Reading Activity Week #7 (due Tuesday)

One of the first topics I found interesting in the chapter was William James’s view on the conscious mind. Most people of the time thought of the human consciousness as a chain of interlinked parts that all have a separate purpose. To me James’s view makes much more sense. He purposed that the mind is more like a stream or a river constantly flowing and changing subtly at times. He also described the conscious mind as how it relates to an individual. James formulated the processes that the mind works around, it is personal meaning all thoughts include how someone personally feels about a subject, it changes constantly based changing perception, it is sensibly conscious meaning that our thoughts come when we are awake to perceive them, its selective meaning that the mind chooses what is most important when we are inundated with data, and the mind is active helping us to find purpose in what we perceive.
Hall’s research on education I found very interesting as well. First of all I think it’s really neat that someone from such a long time ago would be so interested in childhood education. What I found most appealing was his view on education. He had great dislike for teaching systems that called for memorization as well as strict discipline. He instead favored a more actively involved educational system that would be used to help students learn based on curiosities they already possess that the instructor can play upon.
Another topic I found interesting from the chapter was the how spiritualism came into existence. The rational of the time made sense with telegraphs as well as telephones. If we could communicate over these invisible lines why couldn’t the dead contact the living or vice versa. What gave the greatest boost to this way of thinking was the end of the civil war. Many people lost loved ones due to the costs of war and therefore wanted a means in which to communicate with them. Their solution became spiritual mediums that would contact their deceased relatives. Even though in these times most of the mediums were frauds William James did research on some and found one that attained information that he could not explain.
One of the topics of the chapter I lost interest in was on some of the lesser known psychologists of the time especially Mark Baldwin. This section made me lose my interest based on the fact that he was less of a research psychologist and more of a political figure in the world of psychology.
There was a lot of useful information in this chapter as it relates to the history of psychology. All the researchers talked about in the chapter had noteworthy contributions to the field of psychology. It also goes in depth on some of the more recognizable psychologists of the time such as William James. Even though the chapter went into great detail about James I would still like to learn more about him and see some of his other findings especially those on spiritualism.

One thing found interesting was how faculty psychology, or Scottish Realism, found its way into America. As its name implies, Scottish Realism originated in Scotland during the 1700s. The idea came to America shortly after with a surge of educated Scottish immigrants. These immigrants added to the American “melting pot,” before the concept had even been thought of, with faculty psychology. Had the Scottish not immigrated or been educated psychology could have been delayed in reaching America. Once in America psychology was able to take hold because the Scottish were involved in expanding higher education, including adding psychology.

I also found parts of William James life to be interesting. For example, I found James’ interest in spiritualism interesting. Spiritualism was relatively popular after the Civil War, but most who believed were simply taken advantage of. In all likelihood this includes James. It was his intense interest in spiritualism that eventually led to his downfall. I think it was interesting that a man as close-minded at James could be convinced, at least in some occasions, of spiritualism being a viable science. I think it is also interesting that James was seen as a little crazy after becoming interested; even with his popularity he wasn’t able to convince his peers of spiritualism. To me this part of James’ life makes him more human and relatable. He was subject to the same expectations as everyone else in society.

Finally, I found Hall’s research on development interesting; being an education major his research relates to my future career. I thought was interesting that no had studied the differences in the young, adolescence, adult and elderly before Hall. I liked his paper: “The Contents of Children’s Minds.” I found it interesting that in the late 1800s Hall was making arguments for active learning which are still being made today: Children should learn the natural way, by doing not memorizing. In regard to developmental psychology Hall seemed to be ahead of his time.

One part of the chapter that wasn’t interesting to me was James’ methodology. I think this section was uninteresting, in part, because I didn’t fully understand it and because I couldn’t relate what I was reading to any previous knowledge. This part seemed too technical to me; I like more examples and experiences to keep my attention.

This chapter is important to understanding the history of psychology since it describes how psychology made its way to America and America’s growing quality of psychological doctorates. Goodwin also includes the contribution of women, minorities and their mentors in his analysis of American psychological pioneers, allows for a more complete view of the history of psychology.

In this chapter I would like to learn more about the women who influenced American psychology, especially Christine Ladd-Franklin. Even though she lived in the early twentieth century she was outspoken about women’s rights. In some instances, her statements about equality would fit in with arguments of feminism today. Christine proved that women could be both a wife and have a successful career. I am also interested in learning more about how each women’s mentors were viewed after they advocated for their female students to receive doctorate degrees.

