the Crusades? Both positions of power destroyed for what they believe is "good." Does it matter who was right/wrong? No. The events alone causes the future to be changed and that is what is important about history.
I look at these parts of history as a lesson. If you can learn from past mistakes, than that is what makes history meaningful. Also if you can progress with the help of past successes by creating new and innovative idea's, technology, etc, then again I feel history is truthful and meaningful.
Overall the best way to find truth in something is to observe it from every angle. Treat each side equally because like evolution, history is constantly changing as we find new witnesses, writings, artifacts, etc that may disprove our previously held beliefs.
http://www.enotes.com/psychoanalysis-encyclopedia/historical-truth
http://www.concordma.com/magazine/mayjun00/mythhistory.html
http://gracchii.blogspot.com/2009/08/historical-truth.html
I found the Archives of the History of American Psychology to be very interesting. The book mentioned a little about this archive, but I wanted to learn more about it. I found it very interesting that they intially sought to collect manuscripts pertaining to the history of psychology, yet 45 years since its inception they hold testing apparatuses, images, rare books, and films, among other things. Also, within the last year the AHAP has relocated to a new building on the Akron campus, allowing them to greatly expand the archives, and provide more suitable storage of their materials. I also found a really interesting article about a research request that was sent to the AHAP pertaining to Maslow's research leading to his theory of the heirarchy of needs. The request was sent by a historian looking to determine the relationship between Maslow's theory and the work he did with the Blackfoot Indians. I found this interesting because it shed light on the fact that the AHAP is truly seeking to help people to better understand the history of psychology. The AHAP website mentioned that the archives are open to anyone, but in order for them to best serve your needs they request that you make an appointment before coming to do any research. This makes me think that they are very willing to help those who are passionate about psychology expand their knowledge in the field.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archives_of_the_History_of_American_Psychology
http://www3.uakron.edu/ahap/about/history_and_mission.phtml
http://www.ohioarchivists.org/oa/OAFall2006.pdf#xml=http://search.ohiohistory.org/texis/search/pdfhi.txt?query=AHAP&pr=public&prox=page&rorder=500&rprox=500&rdfreq=500&rwfreq=500&rlead=500&sufs=0&order=r&cq=&id=4aa98c5e191
The topic that I found most interesting in chapter one would have to be the section on why study history. I think it is interesting because it allowed me to see more reasons as to why we should appreciate and try and understand history such as the fact that it allows us to see what it means to be human. Our present lives cannot be understood without knowing things about the past. It allows us to put the present in a better perspective and seeing that things we normally complain about really are not so bad in reference to what people have dealt with in the past. As I looked online for more information there were just more and more reasons for us to appreciate history. Such as it allows us to better understand our society and human behavior. I will remember that we should not just complain about the past without completely understanding it, that history has made us and society who we are, and that the past will always affect the present and not so much our future like so many of us perceive it does.
http://www.historians.org/pubs/Free/WhyStudyHistory.htm
http://history.hanover.edu/why.html
http://itasca.k12.il.us/peacock/7team/peel/whyhist.htm
This leads us to ask why we should study the history of psychology. One of these reasons is that psychology is still a very young study. It is only a little more than 125 years old. Another reason is that we are still looking into and trying to understand the same topics that we have been occupied with years ago. When we understand this it allows us to better be able to look at the problem in greater depth. Another reason for us to study psychology is that it allows us to have unity in the study psychology and can bring people from all its branches together under a common theme. Psychology's history is also important because it makes us critical thinkers and educates us about human behaviors.
Another interesting concept in this chapter is the approaches that are given to study and to write about history or doing historiography, which is the process of doing research in history and writing its narratives. When historians create their narratives they use multiple sources of information including primary sources such as documents from the current time of an event and they also use secondary sources which are a published document that uses analysis. Of course each historian has a different view on how to create these narratives. They can use a presentist view, which evaluates the past in terms of present knowledge and values, an internal approach, which is a history of ideas, research, and theories that exist within the discipline of psychology, and a personalistic approach, which idolizes major historical people and asserts that history moves through the action of heroic individuals. There is also a naturalistic approach which emphasizes the zeitgeist, which are the mood of the times, as a mjor force that moves in history.
I found it to be very interesting where the term psyche and psychology derived their name from. From the passage I read on the internet it was said to be that ancient Greeks. The term psyche is said to mean warm blooded, which is said to be life, soul, ghost, departed spirit, conscious self, personality, butterfly or moth. The term psychology is mainly connected to the soul and was first used to study the mind. After reading this article I found it to be more and more interesting as I started to get locked into the reading. One thing that I’m going to remember from this passage is the term that psyche and psychology may seem to be the same; however are two completely different meanings. Although I somewhat I already knew somewhat about this passage I did like relearning psychology when it is said to be the study of the mind. Also I found it very interesting when the term psyche is said to be warm blooded as in the spirit or the soul of the human being.
Something that was pretty revealing to me was the IQ tests and how people could match people’s age to their score on their test. It wasn’t until 1890 when James McKeen Cattel brought the idea to America. As I was reading the article it really started to get interesting when the army had huge numbers of draftees into various army positions. So the army had to then put together a team of seven psychologists to create massive intelligence test. Also it was pretty cool how many companies and even schools started to use the testing up until the 1960s through the 70s do to racial and culturally testing questions. I love it how much the IQ test had actually evolved. We may not call the IQ test anymore, but we still use the same idea with the ACTs and SATs. One question I do have is why do they have to change the name of the testing in the first place, why not just change how some of the testing questions?
