Reading Activity Week #2 (Due Tuesday)

While reading the small section about Henry Goddard's intelligence testing I found it interesting that for someone who was an immigrant himself, and as intelligent as he was how bias he seems. I thought it was awful that as a country we sent immigrants away because Goddard's test deemed them as "morons." However, as I continued reading I found out why people during that time thought the way they did, Darwinian thinking, and the country worrying about being overrun by immigrants. This section made me realize that intelligence testing has come along way.
Another person in this chapter I found interesting was Edwin G. Boring. First I found it kind of humorous that he started as an engineer and ended up going back to school for his Ph. D. after taking only one psychology class. I find this funny because today students who take the intro to psych class generally hate it and have no motivation to move forward in psychology. What I believe is interesting about Boring was that he performed his dissertation, visceral sensitivity on himself. I also found it interesting that he wanted to research "pure" psychology not just the application form. **These two things are why I want to learn more about Boring.
I also find it interesting how much history can be flawed as years go by. I know during other history classes I would ask myself, How do we know these events in this book happened the way the author says it did? I asked my high school teacher that question one day and he responded with "We know it is true because it is written that way. Why would someone lie about the way something happened?" This book states and demonstrates that history and events can be flawed due to translations and interpretations. It isn't that they are lying about what happened or how it happened it is just how it has been translated and interpreted. This is interesting to me because throughout our young adult lives we are taught that anything in print, aside from whats printed in gossip magazines and some books, it is true.
Something I found the least interesting about this chapter is the way we view history and the different approaches to history. These weren't interesting to me because I felt that I was just learning terms that I should be memorizing in any other history class. Although I found these things uninteresting I do believe that they will be the most useful in understanding the history of psychology.
Thoughts/Ideas about this chapter:
I had no idea there were two ways to view history, presentism and historicism. At first the terms themselves confused me a little but as I read they made more sense. I also didn't know there were two approaches to the history of psychology, internal and external history. I had never thought about history as internal or external. Internal history is an interesting approach because it isn't written by those who are experts in history.

Reading the first chapter of the textbook, I found a few things noteworthy.

When I enrolled in this class, I never really questioned why psychology majors had to take a history course. It was only the first day of class when I realized there was a bit of controversy among the students. In class, we talked about the importance of acknowledging psychology's history. Similarly, the book's first chapter does the same. It poses an interesting question: Why is there a history of psychology course taught by a psychologist, but not a history of chemistry course taught by a chemist? This question is answered throughout the course of the chapter, but after reading and relating it to the discussion we had in class, I realize the importance of having that conversation with the class. If we don't get to the root of the controversy and really ask ourselves *why* we need to learn about a certain subject, it's going to get fairly difficult to keep yourself motivated throughout the semester. The in-class discussion and the first chapter do a pretty good job of nipping the resentment that would have inevitably followed, in the bud.

I also found the section about "Key Issues in Psychology's History" to be fascinating. I've always enjoyed reading/learning about opposing ideas side-by-side. While this certainly has the potential to spread the myth of false dichotomies, it's an easy way to hear the story from both sides. This chapter introduced three main dualist concepts in the history of psychology: "presentism versus historicism", "internal versus external history", and "personalistic versus naturalistic history". These were all interesting to read, as I have never thought much about the mentality adopted by historians in determining what qualifies as notable history.

More specifically, "personalities versus naturalistic history" was, for me, the most fascinating of these categories. When learning history, I think we have a tendency to place importance on certain leaders and figureheads of revolutionary events. Linking into the concept of presentism and historicism, this perhaps illustrates our inclination to view historical events in a decontextualized light. Society may just as well have been progressing in such a way that event X would have unravelled even if leader Y hadn't been born. Then again, maybe not. The important part is that this is another factor to consider when analyzing history.
I found the part on historiography to be quite boring, at least to read. However, I understand the importance of writing history-- after all, how else would we have years of data available to us? Another thing that struck me as remarkable was the uncanny resemblance between the problems historiographers face and the problems that all other researchers face: data selection and interpretation... we take classes upon classes to learn to conduct proper scientific studies. Historians do the same.

There is nothing in this specific chapter that I would like to learn more about, however, I think this only means that it has served its purpose. As an introductory chapter, it's goal was just that-- to introduce. It has convinced me of the importance of studying the history of psychology, and until we delve into the chapters that address certain time periods, it's difficult to say, "Gee, I wish I knew more about X and Y" because it is undoubtedly to come in following chapters.