The first portion of this text that stood out to me as being interesting was the section on education for women and minorities. I wouldn't call myself a feminist, exactly, but I've always been interested in the history of women's rights and such, so it was pretty fascinating to read about the barriers against women and minorities in their attempts to become educated. The concept of the "women's sphere" was not totally unfamiliar to me; the idea that women belong only at home as wives and mothers is one that has been around for generations. But an especially interesting fact was that they believed that pursuing an education beyond high school might mean medical issues for them in the future! Studies apparently showed back then that too much mental activity could stunt the development of the reproductive organs! We may not have come very far in terms of male/female stereotyping; however, at least we've grown in the scientific field so we know that that's far from being true.

Another portion I found interesting was that on Francis Sumner, one of the best-known "pioneers" to enhance the educations of many minority college students. I always like to hear about successful attempts to attain civil rights, and Sumner did have quite an influence on the education of many black scholars. Although there wasn't enough information on Sumner here for me, it was still an enjoyable part of the text.

I also liked the section on William James' ideas on consciousness; it proved to be quite interesting. He argued against the then-popular analytic view of consciousness, saying instead that it 'flows like a river' rather than being a set of different units. I also enjoyed reading about the different attributes of consciousness that James described, as well as the fact that he was interested in the function of consciousness, not something a lot of previous psychologists had asked.

I did not, however, find the section on Hall to be very interesting. Hall has never been a psychologist that held much interest for me, and his section in the textbook proved to be pretty boring.

I think the section on William James would be the most important when studying the history of psychology. Since James is known as "America's first psychologist," I definitely think he's of extreme importance. His thoughts and research lead to a lot of future scientific discoveries, and still do to this day. A portion that related back to a topic in another chapter was the portion on Hall. Hall seemed to be focused (at least later on in the section) a lot on evolution and comparative psychology, which goes back to the chapter on Darwin and comparative psychology.

As for a person I'd like to learn more about, I'm going to have to say it'd be Francis Sumner. He seems pretty important, at least in advancing education for African Americans, and they only gave him about two paragraphs. It seems like it would be a very interesting topic, if only they gave him more depth.

Chapter 5

The first thing that struck me as Interesting was the background of Charles Darwin. I had basic 10th grade knowledge of Darwin, mostly associated with Survival of the Fittest and Darwinism, but it was very interesting to read all about his childhood. It was refreshing to read about someone who had issues with his father and still managed to be successful in his goals. I also found it very interesting that most of his education came from a church based school, also slightly ironic, although I won’t get into the whole religion debate here and now. The HMS Beagle voyage was also cool to read about because you could see that this is where most of the groundwork for his life’s achievements was going to be laid, and track the development of his theory of Evolution. Also, the dude married his cousin.
Building off of his background I was interested in what happened when Darwin returned from the 5 year voyage and the events that followed. It seems to be eerily similar that these great men of science, for whatever reason, become invalids and shut-ins in their own homes. I can’t recall the name of the scientist but after staring into the sun too long he became an invalid for a long period of time and only became a functioning member outside his own home some time later in life. As we discussed in class this often seemed to happen because these men were testing their theories on themselves and suffered the consequences for it. But the book made it clear that there were also many other reasons why Darwin took such a long time in publishing his works i.e. looking for new support, peer reactions,…
Francis Galton’s idea of Nature and Nurture has always been a favorite topic of mine for some time because it gets brought up all the time in the field of Education. I have read about it over and over again and have formed my own opinions on the matter, but what the books I have read don’t always explain is the history and overall development of the idea at its core. I was more interested in the surveys, studies, and 180 questionnaires that he sent out to form his idea that the actual concept itself. I have always been a big nature over nurture kind of guy when it comes to Teaching, but I never really thought about how it could change from discipline to discipline so that would be something I would be interested in learning more about from this chapter.
Again the thing I find least memorable/interesting from a chapter is when they begin discussing Galton’s theory on Imagery and Association. I just can’t get myself excited to read something that I have read several times before and did not find interesting to begin with. Thankfully it was only about a page and a half but I still struggle to fully comprehend and read thoroughly.
Obviously Darwin had a huge impact on the modern day science world so I will say that his life and work will have the biggest impact on psychology, but I do so reluctantly. I feel like his contributions are more founded in geology and biology more so that psychology, but there is no denying the impact he made on other psychologists and their work. Although I don’t really enjoy reading about it the book continues to bring up the topic of vision, illusion and Association so it is easy to see that these are important ideas that are shared by several scientists and is referenced several times over the first few chapters and this chapter is no different. The person I was originally most interested in was Darwin, but now I think I want to hear more about Galton and his ideas of inherit knowledge and all that, simply because I do not agree with what he had to say and would like to know more. I think him and his ideas will be popping up more down the road.

