Please read chapter 1 (if you don't have a book yet, please let me know). After reading chapter 1, please respond to the following questions:
What were two things from the chapter that you found interesting? Why were they interesting to you? Which two things did you find the least interesting? Why? What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology? Finally indicate two topics or concepts that you would like us to cover/discuss in more depth in class.
The most interesting part of the chapter to me was learning about the benefits of studying psychology’s history. I never thought psychology was so diverse, but history serves as a common denominator that unites all fields of study within psychology. I also found it interesting that the theory of evolution is credited to Darwin, but the idea was not revolutionary. I was surprised to learn of the multiple concept, where multiple individuals independently discover the same thing at the same time. The reason I found these parts of the chapter so interesting is because I enjoy history and it fits into my major of Social Science Education.
The least interesting part of the chapter to me related to why study history because I already understand the importance of learning from the past. I also found learning about old versus new history to be a bit boring. Most of the concepts were repetitive to me given my background in history.
Understanding why studying the history of psychology is important will be the most useful to this class. Since psychology is so vast understand the beginnings as a uniting factor has benefits across the psychology spectrum. I am interested in learning about the different fields of study and how history has effected what they are today. I would also like to learn about more of the discoveries to have multiple originators and why we only know about one.
One of the most interesting points of this chapter for me was why psychology had a history course, while other sciences do not. I never realized how many topics we were still studying tody, that was popular a century ago. I think it would be good for all sciences to have a history because the past is always a good thing to learn for the future. I also found the why study history section about what history ultimately means, "what it means to be human" interesting. Its very true, by studying history of any kind is to study humans actions and how we as a species evolved. I find this interesting because I like to study human behavior, like most psychology majors/minors.
One of the least interesting points of this chapter was sources of historical data,i learned a lot of these things on how to write history and secondary and primary sources in other history classes and its kind of boring to me. I also wasn't very interested in old history versus new history section and all of the different factors to each one. I found it boring because I've learned about these a bit in other courses and its just stuff I'm not too interested in.
I think the most useful section in this chapter for this class is to understand why psycholgists should study and know their history. Since history is one of the major connectors between all branches of psychology I feel understanding the history is very important. In realizing that psychologists continue to study some of the same topics (ex. nature vs. nurture) its important to have all of the past knowledge on this topic to evolve on it.
I agree with the above comment that it would be interesting to learn how all of the branches of psychology are connected by the history and to learn about the origins of each branch. I also think it would be interesting to learn more about the interpretation problems in writing the history of psychology and the process they go through for that.
What really stuck in my mind after reading the chapter was when the author stated that we could not understand the present without knowing about the past. I found this statement interesting, thought provoking, and very true. We are not able to appreciate or even fully comprehend the present without knowing the process of how it got to that point. Learning about history gives a more complete picture of the world, and I think makes us more intelligent people. The book gave great examples to illustrate this importance, and that is why it was so interesting to me.
Another interesting topic from chapter one was presentism versus historicism. I have never heard of these concepts before, and it exposed a bias that I possess I did not even realize I had! For example, the first time I learned about doctors using leeches as a means of curing illnesses, I was quick to judge. It is crazy to me that someone could think making someone “bleed out” their infection would make them better. They are after all, supposedly intelligent doctors with a vast knowledge of the human body. I have to remind myself that they did not have the knowledge doctors do today to know bloodletting is a terrible idea. This topic in the book has given me a better perspective on the past, and is forcing me to look at things more in the historicism approach.
The topics I found least interesting were sources of historical data and problems with the writing of history. I have no plans on becoming a historian, nor do I have the urge to go to the AHAP and research the history of psychology more deeply at this point. I understand it is important to know how to research and be aware of the best locations on finding information, but I’m not interested in doing research in the future. Along with that, I do not want to write history. Learning the problems associated with writing history may help me to avoid “bad” literature, but these skills will mainly never be applied.
The most important thing to know about history is to know what is really the truth, discussed in the last section of the chapter. There are some events we will never be completely accurate on, but there is so much out there that is inaccurate or incomplete. I am sure there are some examples of events in the past that I think I know about, but I am really incorrect. Learning how to look out for the “right” history and how to avoid the inaccurate accounts of history is most important to understanding the history of psychology because if we learn wrong information, we are basically wasting our time and doing a disservice to the true history.
I was a little bit confused about (or I did not read well enough through) internal versus external history. If that could be discussed in class further with more examples explaining the concept, I think I would gain a better understanding of this aspect of old and new history. I also think discussing the ways to look past biases and find accurate accounts of history will make me more confident finding the best information for not just this class, but other classes as well.
One of the things I found interesting in this chapter was the Presentism Versus Historicism section. I found this interesting because when learning about the ethics and bias of psychology, we often learn about the behavior someone in the past, and are generally alarmed by it. For example, the book talks about Goddard’s behavior of giving immigrants IQ testing that was just developed, leading to many immigrants to be deported. In our present time, we have many new technologies that practitioners are beginning to use. We see this as progress, but we see Goddard’s behavior as irresponsible.
Another thing I found interesting was the fact that history creates unity in all of the aspects of psychology. I found this interesting because while taking courses to fulfill my major, I often have felt a loss of connection between one class and another.
What I felt was least interesting about this chapter was the section of sources of historical data, as well as the section on data selection problems. In many courses we have learned about sources of data and the selection of data, and while it is nice to get a refresher on the differences of sources and data selection, it was not overly exciting to read about.
I think that understanding why we need to study history will be most beneficial in understanding the history of psychology. Knowing how much of an impact the history of psychology has on the present setting of psychology can make the course more worthwhile and more interesting.
In class, I would like to cover the internal versus external history topics. I would like to receive more examples of the differences of internal and external. I also found this topic somewhat difficult to read through, so learning in class may help me to understand it. I also would like to learn more about the development of the field of psychology and the people involved.
