Topical Blog Week #7 (Due Thursday)

For this weeks topical blog I would like to discuss the works of G. Stanley Hall and specifically his theory of recapitulation (which wasn't originally his at all, but instead started with a German evolutionary biologist named Ernst Haeckel).
This theory is a work off of Darwin's evolutionary ideas (as many of the ideas in this chapter were) and proposed that an organism's stages of development, from cell to fully formed individual, can be seen as a recapitulation of the evolution of the species.
The first interesting thing that I found was that the definition of the word recapitulation has nothing to do with science at all. Instead it refers to musical sonatas and is defined as: a section of musical sonata form where the exposition is repeated in an altered form and the development is concluded. Now looking at this definition it is kind of weird that the title of this theory comes from a word talking about music but when you look at the musical definition of the word "recapitulation" it is slightly similar to how it is used in the scientifical sense. Meaning that they both refer to something that is repeated, but in an altered form (this loosely describes evolution) and then from that altered form the development is concluded. This can be thought of in terms of science in the recapitulation theory in that the recapitulation theory states that an organism's form comes from an earlier form just slightly altered and is developed from there.
G. Stanley Hall adapted this recaptituation theory and applied it to childhood development even after a child is born. Hall believed that a child develops it's best when it's not forced to conform or restrained at all from evolving freely. There is a specific pattern that Hall recognized children must go through to complete their evolution into adulthood. This patter included:
-Age 6-7 being able to express his/her animal spirits freely with much energy that children of that age possess. This stage was also associated with little rational thinking and quick decision making because it was thought that children at this age were not capable of higher thinking.
-Age 8 the formal learning skills should be fully developed as the brain is fully developed at this point in time. This being said, it was considered cruel and rude if a child did not exhibit reasoning skills. Basically if they knew their right from wrong but shouldn't have to deal with moral issues as they are not ready yet.
-Adolescence: In this stage the child is said to be rebirthed into a stage focused on sex. They are now physically fit and this is when their true education can begin, including moral dilemas and love and serivice to others. This is when Hall advocated that there be no more coeducation because neither females or males could optimally learn when there was the distraction of the opposite sex to worry about.
The main thinking behind all of Hall's stages was that true education couldn't begin until physical development was complete. Then you could begin to understand involvement in moral issues and your own sense of being.
Although the recapituation theory is no longer accepted, it had an influential impact on the science of the mind and developmental psychology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recapitulation
-Definition of recapitulation and it's relation to music and the scientific theory
http://muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/hall.htm
-Biography of Hall and his theory
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=456871
-Discussion of whether recapituation theory is still valid today or if it stood the test of time.

The topic that I had chosen to dig deeper into is that of William James and his life and contributions. I had decided to choose this topic because his concept of pragmatism, and kind of deciding if what truth somebody is trying to find is really worthwhile or important. This didn’t really seem like a response that would come from a philosopher since they are viewed as people that want to explain all the why’s of the universe, so I wanted to look more into that concept and try as well as his life in general. This topic relates to the chapter because it also discusses James and how he was fundamental American psychology, and even is considered the “father of American psychology.”
William James was born in New York City in 1842 into a wealthy family whose father greatly emphasized the importance of education. His family traveled to Europe frequently, attended the best schools, and was very exposed to art and culture which sparked his interest in becoming a painter. He had originally went to school to study art, but after a year he changed his mind and went to Harvard to study chemistry.
He had begun to suffer from health problems and depression problems, and it was after his move to Germany and France where he studied with Hemholtz that he began interested in the concept of psychology.
One theory that he was a co-contributor was the James-Lange that stated that emotion was a result of our interpretations to a physiological response to an event. An article uses a bear example saying that he didn’t believe a we ran because we were afraid of the bear, but we were afraid because we ran from the bear. The running is the physiological response to the event of seeing a bear, and the adrenaline rush and faster heartbeat equaled to the emotion fear.
He had also the concept of pragmatism which believes that a truth of an idea is something that can’t be proven, but instead what we hold to be more important is the usefulness of the idea. Pragmatism tries to trace the practicalities behind ideas, and if there are no practical implications there is no difference between the ideas. One quote by James that I believe is most appropriate is: “what concrete difference will its being true make in one's actual life? … What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What in short is the truth's cash-value in experiential terms?’” because it isn’t overly wordy, and right down to the point he is trying to make about pragmatism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James#Theory_of_emotion
-Information on pragmatism and biography