The first thing I found interesting in this chapter was Education for Women and Minorities. I found this section to be interesting because all women and minorities struggled with all civil rights and furthering education in college. I thought the term perodic function, which was women in their monthly menstrual cycles would be intellectually incapaciated. In society women that went to college wasn't accepted in all parts of the country, so there were specific colleges for just women. Vassar College was just one of the many colleges that offered majors for women to further their education. In this section it explained that both minorities and women had obstacles to go through just to be able to go to college.

The second thing I found interesting in this chapter was Francis Sumner. In the section about Sumner I found it interesting that he was the first African American Psychologist and went to Clark University that would eventually become one of the best universities for psychologists. Another psychologist like Stanley Hall put aside his racial stereotypes and accepted Sumner with all of his psychological views and him being black. I thought the section was very short, but I was interested in how against all odds and all the racial discriminatory against him, he became successful.

The third thing I found interesting in this chapter was William James. William James founded a lot of different research dealing with psychology, and a lot of his ideas today's psychologists use them and even in the study of psychology. I found that he didn't know if he should go into psychology or art, and I think a lot of people before they enter college don't know exactly what they want to do. I also thought his research on consciousness was the best part of the section because I got a more clear understanding of consciousness.

The lest interesting thing I found in this chapter was William James's study on methodology. I found this section to be hard to understand clearly what he was trying to get across. I also thought it was just another one of James's studies.

I think the section about William James will be the most useful thing because he was one of the first psychologists and had the ideas that many students studying psychology today use.

I think the Darwin theory of Evolution relates to this chapter because Hall went into more detail about this theory.

I would like to learn more about Mary Whiton Calkins because she was the first woman of psychology, and just how she proved everyone wrong with becoming a psychologist.

The development of the education of women and African Americans was interesting to me. For starters women throughout history have been seen as inferior to men. Women were trapped in the “women’s sphere”, the idea that women were just wives and mothers. A professor at Harvard even went as far as saying that women shouldn’t pursue education after puberty, because it could interfere with the development of their reproductive organs. The theory of periodic function was the idea that women were mentally incapacitated during their period every month, making it impossible for them to go on to a high education. Their intellect was also seen as inferior to men as well. This is supported by the variability hypothesis, which states since men have more variation among them they are more intelligent than women. A man that could see beyond this idiotic theory was Matthew Vassar, the first person to create an all women’s college. “It occurred to him that women, having received from the Creator the same intellectual constitution as man, has the same right as man to intellectual culture and development” (171).
The education of African Americans was even more difficult. Research was manipulated to prove that they were inferior to Whites. Bache did a study on reaction time between whites, blacks and Native Americans. He found that whites had the slowest reaction time concluding this was because they were reflecting on the task, where as blacks reaction was primitive showing their lack of intelligence. A previous study had been done earlier on reaction by Galtonian. He concluded that reaction time was related to mental quickness of a person. It wasn’t until late into the 19th century that they started to get the education they deserved. They had to work even harder than women to achieve their higher education that they were capable of. Even after being able to reach this goal they were still not offered much after they completed their education. It wasn’t until Francis Sumner established the leading psychology department at a black institution that three hundred African-Americans who held doctorates, sixty earned bachelors or master’s degrees at Howard.
Stanly Hall was a pioneer in developmental psychology, especially focusing on children and adolescents. He was the first to be interested in this type of study. He wanted to know what the child’s mind consisted of. Through surveys he found that children just entering school knew very little, but he found that children that grew up in the country knew more than those living in the city. This supports the teaching style that is typically used today, active learning giving children problems that would have specific educational value. He also was most responsible for seeing adolescence as a distinct stage in development. Although he believed in the recapitulation, (organism’s stages of development can be seen as a recapitulation of the evolution of the species) it helped him to pay close attention to development across the life span. He pioneered research of early development, which was beneficial to future behaviorist psychologists and can be seen in books and classrooms today.
I think the most beneficial thing in the chapter to help us understand more about psychology’s history is Mary Calkins paired-associate learning. It helped future psychologists have a standard method in cognitive research. I’d really like to learn more about her ideas and how she helped pave the way for future women psychologists.
I found the close-up creating maze learning was quite boring. It was very dull and was only really informative until the last two paragraphs. I think learning about how the mazes were created, especially because many studies uses mazes to test things like mental processing, intelligence, instinct, etc should be interesting and maybe if I look into it further I could find it more interesting.