This chapter was a good relevant introduction to the history of psychology even though it was not the most exciting thing to read through. It did have its bright moments. The most interesting section to me was on why we should study history. I have enjoyed history classes in the past and it was interesting to see the advantages for understanding the past of things and being able to apply them better in life. This section discussed how simplistic the view on history as a map to avoiding past mistakes really is. History is not as reliable and it does not make things certain that mistakes will not occur again. This section also discussed how present living cannot be fully understood without knowing something about the past. I agree with this as well. With out having some prior knowledge/interest in a subject it is hard to fully understand and elaborate on how the present is the way it is. Another important statement made in this section on histories importance is that it helps to disable the beliefs that problems today are worse than they ever were. It allows us with some guidance on similar issues and keeps us humble in several ways. Finally the section concludes that studying history helps us search for so many answers to life's questions. It shows us that studying history allows us to study human behaviors and try and understand what it means to be human.
The least interesting things for myself were in the section of historiography and sources of historical data. Some of this was review for me, such as secondary sources and primary sources. It was somewhat interesting to read about the issues that people have with writing history and it allows us to better see some the tedious work involved and gives us somewhat of a respect for historians but in general to me it did not peek my interests to much.
The most useful information to me for studying the history of psychology would be in the why study psychology's history section. It gives us multiple reasons that anyone who plans on entering this field can use to better understand it and unify the diversity in this field. For everyone in general however, it shows us that the history of psychology will allow us to become more critical thinkers. It allows us to see knew ideas concepts and better try and rationalize current human behaviors with past psychological research and other behaviors.
What I would like to see discussed more in class would be over the internal versus external history topics and personalistic versus naturalistic history.
One part of chapter 1 that I found interesting was the section concerning Presentism versus Historicism. This is an interesting concept when studying the history of any subject. Naturally, the presentist in us relates the past and its events to the world and how we personally experience it, but we must step outside of our egotistical views and consider the historicism approach. After reading this chapter, I am reminded that to understand any event in history, one must fully consider what the world was like at the time of that event. I believe that this is extremely important, especially with my generation. I, personally, rely on the internet and lightning fast communication all the time. Can I really imagine what it would be like to conduct research 100 years ago?
The material in the chapter that I found least interesting was the in the Sources of Historical Data. This chapter started slow, describing vocabulary such as: primary sources, secondary sources and archives. This is general knowledge describing terms that I think most of us are familiar with.
A few things that I think will be useful in understanding the history of psychology will be keeping the historism approach in mind, trying to not only learn facts, but the amount of external factors that influence events at that time. Also, the "problems" that come with writing and interpretting history. I think it is interesting that new studies and experiments are still being done to this day that add to information we have been studying for years. It is easy to say "How did we not know that before?" when in reality, these facts may have been noted at one time, but because of the large amount of information that psychologists gather in just one experiment, they must be selective about what information is used. This, along with the psychologists' pre-conceived notions and/or bias perspectives, can create issues with some work.
One thing that I would like to cover in this class is how technology has changed the field of psychology. I would also like to talk about the history of mental disorders and addiction.
One of the topics I found in this chapter the most interesting was Personalistic Versus Naturalistic History. I found this interesting because personalistic history is important events that result in some kind of hero or villian, and without them history could not be the same. Naturalistic history is the events in history that act on individuals living in that particular time period. This was interesting to me because I know a lot about history, and I have never heard of the views of personalistic versus naturalistic history. To read this part of the chapter was very interesting to see the different points from different psychologists views on history. For example, Freud and Darwin would agree with the personalistic view of history because they were great individuals that changed changed history with science in their studies. Edwin G. Boring would agree with the naturalistic view of history because he argued that Darwin's study of evolution was in his time era, and someone else in later years could develop evolution. This part of the chapter was interesting to read because I wanted to see what arguments both sides of the views of history were.
Approaching Historical Truth was another topic I found interesting in this chapter. I thought approaching historical truth was interesting because to get to the truth historians need other views on history instead of their own. By having more than one view on that important event to make sure the event truly happened. For example some people have claimed that the Holocaust never happened and it was just exaggerated by the Jews, but there is complete evidence that a genocide did occur in WWII. Reading about the truth of history of psychology will give me different perspectives on how psychology has grown over the past century.
The two least interesting topics in this chapter were sources of historical data and data selection problems. I found historical data information to be completely boring and repetitive from other history classes I have taken to understand what good sources are. It is always good to refresh your memory about what a primary, secondary and an archive is, but it was very boring to read. From previous history classes I have had my research on finding a primary, secondary and an archive for classes. I don't think in psychology we will need to find out exactly what archives are in the Archives of the History of American Psychology in Ohio.
The data selection problems was least interesting to me because everyone looses important information, and some famous psychologists like John Watson didn't want his last notes to be discovered before he died. This part of the chapter was very boring to read, and it just talked about how historians lose data.
Understanding why we study history in psychology will be the most useful topic in this class. We already know so much about history and history connects to everything we know. All the different branches of psychology will be interesting to see what history there was in each branch.
I'm eager to learn more about internal versus external history of psychology. These two topics I was confused on what exactly they mean by writing internally or externally of psychology, so by learning them in class it would help me understand more about the concept.
The text and the visualization used in Ch. 1 intrigued me mucho. I felt this chapter was itself a model to assist in understanding and applying the author/book’s stance on psychological history. (pg. 17) After reading the Old and New History “Versus” section I decided to draw my own “stance” without trying to think about the author’s stance. I found I felt very similarly in outlook compared to the author. How interesting? I asked myself.
First I thought, “Wow, who is this author? Seems like a pretty swell person if we think alike.” I had never really thought of kind of “relating” to some text book author. I continued to think that was neat and all and this “C. James Goodwin” and I had connected on some scholarly, energizing level which zapped my interest in the History of Psychology of all things, and I would need to change majors and pursue this different interest area. I was sparked….I felt special.