One idea that did cross my mind, however, is that perhaps other fields ought to require a history course. While it is of specific importance to psychology majors, a history course of chemistry, english, music, etc. will only serve to enhance the students' appreciation of their field of study.

The first thing that really caught my eye about this chapter were the quotes by E.G. Boring. This is most interesting because his quotes are certainly not boring at all. His quotes were inspiring words about what history is and why it is so important for our society to access it as often as we can. He says that most people find history relevant because we think we can use it to see into the future, however, those people are wrong. He compares history as not being a crystal ball, it does not tell the future, what history does is tell us about the present. Boring says that history allows us to live in the present and become much more aware and understanding of how we became the way we are. I really found his ideas interesting because I had never thought of history as something that could be of importance to our present. Our society is constantly looking into the future and planning for the future, we rarely ever take a look around at our present, let alone, look into our past to better understand our present. I thought his words and insight were beautiful and something that truly take you into a great mood to appreciate the present.

Something else that I found interesting is all the ways we can categorize psychologies history. We have "new" and "old" histories, presentism and historicism, and even internal and external histories. Most interesting to me is the internal and external histories by which things can be relevant. I really didn't think that outside influences of a subject would have much immediately relevant meaning to a discipline such as psychology. When we think about the important parts of being a historian and what should be written down or catalogued accordingly, we think of people, dates, and relevant materials and data. However, what I didn't think of was how important external focuses were. Why did those psychologists have that drive to do the experiments they did? Why was their a need for that focus and hypothesis? It all seems imperative to the situation. The questions are so interesting to me and really got my mind working as I read further.

Another thing that I found interesting while reading chapter was came in a small paragraph near the end of the chapter. It was about the problems associated with writing history and collecting data. I've never been one to criticize anything I read or question it's validity, but after reading this section i realize it's a greater deal than I was aware of. Historians really have to know and check the validity of everything they write down. The evaluation of some of their history seems extraordinarily crucial to the writing and categorizing of data. Also, historians must be sure not to include ANY biases into their writing. This is extremely important and led me to compare them to reporters who also are looked down upon for any bias in their work. However, we all must remember that they are human and have opinions are such. This is something I really would like to read more about as well, and now will be think about that every time I read something historical and can't help but to look for errors and biases.

Something that I found to be rather uninteresting was the section of sources of historical data. I've been learning about primary and secondary sources since elementary school and really have always found it extremely boring. I understand that it's very important to have both sources when conducting a major experiment or writing a report or anything like that, however, reading about it over and over and finding such sources really is a bore to me.

The section of this chapter that I really think will make an impact on the students who read it is the interpretation problems it teaches us about. Most of us instantly believe that once we see the time-line of events and know the happenings of those events we are done learning the history. After reading this section, i realize that we could not be more wrong. We have to take a step back and understand that we could not possibly know everything we need to know about an event in history. The section talks about looking at different series of books and reexamine it's contents and see how much more we can take from that book. The revisions in the books could be phenomenal and important for us to consider. Which is why I believe this section is so useful, it's something we need to keep in mind while we learn. We all need to remember how relevant information is and know that there is most likely more relevant information being determined right now for us to learn and understand.

Something that I would really like to learn more about is the process by which historians do more than "find out what happened." I understand that it is a much more complicated task, but my question is "how so?" Most careers, in my understanding have much more substance to them than meets the eye. I'm sure this is the same with historians as well, and that's what fascinates me. How do they go about finding this factual evidence and then determining it's relevance and more deeply understanding how we can deal with it and categorize it.

The ideas that I had while reading this chapter revolved initially around how much we needed to know about dates and historians and their impact on psychology and psychologies impact on society. However, that was all a bit overwhelming and as the sections changed so did my mind. I began to focus more on historians and their careers. These would be the major thoughts I had while reading. I thought a lot about how historians could really change our interpretation on an event by simply adding bias. I also thought about the moral issues a historian could possibly have with writing something of religious or other value to them (such as the holocaust) could they truly write about that unbiasedly or should they surrender the project to another historian with less emotional value to the event.