The first thing that I found to be interesting was education for women and Francis Sumner. Since I am a woman I can’t say that I really agree with men back then, although, their theories are kind of funny. Women had to choose between higher education or having a family, because we just can’t have both. If a women goes off to college they can’t bear children because of all the mental activity would damage their reproductive organs. And of course, my personal favorite, the periodic function….really? At least there was one man that stuck up for women, Matthew Vassar. He made one of the first colleges for women. Thank you sir! Toward the end of this section it starts talking about how minority groups are in the same boat as women. When African Americans were finally able to go to school and a bit later college, we got our first African American Psychologist, Francis Sumner. He was one of two to go on and get their doctoral degrees. He stayed with the university until his death. I just think it’s neat that women and minorities were looked down upon when it came to education but look now; there are more women and African Americans going to college and graduating with higher degrees.

William James was really interesting to me. He is called the first psychologist but wanted to be called a philosopher instead. He studied medicine but didn’t have a desire to practice it, and he didn’t like chemistry, (either do I). His dad was controlling with what he wanted his son to do. He didn’t go to school until he was ten years old because he was always traveling to Europe. And he was fluent in a few different languages. From what I read he seems to be pretty smart. Something I can relate to him is he didn’t have an idea on what he really wanted to do with his life, and I can’t say that I do either. I like learning about psychology but is that going to be something that I really want to do for the rest of my life? His book Principles of Psychology is impressive, 1400 pages with two volumes. That is a lot of writing. Then to top it if he writes an abridge version of it two years later. What I think is cool about him is that he got into spiritualism. I love the paranormal stuff! So I was definitely into this part of his live.

The last interesting thing that I came across was Mary Calkins. At first she reminded me of James, being one of five children and being fluent in multiple languages. Even though Harvard and Cark University didn’t welcome women with open arms she still attended. Something that I found to be somewhat funny was that she and four other men entered a class and the men all dropped out within a couple of days. From the way I took this the men must have been intimidated by her. However, I’d be a little scared too; women weren’t really allowed to go to college. If I were one of those guys I probably wouldn’t know what to do either. But through the hardship for college she did become a great psychologist/philosopher in the end.

Mostly I found this chapter interesting; if I had to throw something out it would be the consciousness and emotion part. Granted there isn’t much about it but I learned about it last semester in Motivations and Emotions. So this part was more like a review for me instead of interesting or something new.

The chapters before this all deal with the history of psychology, and this chapter is no different. As we move along in time we learn more about great psychologist and what they have done to earn that title.

The person that I would pick is probably Francis Sumner. He went through hard times to get to where he did. I think it would be interesting to learn more about him and all the struggles he had to go through to achieve what he did.

This chapter was a lot more interesting that I had originally thought it would be. The book is now beginning to get into the start of psychology, and I was expecting to be bored with people I probably would never hear about again. Instead, psychologists I had actually heard of such as G. Stanley Hall and William James were highlighted.

One of the most interesting topics discussed in this chapter was about the numerous challenges women had to simply get an education in America, let alone psychology. The “women’s sphere” got me a little frustrated because it’s just not fair that women got stuck in a life like that. It was almost comical that medical school professors actually believed women could stop the development of their reproductive organs if they use their brains too much or the fact that women are incapacitated when on their period! I know that is presentist of me, but really?! I am so glad I live in today’s world, where there may be some minimal obstacles for a woman to have power, but I at least have a chance.

The women discussed in this chapter are great role models for young women to strive for their dreams despite adversity. They definitely had enough of that in their careers. I was rooting for them as I was reading their sections, hoping they would have a chance to reach the top. I commend them for continuously trying to break into the men’s world of psychology. I liked reading about the part where Christine Ladd-Franklin wore Titchener down to let her join the “boys club” of the Experimentalists. Another part that got my blood boiling was Harvard not letting Calkin receive her PhD from there even though she completed everything to receive one from there. I’m glad she refused to accept one from Radcliffe; it seemed like she was sticking it to the man, which I loved!