I then thought, “Wow, two individuals that have never met or heard of each other filled out something separately and it came out looking almost the same………………..or MAYBE I had just got done reading a whole chapter of information that lead me to this conclusion due to its intellectual and emotional perspective VIA the author himself.” So now, finally, I do not feel special or neat. I dare say that, IF I only saw the “Stance Scale” on pg.17 without the author’s dots placed, and without reading one word of the chapter, I would then have rated my stance more differently.
Therefor 2 things that are not interesting to me now but will be later are the concepts that First, I am indeed special, but only relative to myself, and second, I am on the same team as my colleagues but competing at the same time. I would like to someday soon assess these issues, possibly in a classroom. I am excited as I read in Ch.1 of the value of welcoming and learning from others’ perspectives. Thanks.
The first thing that I found interesting was the discussion about buying a 100MB computer opposed to a 100GB computer. The book states that five years ago you bought a MB computer, and now in the present day you are wondering why you bought that type of computer. The argument is that you don’t know what you know now back then. The reason I find this to be interesting is because I think we all have that moment in time when we ask ourselves, “why did I do/buy that back then?”
The other thing I found to be interesting was the difference between old history and new history or presentism versus historicism. The old history is more like the great breakthroughs and discusses some of the great psychologist. While the newer history talks about how things have changed for the better or the worst in psychology and the more recent studies.
I found the least interesting to be doing and writing history, like problems in the writing and data selection. I’m not a big history buff so I didn’t find this part of the book to be related to what I’m interested in for psychology. The other part that I didn’t find to interesting was why learn history. I know that learning history is important and can lead to a better future.
The most useful information I got was under why study psychology history. The reason why is because it gives you a little background history and goes on to explain why this was an important part in history or what come from it.
In class I’d like to learning more about the background or the history of psychology and the presentism versus historicism. I think it’s always good to have a little background knowledge about psychology especially since I’m majoring in the field. Plus learning about the older experiments and theories would be interesting to discuss as well.
The first topic that I found interesting was the fact that some science classes do not view the history of their given field as psychology. In the book on page 7 the author talks about how the field of chemistry does rely on the knowledge of their own history as much as this topic. Being a history major i was slightly confused as to why professionals in any given field would not want to enhance their knowledge of their own career. I have alway assumed that history played a large role in any academic discipline, and that may have been my own naivety,but i still was really intrigued as to why this was so. While that first topic stood out in my mind because it was confusing to me;my second most interesting concept was much more in my ball park. I really appreciated the way the author discussed how we can use history to view and learn from our past mistakes. This is right at the beginning on page 4 of the book, and to me really lays the foundation for any history major's thought process. I really enjoy using the past and history in this way and was really excited to see that it was going to be a part of this reading.
I believe the least interesting section of the chapter came towards the end when starting with the section Historiography:Going and Writing History on page 17. Unfortunately my biggest vice when it comes to history is the long and arduously slow process of collecting all of the evidence and data and compiling it all into an easy to follow and read article. While I understand the time and effort it takes for these books and articles to get made and finished, I am much more interested in reading the finished project and extracting all that I can from that. That being said i am sure that it is no surprise to hear that my other least interesteted bit came from Problems with the Writing of History section on page 20. These two topics were too similar for me, especially with an already established lack of interest in the topic, and i found them difficult to stay focused on and retain information.
Why Study Psychology's History was one of the sections that I believed will be a massive influence on this class, the title says it all right there. I right away assumed that this was going to show up again in the class at some point and should be taken seriously. I liked the idea that psychologists today are still dealing with problems that we prevalent 130 years ago. I didn't see that as a failure just as a way of showing growth in both fields and just how complex psychology really can be.
In class i would like to learn more about the different issues/versus situations that the book talked about i.e. Old vs New, Presentism Versus Historicism, and Internal Versus External History. These three topics were all very interesting to me and cool to read about, however i felt myself having to go back and look them over a few times because I got confused about what was what. So maybe it would be good to go over them in class so we can get a reinforced idea of just what these are and howe they work.
What I found to be most interesting in this chapter’s reading was why psychology had a history course, especially in comparison to the many other sciences which do not have a similar course. I would be lying if I said I was initially excited to take this course, but the first chapter definitely peaked my interest and got me wondering, “Why don’t other courses require such a class?” At the very least the class would be interesting and could help some students understand how their science had gotten as far as it had and the difficulties that came along with each discovery. Another interesting aspect of this chapter was the section on Problems with the Writing of History. I had never really thought about it prior to reading this but I myself read and study history (usually because it us required) and accept it to be completely true. How do we know that there were no biases or misinterpretations when we here about WWI? I especially liked this section in the book because it completely accepts that there may be missing parts to a Psychologist’s work simply because they thought it unnecessary to include it in their writings. It may also be possible that a person misunderstood what they were reading and the point that the writer was trying to get across.
What I found to be least interesting was why we are studying history. I do not think that is by any means unimportant, I just feel that the information has been beat into our heads so many times in other history courses. I also did not enjoy the section on the book’s point of view. To me it was just fluff and completely unnecessary. I believe that as a student I should be able to study and figure that out on my own, rather than it be described to me before I had really gotten an opportunity to read it myself.
What I found to be the most useful piece of information in the chapter was that on presentism versus historicism. I would say that I lean more towards the presentist side because I am always asking how does that pertain to me or maybe criticize what I may consider to be an illogical way of doing something (in reference to the past). For example, last night I was watching a movie, Season of the Witch, and I asked my boyfriend, “How can they just kill people because of some ludicrous idea that clearly makes no sense?” Historicism makes me reconsider that comment. This was what they believed, and while very unfair to many, it was the easiest way for them to cope in a very difficult time. Obviously there have been a lot of changes over the past one hundred years, we need to think about the time each discovery or study was being done and the different reasons that would have made them feel the way that they did.
Two concepts I really did not understand in the reading and would like to be explained more in depth would be, internal versus external history and personalistic versus naturalistic history.
One of the topics discussed that I found most interesting was the perspective on why we should study history. This topic interested me because people always question why history should be studied and the book gives a valid explanation of this in the first chapter. The book says history should be viewed as a learning tool to give us perspective and insight into today’s problems.