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/james/#5
-Biographical purposes

http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/jamesbio.htm
-Information on the James-Lange theory of emotion

For my topical blog I decided to explore the life of Christine Ladd-Franklin a bit more in depth. Christine “Kitty” Ladd was born on December 1st, 1847 in Windsor, Connecticut to Eliphalet Ladd, a merchant, and Augusta Niles Ladd. In her early childhood years she lived with her parents and younger brother Henry in New York City. In 1853, the family moved back to Connecticut where her sister Jane was born the following year. In the spring of 1860, Christine’s mother passed away of pneumonia, following her death, Ladd went to go live with her grandmother in Portsmouth, New Hampshire where she began attending school. Ladd’s father remarried in 1862 and later produced Christine’s half sister Katherine and her half brother George. Christine was a very driven child wanting to continue her education far beyond secondary school. Her father enrolled her into a two year program at a coeducational academy in Wilbraham, Massachusetts where she took the same courses that prepared boys in furthering their education to colleges such as Harvard. In 1865, Christine Ladd was the valedictorian and graduated from Welshing Academy.

In the fall of 1866, Ladd enrolled in Vassar College on loans provided by her late mother’s sister. Unfortunately, due to financial troubles, Ladd was only able to study at Vassar until the end of the spring term. When she was not in school, Ladd worked as a public school teacher until her aunt started to pay for her collegiate career again. This allowed her to return to Vassar and graduate in 1869. Ladd was very interested in studying physics, but knew that the field was not open for women to study, so she study math.

Vassar College proved to be a great influence in her developing interest in science, as well as her involvement in women’s rights activism. A female astronomy professor, Maria Mitchell, was a role model and inspiration to Christine while at Vassar. Mitchell encouraged Ladd to pursue her interests in mathematics and science. Christine regularly attended women’s rights lectures and activities at Vassar and even wrote two letters to her aunt talking about women’s rights at Vassar. After her graduation from Vassar, Ladd became an instructor of science and math in secondary schools in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York and published multiple articles on mathematics. In an effort to escape her job, she applied as a graduate student to Johns Hopkins University as a graduate student, a university not typically open to women. James Sylvester, a man who was very aware and familiar with Ladd’s publications and pushed for the university to admit her. In 1878 she was accepted on the terms that she would only attend his lectures. After a year, Ladd was given the “okay” to do more than just attend lectures and was given a stipend. Although given the stipend, she was not specifically seen as a student, but noted on the record. During her time at Johns Hopkins, she published several papers to the American Journal of Mathematics, but was her interest was piqued with the work of symbolic logic. She then wrote her dissertation on the subject and got it published 1883. In 1926, she was awarded a Ph.D and was given an honorary LL.D from Vassar in 1887.

Ladd married Fabian Franklin in her mid-thirties. Franklin was a member of the math department at Johns Hopkins. Within two years, they had two children, daughter Margaret who later became a prominent member of the women’s suffrage movement, and another who died in infancy. After leaving Hopkins, Ladd, worked with a prominent German psychologist G.E. Muller, where she carried out experimental work in vision.

One of the major contributions Ladd-Franklin made to psychology was her theory of color vision, which was based on evolution. She concluded that color vision was evolved in three stages; Achromatic vision (which is black and white), blue-yellow sensitivity, and red-green sensitivity. Since the red-green spectrum was the last to develop, this explains why many people suffer from this type of color blindness. Among her other achievements, Ladd-Franklin was the first woman to receive a Ph.D in math and logic, and one of the first women inducted into the APA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Ladd-Franklin
-General explanation of Ladd-Franklin’s life
http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/christineladd.html
-A longer explanation of her life.
http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/ladd.htm
-Medium biography of Ladd-Franklin