It was pretty interesting to find out that William James was really interested in spiritualism and believed in mediums. Even though he skeptical of the medium Mrs. Leonore Piper, he still continued to be serious about the phenomenon. I thought it was pretty funny later in the chapter when it was mentioned that Hall received finances from an advocate of spiritualism on accident for his journal but didn’t correct the “psychic”/”psychological” mistake.

I didn’t find the beginning of the chapter enjoyable to read, mainly because the rest of it was much better. I did not care much about the Scottish influences or the effects of all the wars we were in at that time.

I think learning more about William James is important in learning the history of psychology. As the author of the book stated, his peers ranked him number one in importance unanimously. Even though he never considered himself a psychologist, he was a very important figure in the history of American psychology.

A lot of this chapter discussed the impact of Germany on American psychology. Looking back on chapter 4, lots of laboratories and German psychologists influenced some of the leading American psychologists who went to study there.

I would like to study Christine Ladd-Franklin more because she seemed like such a strong and determined woman. I would like to know more about her journey and struggles in her career. The book briefly mentions her work on vision, but I would like to know more about it.

This chapter was all about the time when psychology actually started being studied in professional colleges. There was a lot of new and interesting things in this chapter that I read about, however there were a few which seemed more important and interesting than the others. The first thing that I liked about this chapter was reading about William James, although there were a lot of things which were proposed by him, the most interesting was the James Lange theory of emotion. I found it interesting as the idea that bodily changes determine the emotions that we experience. This was a unique and a novel explanation about the emotions that we experience.
The second thing that I liked about this chapter was reading about the first women in the field of psychology. It was interesting to read about the struggle that women had to go through just to get an education during that time and how women such as Mary Clarkins became one of the most known contributors and known names in the field of psychology. As once denied an education Mary Clarkins actually discovered one of the most known and widely used procedure called paired associate learning.
Another interesting aspect of this chapter was reading about G Stanley Hall and his association with Psychoanalysis and was responsible for making Adolescence as one of the various stages of a person’s lifelong development .It was interesting g to know about the influence that Freud had on G Stanley Halls work and that Freud even made a trip and his only trip to America to deliver lectures when invited by him. The aspect of this chapter that I did not find interesting was reading about philosophy and psychology. As I think they are two distinct subjects and the fact that they are linked together time and again is not interesting to read about at all this aspect ties to the previous chapters as well because we have already studied about the relationship between philosophy and psychology in those chapters.
I think knowledge about the first women psychologists and their contributions to the field is a very relevant part of the history of psychology hence it is important that we know about it when we study the history of psychology.

Three things I found interesting were the emergence of university psychology at Johns Hopkins, William James's Darwinist bent, and the development of rat mazes.

As I start working on my graduate school applications, I am gaining a familiarity with how graduate programs in psychology work, so I thought it was really interesting to see that the assistantship model has been around since the establishment of the psychology program at Johns Hopkins.

I never knew that William James harbored a disdain for tedious scientific work. When I read about his experiences with chemistry, I had to laugh a little, because chemistry was a bit tedious for me as well. What I thought was very interesting were James's ideas that were influenced by Darwin. I wondered last week why we were studying Darwin in a history of psych class, but now I see how critical it is to the functionalist viewpoint.

I thought the development of rat mazes was pretty interesting, because I've always thought of rats in mazes when I thought of psychology (I used to wonder why they used rats instead of just putting people in the mazes with a pizza at the end). It was cool to read about how that came about.

I was not very interested in spiritualism (I never am, really), because it seems so unscientific. I don't think of science as a discrete and unattached area of study, but as a perspective. It's a way of approaching the world, and spiritualism is not very scientific.

I think it's pretty clear that William James is the person in this chapter who is most important in understanding the history of psychology, since he's viewed as such a historically important figure for the field.

In terms of earlier chapters, I thought the section on Wundt is interesting, because of the lack of interest James had in Wundt's work, because he thought it was so tedious.

I would like to learn a bit more about William James, I'll probably reread the section on James and do a little bit of outside reading as well.

First, I found the section about Mary Calkins to interesting. Labeled as an unofficial guest at seminars she went on to shatter stereotypes and empower women everywhere. Calkins not only was not only accepted into the field of psychology she also went on to have important contributions, some of which are still important today. What struck me as most important about her to me was that she was elected president of the APA. Her election showed that she not only broke in to the good old boys club of psychology but she had attained significant rank.