Another topic of interest to me was two of the ways to look at history in terms of historicism and presentism. Historicism provides a realistic look into the past by taking into account the time an event occurred in history. However, presentism is an easy trap to fall into for a historian by looking at past events by the way our knowledge is based today. This interested me because the context in which history occurs is of the utmost importance, if we can’t see history through the eyes of the people of a given time it makes history much more difficult to interpret.
What I found least interesting was the topic of how writing history. This topic is very important to the process of history, however, it is not the most engaging reading material. Along a similar focus the process of sourcing history is not very interesting to me because I have already learned about sourcing in previous history classes.
Even though I found writing and sourcing history not very interesting these skills will be invaluable to me as I study the history of psychology. Another skill that will help my studies is the views of historical perspective such as knowing the differences between personalistic versus naturalistic history, internal versus external history, and presentism versus historicism.
The two topics that I would like to go over more in depth in class would have to be how to approach historical truth and the biggest reasons for psychologists to study their own history.
The text and the visualization used in Ch. 1 intrigued me mucho. I felt this chapter’s text was itself a model to assist in understanding and applying the author/book’s stance on psychological history (pg. 17) After reading the Old and New History “Versus” section I decided to draw my own “stance” without trying to think about the author’s. I found I felt very similarly in outlook compared to the author. How interesting? I asked myself.
First I thought, “Wow, who is this author? Seems like a pretty swell person if we think alike.” I had never really thought of kind of “relating” to some text book author. I continued to think that was neat and all and this “C. James Goodwin” and I had connected on some scholarly, energizing level which zapped my interest in the History of Psychology of all things and I would need to change majors and pursue this different interest area. I was sparked….I felt special.
I then thought, “Wow, two individuals that have never met or heard of each other filled out something separately and it came out looking almost the same………………..or MAYBE I had just got done reading a whole chapter of information that lead me to this conclusion due to its intellectual and emotional perspective via the author.” So now, finally, I do not feel special or neat. I dare say that IF I only saw the “Stance Scale” on pg.17 without the author’s dots placed, and without reading one word of the chapter, I would then have rated my stance more differently.
Therefor 2 things that are not interesting to me now but will be later are the concepts that First, I am indeed special, but only relative to myself, and second, I am on the same team as my colleagues but competing at the same time. I would like to someday soon assess these issues, possibly in a classroom. I am excited as I read in Ch.1 of the value of welcoming and learning from others’ perspectives. Thanks.
What I found most interesting was about Psychology’s History. This is because we are able to get two classes into one. I was able to see that we can learn about our psychologist of the past and what they did to help us get where we are today. We are able to read and study about individuals as they helped psychology develop, and also understand what makes people do the things that they do. I enjoyed that they teach some of the same things that we are being taught today. The history part has not changed, but what we do with our future and present can improve science in so many ways. What many people struggle with what George Stocking called presentism. This term is where we interpret the past only in the terms of present concepts and values. Over all I feel that this is not possible to avoid, no matter how hard you try.
I did not find the prereading interesting, by any means. When I say this, I am talking about all the APA stuff. I felt like this was the least interesting because, I felt like it was nothing but dates. I find dates very boring and nothing to get excited about. I also did not care much for the fact that there are two organizations for psychologists. It was more like why in the world am I reading this, when I did not care.
When reading I felt like I was able to understand history, due to Watson. In the beginning of the book it talked about how he was in magazines, he was the director of the first doctoral program. Over all he did about everything and anything. Between Pavlov and Watson, many things and theories were created. This is how I am able to understand history better. When the two did what they did best it was talked about in the term historicism. And some people still understand the values they had them with the history. I also found it very useful to know and read how history and psychology intertwine! This is all what I found to be very useful!
I would like to know more about the “Great Man” theory.
I would also like to know more about Willard Small. This is because in the book it stated that he was the first who completed the first maze learning study with rats.
The first thing I found to be most interesting while reading through Chapter 1 was the reasons given for studying the history of psychology. Though I understood the general reasons behind studying history (boring as it may be), it was interesting to read the author's outlook on studying psychology's history in particular. I never really stopped to think just how "new" psychology is in the realm of science; given that information, it makes a lot of sense that we would look to the past to learn more about it. It was also interesting to learn that psychologists are STILL struggling with some theories and concepts from centuries ago; this just goes to show how new of an idea psychology really is.
The second thing I found interesting was how one goes about verifying that a given history report is actually true. I have never really thought to question a history reading or textbook; however, it really can be influenced by all sorts of things: biases, incorrect information, etc.
One thing I found to be quite dull to read in this chapter was the entire introduction on the development of psychological history. We get it: Watson was very much involved in it, and it emerged in the early 60s. Let's move on. Also, I thought it was unnecessary to include the section entitled "Why Study History?" The reasons for studying history has been pounded into our heads since sixth grade. I just didn't think the first five or so pages of the chapter needed to be included at all.
Although I think most of this chapter will be useful in understanding the history of psychology, the idea of becoming a more critical thinker will be of the most importance. This course may get us to delve a little bit deeper into the background of certain theories and really learn their origins and development over the years. This is a very necessary thing to learn.
Two topics I think we need to discuss in more detail were old versus new history and personalistic versus naturalistic. The book discussed the idea of "old" history in quite a bit of detail, but not so much "new" history. I'm not entirely sure what the difference is. And while I understood the concept of personalistic/naturalistic, I think I could benefit from seeing a few examples or something.
Something that I found to be interesting while I was reading this chapter was the statement about how the past provides use with a guide to the future. As a competitive student athlete and coach I have to look at the past to help prepare for the future. In athletics, coming out on the winning end is not always the case. After coaching my sophmores on Friday nights I always review on Saturday what happened during the game that we can improve on. I found it easy to relate this to the reading because I agree with the fact that living in the days to come would not be entirley understood without knowing something about the past.