For this week’s topic, I looked further into spiritualism. I wanted to gain further insight on the psychological study of spirituality and the meaning and purpose of mediums. After watching a television show on a medium, I became very interested in learning more about what they do and how spiritualism came to be.
Spiritualism has been around for centuries. In the past, many natives believed that spirits lived after the physical part had died. However, in the 1860’s, especially around World War 1 when many people wanted to get in contact with loved ones they lost in the war, spiritualism and mediums became very popular.
According to, “First Spiritual Temple” website, spiritualism can be defined with three main concepts. These concepts include a personal and conscious survival after death in the physical world; death, is the transition from the physical world into the spirit world; and communication of some form from the spirit world to the physical world. Often, spiritualism and religion are mistaken for being the same. However, religion is a set of beliefs, practices, symbols, and rituals that are done in order to gain closeness to a Supreme Being or God.
Mediums are the people that can communicate with these spirits. The purpose of mediums is to prove the human personality is still alive after death and to help people who have lost them in the physical world come to terms with their loss. Most mediums have a “mental phenomena”, meaning that the medium can see, hear, or sense the presence and thoughts of the spirit.

http://www.psychics.co.uk/mediums.htm
-Definition and objective of mediums

http://search.proquest.com/docview/197602635?accountid=14691
-Religion vs. Spiritualism

http://www.fst.org/spirit1.htm
-Concept of spiritualism

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/rel/S/1/102.html
-History of spirituality

I decided to look more closely at the life and works of Mary Whiton Calkins. In my readings I found Mary Whiton Calkins heart and soul for the development for the field psychology to be extreamly admirable. Unlike many of here male counterparts, she believed in the study of psychology and desired that it become the true science that she beleived it was. Despite her dedication to the field of psychology there were aspects of the time and the sociocultural context in which she lived that made things more difficult for Mary and may have stunted her full potential as a psychologist.

Mary Whiton Calkins was born in Hartford Connecticut in 1863 and was the eldest of five children. Due to the lack of education for females at the time Mary's father taught her extra lessons in German from home. Both Mary's mother and father believed in the value of a good education and made sure that not only their sons but also their daughters were educated. Throughout her Thr life he would prove to be supportive of his daughters academics, as he wrote many people such as the president of Harvard in order for her to study there. She then left home to study at Smith University, but would be called home to take care of her sickly mother and to tutor her siblings. This would be one of the many "feminine" details that would effect Mary through her entire life. No matter what she did she always knew that it would be her job to go home and take care her elderly parents.

Even when she was at home she took advatage of the time and learned Greek to accompany her soon to be major in Classics and well as philosophy. When she as her family returned home from an extended stay in Europe, she interviewed to teach Greek (with the help of her father). After a few years of teaching Greek, she was recognized by a professor in the Psychology Department at Wellesley College as was offered a position to teach Psycholgy at the school so long as she studied in the field for at least one year.

She was delighted and wanted to take up the faculty on the opportunity, but it would not be an easy task for her to get the education necessary. This was because there were few graduate schools in the United States at the time, even fewer that offered the new study of psychology and even fewer that accepted women in to the program. She was accepted into two programs one at Yale and one at the University of Michagan, but neither of which interested her because they did not have labs and she wanted to study experimental psychology and they were too far away from home. espite her troubles Calkins was able to listen to lectures at Harvard (with the help of the advocacy of her father), but only as a guest of the college and not as an official student. Harvard saw her as an offical collegue that was studying up on the topic to teach it elswhere.

After one year at Harvard just as she was instructed to do so, she returned to Wellesley Collage and taught as a professor in the Psychology Department. After a year of teaching at the Collage she returned to Harvard as a guest and studied to the point that she earned all of her credentials for her Ph D. She applied and after being considered by the commitee in charge of issueing doctorates they recommended her as a great candidate, but Harvard rejected her on the basis of her gender. Harvard would later offer her a degree from Radcliffe College (the sister college of Harvard), but she would refuse saying that if she could not have a degree from the college she earned it then she did not want one at all.

While at Harvard the second time, Mary would make one her most well-known contributions to psychology, paired-associate techniques which would be the basis for her thesis. After Harvard Calkins returned to Wellesley and worked her way up the ranks to Research Professor (the highest that could be obtained). She also worked on topics such as self psychology and dream research. She did this until she retired in 1929 and died of cancer one year later. She was the first female to be president of the American Psychological Association and was also president of The American Philisophical Socitey and an honorary member of the British Psycological Association.