Another thing that I found interesting was how and why the number of universities increased in America. One factor being a land grant but, the more interesting factor to me were the individuals who led to the construction of university. A lot of universities were created because men wanted to have their names associated with something known worldwide. I find that to be pretty prideful, but it did however help advance the field of psychology

Lastly, I found it interesting that there was a time when there was not enough faculty for all universities to stay open. For instance it talks about how Clark almost closed down because a lot of the faculty left for hire paying positions elsewhere. This is the polar opposite of what happens with schools nowadays with so many educated people struggling to find jobs. I think that this is just an interesting thing to think about because it will never be like this again.

What I found to be the least interesting part of the chapter was the section on William James and methodology. What made this uninteresting to me was that he had so much focus on Introspective observation. James even admitted that there was open to a lot of bias since there was no one else to verify the findings. I just found it a little weird that he would openly admit that there was probably a problem with research, but yet go on trying to do it.

. The thing that I learned that I believe is most useful to understanding the history of psychology was how psychology in American became important. I think the person who had the biggest impact on the popularity of psychology in America G Stanley Hall. Also, without individuals like with money who were convinced by psychologist to finance universities this may never have happened. I think that this is essential for me to understand since I am studying psychology in America.

Just like in some the chapters that we have already read this chapter continued talking about things being done in laboratories. In these laboratories in America lot of research was being done with a lot of the same method that were being used in other countries. I know that this is because many of the American psychologist that I read about earlier who spent time in different countries learning.

The individual that I want to learn more about is Francis Sumner. I want to learn more about him because he a minority who found success in the field although I am sure he had a lot of people rooting against him. I also want to learn more about him because I think that individuals like him inspired others minorities to continue striving to get a much education as they possibly could. In learning about him I would like to know if he had any key contributions to the field or if he struggled to get others to acknowledge his work.

Consciousness is extremely important to the psychology field. One could argue it’s the entire reason for our science. I may even be one to argue this statement, which is why I found William James’ work so interesting. The way he looked at the conscious mind “clicked” much better than the time’s current beliefs. This was not only true for how the mind functions but how consciousness and the individual interact as well. Thinking about consciousness is somewhat difficult and almost overwhelming. Maybe that’s why some considered James to be a little off the deep end.

Another thing I found interesting, as I see lots in our class did, was the portion of the text on the history of women and education. The things people believed were crazy. I mean, did people seriously believe that if a woman attended school it would be hazardous to her reproductive health? Like, seriously?! This is absurd to me. I understand how important it was for women to stay at home and what not, but that is just ridiculous. Reading about the struggles for women obtaining an education really makes me rethink complaining on going to class. I’m extremely blessed to live in the era I do and very thankful for those who made it possible for me to get a degree.

With that being said, the last section I decided to write about was the one on Mary Calkins. This woman was smart enough to know that her ovaries would be safe and sound even though she attended college. She beat the struggle of attending college and made it to Harvard. It’s a good thing too. Calkins ended up doing great things in the worlds of psychology and philosophy. It makes we missed out on the teachings of other great women during this era.

One of my favorite things about the chapters are the close ups, and unfortunately, I did not like the close up this time. The close up was about the creation of rat mazes. For starters, I’m a prissy little girl and rats gross me out. So this could be a big reason for me not liking this portion. I also found the section to be quite dull and held little information. It was a lot of salad and not a lot of meat.

This chapter ties in with the rest because it’s another building block to the field of Psychology. History and all its individual portions are like blocks to create one whole piece – psychology.

I’d love to hear more about Mary Calkins. Her “I don’t care, I’m determined” attitude is very inspiring. It’d be fun to here more about her history (yes I said it- requesting for more history) and her other contributions to psychology.

Much of the content in chapter 6 is related to current course content being covered in a class I am taking this semester called “US Since 1877” I found it interested to attempt to integrate my interests to further retentions in each class respectively, as well as my life…..respectively, or however I can get it.

In America Past and Present: Volume 2 by Divine, Breen, Fredrickson, Williams, Gross, and Brands, a section title “Society’s Masses” described how women were squeezed out of positions in medical and professional fields by men in the late 19th century and early 20th century United States. Barnard College was quoted to say concerning, a promising physicist in 1906 named Harriet Brooks, that married women should “dignify their home-making into a profession, and not assume that she can carry on two full professions at a time.” One man is quoted to say of women’s employment that it “stripped them of that modest demeanor that lends a charm to their kind.” This is congruent with the mentioning in our History of Modern Psychology written by Goodwin, as is reported on page 171 in the argument that women were intellectually inferior to men. I find this very sad but in the context of the time and environment, men may have felt intimidated. Also, there is the whole interpretation of the Bible and all that. To me, this is a great example of why I value historical study. Why go over similar processes again and again when I have learned better? I got no time for that. Girls Rule.