Something else I found to be interesting was the question what does it mean to be human? I think this is something that we should study more in depth. It would be useful to know more about humanism because I believe that it would affect many lives in a positive way if we knew more about it. I find myself wondering quite often, where exactly did it all begin for humans? How an the hell did it happen? Are there others out there like us? Studying the history of psychology would help us feel better about those questions since we would be learning alot more about the mind and how it works. Not only that but how people work and function as individuals.
What I did not find to be very interesting in this chapter was how people record history. I didn't find it interesting because writing history is the boring part. I think there are other ways to record history than writings. As a social studies ed major I have realized that alot of historical writings can not be trusted. However this is not all bad. It is still history in my opinion, just misguided by the person who wrote it. They were still ideas from the past which makes it some kind of history.
I also would like to learn about the old history. I feel like this topic is neat because it is the start. It should be treasured a bit more. Where things began are important pieces to puzzles and they should be valued. Along with that I found personalistic history to be quite interesting. I believe we make most history. People make choices and those choices create history. I think that is something we should study more in class.
Personalistic history is a neat topic. The questions of why people make the choices they make and how they are relevent to the histories we already have.
I am very excited that this book is not quite as boring as most of the books I have had to read for class. From reading this first chapter I definitely think that the way this book is written will make class a lot more enjoyable for me.
In chapter one I thought that the most interesting things were the way that the past was talked about. First it was stated that history tells us how the present came to be. Although that is a concept that sounds fairly simple, when reading this is became a lot more clear to me. This is concept is true in everything. When we stop and look at our lives, we live the way we live, and we do the things we do because of the past (or history).
The second thing that I thought was interesting was that studying history immunizes the beliefs that things are much worse than they used to be. I found that this statement ties in to a conversation that I had in my families and aging class last week very well. In that class we talked about some of the problems that seem to be plaguing people as they reach old age. At this current time we look at these problems and think they were nonexistent in the past. The reason that today’s sicknesses were not as prevalent in the past is because people used to die at an earlier age from some other less manageable disease.
The two things that I thought were not very interesting were hearing about the APA and APS and, also the internal vs. external history section. Of all the things that I found interesting about the chapter the snippet about the differences between the APA and APS just did not do much for me. My problem with the internal vs. external History section is that I think that they both are very important views. Although I may be wrong it seemed to me like the internal history was represented as less significant.
One topic that I would like to cover more is discussing things that were wrongly recorded in history and have since been revised. Another topic that I would like to cover more in class is talking about how the forces that shape history are not controlled by humans.
I thought many many things were interesting in this first chapter. The first thing that stuck out in my mind when I was done reading the chapter was the bit about the archives. I know that there has to be a bunch of old data, etc. in there, but the book had some interesting statistics to put it into perspective. There are papers produced by 550 psychologists, over 700 pieces of original lab works, several thousand tests and about 3000 photos. All of these archives stacked on top of each other would add up to two Washington monuments in size!! Putting all of it into perspective like that really gave me a good indicator of HOW MUCH data we really have. It made me really want to go into these archives and just read and study for days! The second portion of this chapter that stuck out in my mind was on page 16. He tells us about a researcher who was experimenting using cocaine as an anesthetic for eye surgery. They found in the experiment data a bag of cocaine from 1884!! The drug was removed, but the envelope it was stored in still remains, stating, "Remainder of the 1st dose of cocaine, which I used in my first cocaine experiments in August 1884. Dr. Koller". This for one, cracked me up (no pun intended), to know that people even knew of this drug back then, and were using it willingly on humans!
I must confess my difficulties when trying to find things "not so interesting" in this chapter. My knowledge of ANY history, being it American, world, psychology, you name it, I am extremely behind. I can blame past teachers in high school, but I take responsibility. I just didn't care. Also I should add that I am a transfer student, and if I had stayed at my previous school, I would have been able to graduate without a single history course. This is not only embarrassing, but darn right dumb!! If I had to name a few not-so-interesting pieces in this chapter it would first have to be the "Interpretation Problems" section. I do think it is very important that we have interpreted our history correctly, obviously, but for my knowledge in this course, I don't really find it too interesting. I want to get into what they have discovered!! Second part that I would have to say I wasn't too interested about would be the "This Books Point Of View" section. Simply because it's the only section that I half fell asleep while reading, and just wasn't interested in reading about it.
I have a really hard time finding one single thing in this chapter that illustrates what will be most useful to me in understanding the history of psychology. The most overall point that got me excited to learn about history was just all the information about WHY it is important to know history. I am almost ashamed to say that I have learned more history in this one chapter than I probably know in general... thats.how.bad.it.is!! The book emphasizes that it is good to know history just for the factor that one will become a more well-rounded individual. There are so many concepts to tie together when it comes to psychology, and learning the history will only help me tie it together a little tighter.
One thing I would like to discuss in class more is the "old history" vs. the "new history". I don't quite understand it. I also would like to discuss internal history vs. external history. I think I understand it, but I need more clarification.
While reading chapter one I found that there was more information I knew than I had originally thought I would run into when discussing the history of psychology. One topic that really grabbed my attention was when the APA (American Psychological Association) was brought up. I have ran across the APA website many times while doing research papers and looking up possible careers. The APA website has a wide range of information ranging from psychology topics to careers, publications to news events, and many more resources for those interested in psychology. You can access this website by typing in, http;//www.apa.org, don’t be afraid to look around. In addition to the APA, I also found parts of the study of history to be quite interesting. What stuck out the most was when the discussion of some history is important to us while other parts of history we find to be less interesting and more unnecessary. In my opinion, I do not believe that any history should go unnoticed. History is extremely important; we need to know where we’ve been in order to make future decisions in all aspects of life.
There were a few parts of this chapter that I felt were not very interesting. When the author goes on to talk about his opinions and constantly brings up how it is important for us to know history, he begins to become repetitive. I find it hard to focus on a subject when the author continuously goes off track and then comes back to the subject. I also found the historiography and sources of historical data to be a little unnecessary. I could understand putting that in a book for those who are younger but to put it in a college textbook where we, as students, should know where we can find additional information if we need it.