I cannot belive how much this women was able to accomplish in her life. Despite of all of the road blocks and hardships that she had to endure she pressed on to make the science of psychology better than it was. She did this all while "holding up" the social aspects of society as she took care of her elderly parents as she felt she was suppose too. With that in mind I wonder how mush Mary Calkins would have been able to accomlish in her lifetime has she not had all the restrictions of being a female in a time that female scientists were unheard of.

http://www.feministvoices.com/mary-whiton-calkins/
-Biography of Mary Calkins with basic information

http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/calkins.html
-Basic information on Calkins

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Whiton_Calkins
-Basic information on Calkins

http://www.feministvoices.com/video
-Video that discussed trials and tribulations of women and minorities in psychology and in academia

The topic I decided to find out more about in this chapter was the first textbook in American Psychology. The first textbook is typically credited to Thomas Upham (1799-1872) of Bowdoin College in Maine. Upham was an American philosopher, psychologist, pacifist, poet, author, and educator. He was educated at Dartmouth College and Andover Theological Seminary. While at Bowdoin College he served as a professor of mental and moral philosophy up until his retirement in 1876. His greatest contribution to the field of psychology was the textbook he published in 1827.

Upham published the first American psychology textbook after organizing his lecture notes and publishing them as Elements of Intellectual Philosophy. The text eventually grew to three volumes and was given the broader title of Elements of Mental Philosophy. This textbook became extremely popular and received 57 editions over a 73-year period. It quickly became the principle text in American colleges and universities for courses which we would now call introductory psychology. The book was organized using the faculty approach. It also included references to the deity as well as morality. This is because at this time most professors at American colleges were Protestant ministers. Upham’s book was later organized into three main divisions: the intellect (cognition), the sensibilities (emotion), and the will (action). It represented a theme that can be traced back to the Greeks as well as to present day, in essence it was timeless. Upham’s textbook was a best seller on campus well into the 1870s.

By the end of the century American psychology had changed dramatically and so had the American system of higher education. Upham’s book became overshadowed by mid-century influences of German psychology and British biology. All in all, Upham’s textbook served great purpose in the history of American psychology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cogswell_Upham
- General overview of Upham’s life
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/Mind/before.html
- Provided information regarding Upham’s original textbook as well as later editions of it
http://www.john-uebersax.com/plato/upham.htm
- Illustrated the importance of Upham’s contributions

The topic I chose to write about is recapitulation, or the theory of recapitulation. I chose this topic because I am very interested in the theory of evolution and all of Darwin's work, and this ties into the same ideas. I like learning how organisms develop and change and the theory of recapitulation tries to explain why and how. This topic relates to our chapter and what we are learning about because the last chapter was about Darwin's theory of evolution which is similar to the idea of recapitulation. Also, this topic was being researched during the time period of our current chapter, so it gives us an idea of what kinds of new ideas were beginning to formulate at this time.
Recapitulation, or the biogenetic law, is often expressed as "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny". This term was first used by Ernst Haeckel in the 1860's His recapitulation theory claims that each stage an advanced species goes through in its first stages of development, will represent stages of adult organisms in more primitive species. An easier way to understand this is to say animals go through stages resembling successive stages in the evolution of their ancestors. The idea of recapitulation has been around much longer than we think. In fact, there is evidence that the Egyptians first through of this, and then later research shows work in Germany and other schools around the world. It did not become widely know, however, until Haeckel began publishing his work, which he related to Darwin's work as well. One example he used was that thw grooves in a human neck resemble that of the gill slits of fish (in the embryo form). This would represent a "fish-like" stage of development, as well as signifying a fish-like ancestor. In his work, Haeckel often over-emphasized his drawings of organisms in the embryonic stage, trying to relate them more than they actually were. For this reason, his work was refuted by a majority of thw population, and modern biology rejected the literal and universal form of his theory. Today, Haeckel's theory is also rejected. However, there is some level of truth to his work, such as in Darwin's work. Darwin stated that the early embryonic stages are similar to the early stages of other species, but have not been proven to be the same in adult form, such as in Haeckel's theory. Some.of Haeckel's work is still considered plausible and is used by some in the field of Behavioral Development. I really leaned a lot more about this topic and i know there is an enormous amount of further research I could do, as well. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about this theory and I am becoming more and more interested in the history of psychology with each chapter I read!

http://muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/hall.htm This site helped give a good background on the theory, a better base knowledge.

http://thenode.biologists.com/ernst-haeckel-and-the-recapitulation-of-an-early-biological-debate/ this site gave information about Haeckel and his work, very helpful.

http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/ontogeny.html this site gave a very one-sided argument against his theory, but it was also very informative.