I also find interest in the title “Society’s Masses.” I find more powerful the possible titles of “Society’s Individuals” or “Individual’s Masses.” I have felt it difficult to keep in mind the individualized presentation of History of Modern Psychology, but in integrating these two mention history textbooks I have sparked interest in taking contextual information presented in US History, and integrating it with individual descriptions in History of Psychology.

In both subject textbooks, I have read of the value of education in reformation. Women, minorities, and children who grow up in ill-treatment, become the very examples of “giving back.” In History of Modern Psychology, Francis Sumner is noted for founding Lincoln University, the United States’ 1st black college. In America Past and Present: Volume 2, Andrew Carnegie’s childhood experience is described as difficult immigrant living situation. Carnegie grows to own the majority of nation’s steel industry, and gives support to libraries and universities to better education and provide more educational opportunities.

I am interested but not at the moment in William James and discussion of “free will.” I would greatly enjoy discussion of these topics in class with my distinguished colleagues. Thanks!!

Possibly because I’m a dork who loves school, I thought Thomas Upham and the story of how he created the first psychology textbook was interesting. I love that the author of our textbook listed some of the topics and how they were organized in his three divisions, and even the organization themselves: The Intellect, The Sensibilities, and The Will. I’m not sure how difficult his text might be to read, but I’m curious and might look it up.

A fascinating point brought out in this chapter explained why God was preached right along with psychology and other subjects – that most professors were Protestant ministers. Then around the mid- to late- 1800s, American universities began to develop with the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862. I’d never heard of this before, but it involved giving a minimum of 30,000 acres of federal land to each state, and if the state built a university on it within five years, it could keep the land. If not, it went back into the federal government’s ownership. This turned the university trade into one performed by laypeople rather than ministers. I did a little research, and ISU (originally the State Agricultural College) was the state university built using the land-grant.

Lastly, I thought the “women’s sphere” was really amusing. I knew that women had been encouraged in that era to stay home and fulfill their roles as wife, mother, and housekeeper, but I’d never heard about the so-called medical consequences of education. I literally laughed out loud when I read: “One Harvard medical school professor urged women to abandon education after reaching puberty; too much mental activity after that stage could retard the development of their reproductive organs…” I wish my ovaries knew that before my egg went and split into triplets.

The worst part is that there were surely parents who listened to that idiot and took their girls out of school. I wonder how many brilliant women’s careers or educations were cut short because they never went past 8th grade. And the periodic function?? The one thing I don’t quite understand is the jump to the variability hypothesis and why men were selected by nature to be more intelligent. I read over it twice and never caught what evidence suggested that men had a higher survival rate (or is that implied since women died during childbirth? I believe women currently make up 52% of the world, so does that mean we are naturally selected and better than men now?)

I know this is four things (I’m typing as I’m going through the chapter and stumbled upon something else) but I thought it was amazing to hear that Bache changed his interpretation of reaction times simply because he had a preconceived notion that African- and Native-Americans were more “primitive” or stupid than Whites. I loved hearing that – even though they lost opportunities in other careers due to race – the highly educated African Americans who got advanced degrees were able to use their intelligence to give other African Americans a fantastic education.

The part I was least interested in was probably the beginning of the bio of William James’s life in his “formative years.” I can’t help but hear the tiny violins playing whenever I read of a young, white, privileged youth who is tormented and can’t decide which field to study.

As another person I’d be interested to learn more about, I’d choose Mary Whiton Calkins. I was intrigued by her association research – specifically her methods – and then shocked when I learned that Harvard never did honor her doctorate degree even though her examiners argued that she was perhaps the most brilliant of all the recent candidates of the philosophical PhD.

This last bit along with Bache’s research definitely relates to the previous chapters because it once again shows how we must be careful to leave our biases at the door when we approach psychology if it will ever be considered legitimate. Math and biology might not be colored by prejudice, but psychology has so much room for error and interpretation that we must be doubly careful. These prejudices can better help us understand why some research might have been found out to be interpreted incorrectly (or skewed against a group) and later disproven.