I found the most useful piece of information that would be useful in understanding the history of psychology is interpretations. I feel that it is very important for us to realize as individuals that we each focus on different parts of information. What I find interesting may be completely opposite of someone else in the classroom. The point is not to get mad or frustrated because people don’t agree with you but instead, enjoy the differences of opinion and try and grasp different concepts to help broaden your mind. No one is asking you to change your opinion just listen to what they have to say. I was hoping we could discuss the key issues in psychology’s history a little more in depth. Some parts made sense while others were vague and cluttered with different information.
Finally, I would like to leave everyone with this “just as some theories in science are more durable than others, so are some historical truths” (p.25).” I feel this is a good idea to carry with us throughout this course for many reasons, one being that we will run into many different views of history and begin to question its liability.
I liked the fact that the author presented his working theory or philosophy of historiography in the first chapter, inviting the reader to take a more critical view of the book’s content. Some textbooks tend to present interpretations of events as facts. (My Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology (Comer) text explicitly states that prehistoric man performed trephination because he observed individuals behaving oddly and ascribed this to ‘evil spirits’ lurking in the brain box. Rather than stating this as a proven and accepted fact, it would be nice to see a caveat explaining that this is only one interpretation.)
I also like the planned emphasis on the historicist view, as I think that this will provide a broader context for understanding the events and individuals involved and how they relate to one another and to the larger culture that they were a part of. I think that this will be useful in facilitating a more profound understanding of the development and evolution of the science.
We tend to think of history as teleological, progressing in an orderly fashion and leading ineluctably to our current state. It is a deterministic view that suggests that we had no choice but to arrive at this state. I think it’s more informative to ask why historical characters did what they did, than merely ask what they did. (It is also interesting to discover how many of these individuals were motivated by rather petty matters -such as the allure of a nicer office or a promotion- than strictly by scientific curiosity.)
I think I would prefer the author to put more emphasis on the naturalistic view, rather than striving for an even mix with the personalistic. I believe that the specific achievements (claims to fame) of the individuals involved are discussed thoroughly in other classes relating to those individuals’ work.
I also felt that the reasons given to study history did not mesh well with the intent to take a more historicist view than a presentist; it seems to me that considering history as ‘the history of human behavior’ encourages a presentist interpretation.
And I’m going to chime in with some of the others here and say that I too had little interest in the detailed description of research materials. While this may appear contradictory given my earlier esteem for the author describing his methodology, he really did seem to be beating this topic to death (though I suppose that this simply reveals one of my own biases).
I’m hoping that the various issues of interpretation - presentist vs. historicist, internal vs. external, personalistic vs. naturalistic - will be part of the ongoing conversation in the class.
One of the things I found most interesting from this chapter was the ‘data selection problem’. Some of the information that is believed in the history of any subject is not 100% accurate. Some records of psychological research have been destroyed or have not been found. This alters the information that we have about psychologists and famous studies from the past. This is interesting because I tend to believe information that is presented in a lecture or that I read in a textbook, but it can be inaccurate information, so it would be interesting to know what information could be incorrect or incomplete.
Another thing that I found interesting was the sources of the data. It was interesting to see that John Popplestone and Marion McPherson started this field of psychology by having a collection of different papers from famous psychologists and studies. It would be interesting to see a lot of the resources and papers used in famous experiments that have been influential to the world of psychology.
I didn’t like how redundant the information about why we study history and what history is. The information itself wasn’t bad, it was just said in various ways multiple times. First, it was stated as general history and then applied to psychology’s history when it could have been added together and been much more concise.
As stated earlier, I thought the source of the data was interesting, but I thought it was not concise enough. The general idea was good, but it kept going on and giving examples that I felt were unnecessary. The author also added in a portion about his personal experience which I find a odd for a textbook.
The concept of historicism is important to understand. Some things may not seem logical from the present perspective, but if history is understood from the time the actual event took place, it may make more sense why things were done a certain way. It is easy to criticize the past because of hindsight bias, but realizing what their mindset was in the past can help us understand.
Topics to further discuss in class would be the concept of zeitgeist. I didn’t think the book really defined it even though it was a bold word, and I didn’t quite understand what it meant. It would also be interesting to learn what things in the history of psychology may not be accurate, or 100% truthful.
Ten years ago, I never thought I'd say this, but: I truly enjoy learning about history.
Probably the most interesting part of this chapter was the idea that context is important. I’d once read a book called ‘Restless Giant’ which brought together context of our society and the politics of its day. It’s a similar concept to which the author of our textbook was referring. I enjoyed reading through his examples on WHY context is important: Antietam, etc… I also liked that the beginning of the chapter was relatable in the sense that I've actually READ the book 'Mayflower' and had many of the same thoughts that the author of the textbook had - I have been completely blown away by things I thought I knew but didn't. It gave me hope that the history of psychology is just as complex and fascinating.
The presentist v. historicist styles were interesting to contrast. The computer example, as others had mentioned, made the presentist style seem oversimplistic. It might be obvious that a historicist view is better when using the computer example, but it’s easy to forget context when researching complex things like treatments of mental illness, etc.
I think that the most useful concept to studying psychology is a simple one that the author mentioned: that people tend to look at the world through the "grass was greener in the past" lens, when in actuality it wasn't better or worse but different. Things that we take for granted today were – at some point – a breakthrough.
Things I didn't like about the chapter... that's a tough one. It was kind of hard to get through some of the parts regarding archives and sources. I don't particularly find personalistic v naturalistic history as being riveting, but I'll give it a chance. By the way, I had a laugh when the author quoted E. G. Boring, a noted historian of psychology. I’m hoping that’s the closest to Boring this class will come.
I’d be interested in learning the culture and context surrounding using children in research. I also find that it’s particularly interesting to examine gender roles around the times that some of the female scientists proposed theories that helped shape the future of the psychological field.