As most of this chapter was centered around the accomplishments of minorities and women in psychology, it’s only fitting that this blog would discuss one of those two things. I chose to talk about Mary Calkins, an American psychologist and philosopher, with interest in memory and the self. While philosophy is a field she showed interest in, she thrived in psychology, and was the first woman to be the president of the American Psychological association.
As a woman during the time period she grew up in, her college studies probably would have been in the 1880s, women were seen as inferior to men, and were meant to stay in the home. For her degree, she needed psychology classes. But at this time period, there were few courses and even fewer that allowed women to partake in discussion or even go to lectures. She was invited to William James’ lectures, then applied to study at Harvard. Even with support and excellent recommendations, she was denied the opportunity to be enrolled as a normal student. While she attended classes, and studied under some brilliant minds, the administration of Harvard only allowed her to stay as a guest. With continued work and study, she became an accomplished women in psychology. She was a professor for many decades, and published her own research, including one about right associates method (which I don’t entirely understand what it is). She incorporated her knowledge of philosophy inter her teaching, as well as being multi-disciplinary within the field of psychology. While I was browsing through the articles and websites, this quote from her came up, which is incredibly true.
"The student trained to reach decisions in the light of logic and of history will be disposed to recognize that, in a democratic country, governed as this is by the suffrage of its citizens, and given over as this is to the principle and practice of educating women, a distinction based on difference of sex is artificial and illogical."

Bio
http://www.astr.ua.edu/4000WS/CALKINS.html
Bio and Work
http://www.apa.org/pi/women/resources/newsletter/2011/03/mary-calkins.aspx
Quote and education
http://faculty.frostburg.edu/mbradley/psyography/marywhitoncalkins.html

I chose to look further into the women’s contributions and hardships in the history of Psychology. Our chapter looked at a few of these women and the accomplishments they had as well as the discrimination that they faced. As I read some of the articles on various websites there was a common thread of women who seemed to fight their way into a world where most did not want them.
One of the interesting things I noticed was that while reading biographies of several of the women Psychologists featured, all of them had stellar academic careers from childhood on up. This is very different from many of the males we have been reading about in the chapters leading up to this point. Several of the men, were mediocre students and began their higher education journeys without a plan or much direction. It seems that this approach was not to be had for women. I would deduce that if a woman wanted any chance there was no room for anything less than spectacular, for there would be no second chances. The only data I really have is from the bios of those featured on the web pages.
I read about some very interesting women who were all way ahead of their times. I cannot imagine how infuriating it was to face the injustices that many did. For instance Carolyn Wood Sherif, had worked with her husband on research for years and yet work was credited to her husband and not her. I did cheer a little when I read about Christine Ladd-Franklin, who was amazing! What I loved was that while she went to Berlin, her husband stayed with their child, like one of the first “Mr. Mom’s”. I wonder what kind of scandal that caused, I’m sure their family was fodder for much gossip and judgment. Clara Mayo was one of the first to really study effects of racial differences. There were so many things gained from these and other women. It makes me wonder how much was missed by the exclusion of women who were not able to break through the numerous barriers.
As I read the chapter, I wondered about some of the more “progressive” men like Hall who allowed women into their labs. Although they should be given their due for bucking the system, I wonder how progressive they really were. I would be curious to know about the lives and experiences of their wives and daughters. That would show how truly progressive and liberated these men really were for the time.

http://voices.yahoo.com/forgotten-contributions-women-psychology-10650.html
This site had good information regarding the sacrifice women had to make as they chose either career or marriage.
http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/women.html
I chose this site for the links and articles about many women who have paved the way in Psychology.
http://www.psychology.sbc.edu/The%20Women%20of%20Psychology.htm
This had some good quotes and reflections, albeit brief, of women’s role in the history of Psychology.