It was really interesting how some scientists can examine and study rats in comparison to the human being. When Morgan and Maier tried to solve the problems as to why rats were having seizures I found it to be somewhat amusing. However, the hypothesis behind their whole study was even more interesting. Morgan’s hypothesized that rats “interpreted the seizures as a response to the air puff used to stimulate the rat to jump.” Whereas Maier concluded that “the seizures suffered by rats faced with unsolvable discrimination problems originated in their conflict.” The question I do have is how did they know what medicine was to either slow down or even cure the rats from seizures?
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/greeks.html
http://www.iqtest-center.com/history.php
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle.cfm?id=1170
While browsing the first chapter of the book I found the concept of the zeitgeist to be interesting. This theory that is used to describe history is often not reliable because it is considered “a controlling force that is not related to the person who gave it meaning”. My personal interpretation of this idea is similar to the saying “everything happens for a reason”. Many people say it, but I do not believe it. I believe that you can learn from every experience but that does not necessarily mean it specifically happened just so you could have a certain learning experience and/or realization.
After looking the term up I found that zeitgeist translates to “the spirit of the times”. According to Wikipedia, it is a general cultural, intellectual, ethical, spiritual, and/or political climate within a nation or even specific groups, along with the general ambience, morals, socio-cultural direction, and mood associated with an era. To me, this means that the zeitgeist is thought to be more of a force that you cannot see and could possibly be thought of differently from person to person.
The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel introduced the idea of the zeitgeist. He believed that a progression in which each positive movement emerges as a solution to the contradictions inherent present at that moment in time. According to Hegel "world history is thus the unfolding of Spirit in time, as nature is the unfolding of the Idea in space." I have a hard time understanding this point of view. After reading a quote from his book Introduction to the Philosophy of History: “Spirit does not toss itself about in the external play of chance occurrences; on the contrary, it is that which determines history absolutely, and it stands firm against the chance occurrences which it dominates and exploits for its own purpose." I better understood the concept of zeitgeist. Zeitgeist is thought of as the director of history. Traces of this spirit can only be seen by looking backwards. I could see how this theory would be less than favorable for some people. Looking forward and learning from mistakes of the past is more common than looking back and thinking a certain event was caused by a spirit.
People that lived when the thought of a zeitgeist was more common shaped their behaviors to the spirit of their nation. This was a process of actualization that was displayed by a process of pure and collective will of the people in the world. In my opinion, I think leadership would have been easier during this time because the majority of people would have the same idea of what the “spirit of the nation” was and how to carry out those behaviors. Today people are free to have their own beliefs, religions, practices, careers and so on. Having so much freedom can complicate leadership because it is likely not everyone will agree with the guidelines set by the leaders.
I thought this was in interesting topic because I had never heard of the term before and did not really understand the idea of it from the books description. After researching the zeitgeist I have a better grasp on the idea of it being thought of as a spirit that determined certain outcomes. It also helped shaped nations. Hegel was the founder of this philosophy of history. I will remember these 3 things because they are broad idea and a big contribution history of philosophy and psychology. I would still like to know if the idea of zeitgeist is carried out today. Is it more common than I am aware of?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist
http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/philosophy/history/hegel_philosophy_history.html
http://www.suite101.com/content/hegelian-zeitgeist-philosophy-statism--human-rights-violations-a229308
The topic I decided to write about is the personalistic vs the naturalistic approach to history. I chose this topic because it is a very interesting concept to me that it could either be a single person who makes a difference, or that same person really didn't matter. One of the interesting Subsections of this section of the book is the idea of the Zeitgeist. This idea is basically saying that there is a single entity directing everything throughout the course of human history.
This is opposed to the personalistic approach, where history is determined by a select few people, and their absence would mean an entirely different history. History in the personalistic sense seems to be not an overall force, like the zeitgeist, but more of a collection of individuals, their experiences, and their thoughts.
Naturalistic history is the approach that the person doesn't matter in the couse of history and that the overall environment that the person arose in is what made particular people special. For instance, Winston Churchill was a great leader, but if he hadn't existed, there would have been someone else there to take the place that he had.
The Thing that interested me initially in the topic i chose was the zeitgeist term. I am a fan of the german language, and have heard the term plenty before now, but i've never taken the time to actually look into what it meant, which is why i decided to look up more about this topic. I feel like it got more interesting as i did research, i'm just disappointed at how hard it was to find information about it.
The biggest thing that i will take away from this is what the term "zeitgeist" actually means. I'm also going to remember the differences between presentism and historicism, something which i also found quite interesting. I will remember the differences between internal and exteral history as well.
I still would like to know some more about the naturalistic approach to history. I wasn't able to find much about it on the internet, and i was searching for quite a while.
http://www.soyouwanna.com/zeitgeist-1474.html
http://www.jstor.org/pss/1456087
http://www.suite101.com/content/hegelian-zeitgeist-philosophy-statism--human-rights-violations-a229308