One of the things I found to be rather interesting from the reading was the comparison of old history versus new history. I had some background on this topic in the class "Intro to the Study of History" with Professor Roberts of the history department. In order to understand history it is imperative to place oneself in the context of the time and place of which one is studying. He gave the example of looking at a history textbook written during the 1920's (I can't remember the exact year since the class was almost two years ago now) in which the description of the Civil War and Reconstruction Era basically said freeing the slaves was a bad idea and shouldn't have been done. He went on to explain that to understand why the author would write something like this that one must understand the context of the time because, according to Professor Roberts, the 1920's was one of the most racist periods in United States history. I also found the terms separating old versus new history to be interesting as well. I found the terms associated with new history to be more interesting than the terms associated with old history because I appreciate and agree with the "new" history way of studying history. I found the terms historicism and external the most interesting because they both involved looking at a historical event in every aspect of life that existed at the time. I like how the terms really take everything into account about the past, not only the existing knowledge and values of the time, but also the societal, economic, institutional, and extradisciplinary aspects of society at the time.
I found the section on "data selection problems" to be less interesting because it was rather dry, and I got a little upset reading that certain famous psychologists, such as Freud and Watson, destroyed some of their work on purpose. I would have thought they would want their work preserved so future generations could learn from them, but they had different ideas on that I guess. I thought it seemed kind of selfish, but I don't necessarily know all the facts behind why they did it. I also found the section on sources to be less interesting because I have learned about secondary and primary sources in a few other history classes so it was just kind of review for me. I did however think the few sentences about finding cocaine in the Library of Congress was interesting.
I think the comparison between old and new history will help me the most in understanding the history of psychology because they help put oneself in the context of the historical time period of which is being studied. The book makes a good example when discussing the study of alchemy in the past because while today's world looks at it as a waste of time and fake science, at the time it was respected and famous scientists such as Newton thought it was possible and attempted to achieve changing lead to gold.
The two items I would like to learn more in class about would have to be a little more explanation of personalistic versus naturalistic history because while I found it interesting I'm still a little confused by the two terms. I would also like to cover some of the actual psychologists and the types of work the studied. I found some of the random stories about psychologists to be quite interesting and would like to hear more of them.
The first most interesting thing in Ch. 1 is that we keep archives on various sources of information from well respected psychologists. I did not know that AHAP even existed, but was founded in 1965. From reading this chapter I found out that more than 750 psychologists and organizations keep pieces of their history in this institution.
The second most interesting thing to me was the personalisitic versus naturalistic history. I still havn't decided whether or not I take a naturalistic stance on history, or a personalistic stance on history. I feel that history and the people acting in history can be influenced both ways. Both of these things are interesting to me because I feel that they help me better understand psychology as well as get interested in it based off of facts that I did not once know before.
The first thing that I found least interesting in the chapter is the section on why to study psychology's history. I did not find this not interesting in terms that I did not think studying this was important, I just found it not interesting because I already have a set belief that studying psychology's history is important.
The second thing that I did not find as interesting in this chapter is the problems with writing history. I already know that there will be problems writing history due to bias date, or the validity of the data. Overall, I just felt bored reading this. It also made me angry to know that certain psychologists ruined their work on purpose. I feel that if you were an intelligent psychologist, even you should know to not destroy something that can be that valuable.
What I read in the chapter that I feel will be the most useful for understanding the history of psychology is the little fact that the title starts with "A" rather than "The". I think this is good in knowing that the history of psychology is not set in stone and is subject to change. This really helps me keep an open mind while preparing myself to learn the history of psychology.
The first concept that I would like to learn about more in depth in class is personalistic history and naturalistic history. I know I previously said that this was very interesting to me, and it is, I just would like to understand it even more so that I can take a specific stance.
The last concept that I would like to learn about more in depth in class is internal versus external history. I do not even know where to begin to try and understand this. I think it would be nice to be given a few examples in class to help clear up confusion.
This chapter is basically all about the history of psychology and the importance of studying the history of psychology. There is a lot of information in this chapter about history as a separate discipline and its importance, the various sources of historical data etc. Various new terms are also introduced in this chapter which was interesting to know about.
The two aspects of this chapter that I really liked were:
1. The first aspect that I really liked about this chapter was actually knowing about the history of psychology .It was interesting to know about how the APA was formed and how far it has come. To know about the person who first had the idea to study
2. The way the author has explained and answered the question “Why” do we need to know the history of psychology and how is knowing the history of psychology different from studying and knowing about the history of other disciplines. There are some very good and concrete examples through which the author has explained his point. One of them which I really liked was how psychology was a relatively new field and some of the major classic experiments and studies are still very much an integral part of the field and are related and studied time and again to explain new concepts in psychology.
The two things about this chapter that I did not like were:
1. The first topic which I found boring in the chapter was the topic of historiography .I found it to be boring as it is about the ways of research in history and only explains about the
2. The second least interesting aspect of this chapter was the topic about the sources of history. I found this aspect least interesting because of the fact that it has a lot a details and explanation about history and not essentially psychology i.e., it does not have anything related to psychology in that topic.
The aspect that I read in the chapter and I think is important and can be helpful in studying psychology is how learning about the history of psychology is important. As the concepts and studies are related to each other and that it is different from other disciplines and fields of study.
Party. Everyone likes a good party. Whether that party is one you barely remember in the morning, or is a lovely wedding shower where the party list includes your grandma and great aunts. So I think it was an excellent idea for Goodwin to begin the chapter talking about Psychology’s 100th birthday. I’m not a fan of history in the slightest, even though my mother is a middle school social studies teacher. But reading the first few light-hearted paragraphs made the process a little more bearable. And on top of that, I find it very interesting and surprising that psychology hasn’t been around longer. I, being a psych major myself, am very fascinated with psychology and it surprises me when others don’t share my enthusiasm. I like that it has a small history though. It lets us as a class focus more on the details and the nitty-gritty stuff.