I want to talk more about Margaret Floy Washburn’s life. She was briefly talked about in this chapter, but I want to learn more about her life and the things she accomplished. Some people remember Margaret as the first women to get a Ph.D., others remember her as a remarkable teacher, or a psychologist. She was born in Harlem, New York, on July 25, 1871. Her father was a priest, and her mother came from a well off family. She came up with a theory between the motor development and mental activity.
When she was young she did a lot of reading in her spare time and had the time because she would not be disturbed, she was an only child. She never had to do her school work at home, because she was so dedicated. She was never sick until she reached the age of twenty-six.
Margaret’s parents were able to afford her getting an education and being able to go on trips around the world to gain knowledge about different cultures. When she turned 14 her parents took her to Paris and the British Isle for her birthday for six weeks. Margaret went to college when she was only 15 years old, and was interested in topics such as philosophy, science, psychology, music, and poetry.
She was going into a world that was thought to be as a man’s world, and she would get rejected many times just for the fact that she was a woman. She wanted to study at Columbia University under James McKeen Cattell in the psychological laboratory. She was not allowed into the school as a student, because she was a woman, but they submitted her as an “auditor.” She did very well at that school and Cattell encouraged her to go to Cornell’s school of philosophy. Cornell was where she got her master’s degree.
She also wrote a book called The Animal Mind. She wrote about how the “interpretation of animal behavior” was similar to that of human experiences.

http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/washburn2.html
Told about her life and struggles of being a women well educated and working in a “man’s” world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Floy_Washburn
This site told about her family, and how she was not able to enter Columbia as a student, because she was a woman.
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Washburn/murchison.htm
Told how she never had to do homework at home, and he life as a child.

For this weeks topical blog, I’m choosing to write about Mary Whiton Calkins. I found her perseverance and struggle against inequality admirable.

Mary grew up in a time when women were not respected as intelligent beings or even considered to be worthy of educational benefits. Despite the harsh reality of the time, Mary persisted against the odds and accomplished great things in her lifetime.
Calkins father also realized the hardships the women had to face to receive education and did the best he could to help her get into schools and receive what she deserved. While enrolled at Smith College, her sister passed away and Mary went back home to deal with things. Eventually, she returned and got her degree.

When Mary was very young, her parents only spoke to her in German and subsequently, Mary became fluent in a variety of different languages. After graduating from Smith College, Calkins and her family went to Europe after she graduated for about a year. Upon her return, she became a teacher at Wellesley College and before long people took notice to her profound teaching abilities. Wellesley College needed someone to teach a psychology class and thought that Calkins was a good candidate. However, she would have to seek a years worth of education in psychology, since she had none up to that point.

Mary Calkins accepted and began searching for places to further her education. Due to being a woman, it was very hard for her to find anywhere that would let her in, let alone find a school that was teaching the newly created field of psychology. Passing many obstacles along the way, she was let into Harvard as an “unofficial” guest to sit in on the seminars of William James and Josiah Royce. The president at Harvard made it very clear that she was not a registered student, however.

Calkins also got to work at Clark University in the laboratory department of psychology, which then enabled her to create her own laboratory at Wellesley. Mary had already begun teaching psychology at Wellesley when she decided that she wanted more education. Coincidentally, Hugo Munsterberg moved from Germany to the United States so he could work at Harvard. Mary ended up studying with Munsterberg when he came to Harvard.

Throughout Mary’s life she met and defeated many obstacles that got in the way of her life. Mary had the honor of working with psychologies greats Hugo Munsterberg and William James. They recommended that Harvard give her a PhD but that sadly never happened.

Mary continued on and became the first female president of both the American Psychological Association and the American Philosophical Association. I admire her dedication and persistence to achieve her dreams, and even though there were so many restrictions for women, Mary achieved so much.

http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/marycalkins.html -- I liked this site because it did a good job of highlighting key points in Mary’s life.

http://www.astr.ua.edu/4000WS/CALKINS.html -- This site was very informative and descriptive. I got a lot of information from this site that wasn’t mentioned on other sites that I looked at.

http://www.apa.org/pi/women/resources/newsletter/2011/03/mary-calkins.aspx -- Well, I think its fairly obvious, but I choose this site because it’s the APA’s website, and Mary was the first female president of the APA. It provided a great summary of Mary Calkins and her endeavors.