We talked about it in class today, but I can’t help to agree that one of my favorite parts of this chapter was the close-up on Edwin Boring. One, what a horrendous last tame. Two, what an awesome guy to be the exact opposite of what his daddy gave him. I love the fact that he fell in love with one of his research participants – very romantic. Since I’m considering becoming a psychology professor, I also enjoyed reading about Boring teaching psychology.
I found the section on “Why Study History?” to be very redundant to every other history class I have ever taken; although, it helped that Goodwin addressed this in the first sentence. Still, it was still the same point reiterated over and over. I do understand that this point needs to be addressed, because though it has been beaten to death, its true: we study history in order to not make the same mistakes. I still find this very boring though, since I have heard this in several other history classes.
The other section of the book that did not grab my attention was the section on Historiography. Now, I believe this section could have been interesting if I was into history. I didn’t realize all it took into writing a history book and all of the different types of data that need to be looked over and read. However, I find history to be completely boring, at least the logistics of it all. For example, I did not care about the different types of sources (primary, secondary, etc.) Goodwin explained or how he elaborated on what historians all do in order to complete a work of history.
Personalistic history sounds exciting to me. I love a good hero and/or villain, and to tie that into psychology not only sounds interesting, but actually fun to learn about as well. It will be interesting to apply this concept to psychologists I have already heard of as well as ones I have yet to learn about.
I had trouble finding another topic in chapter one that I would like to discuss in class. Chapter one talked about history in general a lot, and that made it hard for me to come up with something since I am not a huge history fan. However, back to my first point, I’d like to talk about the very beginning of psychology. I want to go one hundred years or so back and learn about the very beginning of psychology. That sounds fascinating to me, to find out where it all began.
The most interesting thing I found in the reading was the concept of why it is important for psychologists to study history. Without studying the history “It is impossible to understand the event adequately without knowing some of the history leading to it.” (page 5) Since psychology is still such a young and complicated field it is important to fully understand it in its entirety. One would be able to have a greater understanding of the problem and ways to combat them. An example that was given in the book was IQ testing. The first IQ testing was used on immigrants coming into America. As we can see looking back now there are more factors that go into measuring IQ. By increasing our understanding of the history we are able to gain more knowledge about the reasons behind peoples behaviors. Would it be possible for someone to “fake” an IQ test to get a certain score? One study that I found interesting was if inmates could purposely fail the test to make them seem incompetent and there for make it unconstitutional to put them to death. (Dr. Lefler) But how could you say a one point difference could decide whether you live or die?
Another thing that I found interesting was the fact that there are many different ways to understand its history. You can look at it through historicist or presentism. Historicist view one takes into account the time period in which the event happened, compared to presentism where one would look at an event with bias to our current lifestyle and technology. Unfortunately presentism is impossible to avoid. It is in our nature to compare things to what we already know. I also thought the concept of personalistic versus naturalistic history was interesting. Since I was younger many eras or periods were defined by one person, and without this one person nothing from that event would have ever happened. Now learning about the naturalistic view I can see how close-minded I was. This theory believes that even without those specific individuals the theories would have came about anyways and we should focus more on the “overall intellectual and cultural climates of a particular historical era” (page 13). It was well put in the book that our society feels the need for “heroes” and so we glorify people for specific events in history. Understanding this concept I think would be one of the most important things to remember when studying the history of psychology.
Some things I found that were less interesting was the general writing style of the chapter. It was hard for me to pay attention while reading. I wasn’t drawn into the book. A lot of the topics covered in this chapter were very dry, but it is the introductory chapter. The discussion about primary and secondary sources seemed unnecessary to me. I’ve known about the differences for awhile and reading about them again wasn’t very exciting or intriguing.
Something that would be useful to go over more is the ways history is studied. There’s so many different ways I was a little confused and I think it’s important to understand them. Another thing that I’m interested to discuss in class would be more of how psychology was started. It was mentioned quickly in the chapter, but I think more in-depth of the struggles and breakthroughs psychologist went through in the beginning would be beneficial.
Two things that I found interesting about chapter one was that students in the psychology major were not taking courses in the history of psychology, and the second is that there were no traditional history classes offered on psychology. These two things were interesting to me because as a history major new developments in education, technology, medicine, and other new fields of research are discussed in various history classes. In general history courses students often learn about the various new developments in a variety of areas including psychology. I was interested to learn that student's majoring in this specific field were not taking a traditional history course in their chosen discipline of psychology.
The things I found least interesting where the sections on why one should study history, and the sections on the differences between primary and secondary sources. The difference between the sources and how these types of sources are used to write about psychology. As a history major this section is not necessary. This section may be interesting to students who are not familiar with out history sources are used and the differences in secondary and primary sources.
The background information on what the said psychologists accomplished or were working towards will be the most useful in this class. As we learn the history of psychology it will help to know what they were working on so as to better understand how these new developments fit in to the context in which they occurred.
Two concepts I hope to discuss or cover more in depth in the classroom is more on the actual history of the subject. I would also like to focus on the personal lives, backgrounds, education, and geography of the individuals in psychology. How did these prominent people come to their discoveries. I would like to find out their personal histories.
There were a few specific things I enjoyed reading about in chapter 1. The first thing noticed about the book is the authors writing style, I really like it. Sometimes history books are so boring to read and use language that I don’t feel relates to me, but I feel this author is different. He talks about how many people think we need to study history so we don’t make the same mistakes again, when in reality, we study the history so we can look back at problems that have happened that are happening now, and see how we reacted then. We use it more for the current things, rather than the future.
I also agree with him when he talks about prenticism, and how our current thinking has been shaped by our experiences. I enjoyed reading about the different approaches to history, especially the personalistic vs. naturalistic. I feel that I agree more with this approach, that the events in history that matter the most result from the result of either good or bad (heroic or evil) actions of individuals. If I think back to any specific event in history, I usually can think of a person that relates to that event.
Honestly, I found the first chapter of the book, as I do with the first chapter of most textbooks, somewhat boring (no pun intended). It was a lot of basic approaches, but I still look forward to reading more in this book about different people and events that happened in the history of psychology.