The sections on William James were the most interesting to me. He was able to see and do so much as a child! He got to travel, learn languages, and study at prestigious universities just because his dad was a BOSS. It was all great and blah blah but he ended up a very melancholy reflective and conscientious person. Because of this, he ended up contemplating his existence and the meaning of life in general. This contemplation lead him, for a time, to believe that life had no meaning and his existence was frivolous. He was sickened by the determinism of his colleagues and saddened by the materialistic nature of those around him. It could be said that at one point he believed in nothing at all. He slipped down into major depression and was only revived because he found a belief in a philosophy paper that he could apply to his life for the better. If he remained detached and deadened he would have never impacted psychology! This kind of contemplation and depression is not too different from my own. I'm not depressed to the level that James was, but I can definitely relate to the questions and problems that he was wrestling with. Apparently, a thirst for god was apparent alongside the depression that James felt. He developed the "once born" and "sick soul" or "twice born" models to describe how he felt. The once born individual is born in harmony with the universe. Not too many passions, impulses relate well with one another, and their will fits perfectly with their intellect. As a result of these natural circumstances, their life is mostly happy with little regret. The twice born are not harmonious with the world. They suffer from constant inner conflict, self-mistrust, self-despair, anxiety, fear and trepidation. These "twice born" individuals may believe that they are somehow different from everyone else in terms of worldview thought process etc. The awareness of this separation from the norm may cause them to actively strive to be more like the norm heightening their self consciousness. This self consciousness spurs an endless cycle of contemplation and reflection that may only feed the fire of depression.
James described his depression as a crisis of spirituality, of being, of meaning and of will. He felt that his views were so different from those of the world and especially different from those held by his father. He claimed that his depression was deeply rooted in problems with his spirituality. He would hallucinate and even have panic attacks during his bouts of depression. His father apparently suffered from similar attacks which he fought using spiritual quests.
In order to fight his depression, he resorted to reading and writing in his journal. He eventually was able to conquer his depression by reading a philosophical passage that advocated the existence of free will. It wasn't so much that the passage was the truth, but it was that in that moment James decided to believe what he wanted to believe. He made the choice to be happy and believe in free will. Maybe I can read something that will inspire me to make the changes in my life that I need to.

http://www.neurosemantics.com/nlp/nlp-articles/william-james-could-he-have-invented-nlp
Good info on James depression

http://sirojs.wordpress.com/2007/06/01/depression-disconnection-and-spirituality/
Really great summary of James depression relating to spirituality

supergiantbream.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/.../jamesinfo.doc
Great info on James life. Causes for James depression were highlighted more

posted for BS:
This week I would like to discuss the history of woman and minorities in education and specifically psychology. After reading the chapter I was very interested in how woman and minorities were affected by education and wanted to learn more about how it affected them and how it still affects them today. The first video I watched explained how even today the amount of girls that are educated around the world is a very low percent. It explains how if there were more girls educated then there would be that many more minds benefiting our world. I believe if a person solves cancer for instance I wouldn’t care if it is a man, woman, or even any race for that matter. Everyone should have the opportunity to gain an education to benefit the world.
The next part that was very interesting in which we discussed in class was about how woman and ethnic groups were able to get funding for higher education. In the article it states that government funding for lower economic families is a relatively new project. It enables woman and minority ethnic groups to attend college. There are also programs to help these low economic status individuals to even the playing field in the education system such as tutoring and social groups. I also that it was very interesting to see the milestones of education in the African American society and was unaware of how slow it took America to open its arms to a full education. These topics showed a great interest because it blew my mind how our country was founded on being equal and it took us a very long time to take action in what we believe in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GfOvZUo5yo – Info about women today and if they receive an education.
http://www.worldwidelearn.com/education-advisor/indepth/history-higher-education.php - Gives info about government aid to minorities and women in higher education.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0872844.html - Timeline of milestones in African American education.