Finding out this class was a requirement; I wasn’t all too thrilled to have to take it. Let’s be honest, if I enjoyed taking a ‘history’ class I would have chosen to suffer through the third humanities. However, getting into chapter one I realized the history of psychology is actually very important and beneficial to learn. One quote I read was, “to neglect history does not mean to escape from its influence”. In the field of psychology this makes sense, we can ignore things from the past all we want, but if something has already been done and it keeps reoccurring there is some reason for that happening; is it the question of people not learning as time continues on, or is it the fact that we as a society don’t connect the past as having an influence in the future. Another point the chapter pointed out is what is history and does it actually shape what occurs in the future. The point I took away from this sections was that we can’t look at the future, but rather we need to look at the present; how did we get to this present state of time. This also made me think of looking at an event from the past (history) and applying it to the present day, and then predicting the future from that; many studies do this and the question came up that if we’re looking at the past and already saying this is how the future will turn out to be; are we not allowing ourselves to grow or learn from what we already know, are we condemning society to automatically respond in the same manner as before? I could be way off here, but I figured if it came to mind I mise well write it down. Thirdly, I enjoyed reading about how in the present day we often consider it to be the ‘worst of times’. I found this funny because I had just said to one of the kids I nanny for that, “back when I was a kid…” and my dad or grandpa will often say the same thing to me, but they always include how my generation is doomed because of the different situations/accommodations we have today. This section just opened up my eyes to the fact that it’s easy to look back on life events or childhood years and think things were so much simpler or easy, but really when you look back in life you tend to look at the simple, joyful things in life; so were things that much better, maybe, were there less technological advancements, sure, or are we just not realizing them; because in reality the accomplishments of the past are what’s producing the advancements of the present.
Something from the chapter that I found least interesting would have to be the information on the APA and the APS; this just didn’t interest me probably because I got annoyed learning and having to be tested over questions regarding the APA and I didn’t really understand it then. But I did learn that really the reason for the two groups is because of the disagreement between research psychologists and psychologists; but really in the end I still pictured to grey bearded men; noses held high with their backs towards each other.
One thing I read that I will find most useful in psychology is to remember that understanding the history of psychology will only better my thinking of human behavior and why things evolved as they did and to challenge my thinking with the question of what if this event hadn’t happened or what if it happened at a later time frame.
A topic I would like to learn more about would be personalistic history because it seems interesting that there is a theory that without a certain person in time, history could have been written much different.

The first thing I found interesting while reading was the first section Why Study Psychology? This chapter is interesting because it opened up a new perspective for me on why we should study history. Of course I understand that it is important to know where we have been and what we have done but I have never thought of it being at all interesting. I also have never understood how useful it could be but this chapter has given me some insight to why it is important to know out history. There were a lot of famous quotes in this section that made me think about how important history can be, and how it impacts the present day. It discussed a lot about how important it is to know some history in order to fully understand present events. One line that really got my attention was on page 6 where it said "There is at least the potential for learning from the past." This is important because after reading this section this is exactly what I learned about why we need to study history. It is important to know history so we can learn from any mistakes and make the necessary changes. It is also important to know history so we may fully understand the events that are taking place in the current world we live in. Without history we would be lost and have to re-learn everything that our ancestors have already had to endure the hard way. History allows us to learn their mistakes and successes so we can keep advancing.
The next section I found interesting was the one about why studying psychologiy's history is important. it is important for a lot of reasons but the one I found most useful was that it brings all the separate classes of psychology together through general information that founded all of psychology. This is important because it gives everyone a background on how their specific category came to be what it is today from the very beginning of the subject. Another reason I found interesting was about how it makes people more critical thinkers. This is beneficial because it helps to increase the level of thinking that a person can do. The final thing I liked about this section was about how the history of psychology educates us about human behavior. After all that is what psychology is all about, the human behaviors are why most of us are interested in the subject of psychology, and the history can help us learn about the past behaviors of humans.
The third thing I found interesting in this chapter was the section about sources of historical data. It talked about how a secondary source is a document that has been published. I thought this was interesting because this is how a lot of people get their information these days so I would have assumed that this would be a primary source. Instead, a primary source is where someone took notes or a diary during or near the time of the recorded data. These sources are unpublished and can be found in a variety of places. I found this interesting because I was expecting it be from a first hand experience like talking face-to-face with someone that lived through the time period and events.
I think the most useful thing about reading this chapter is knowing how young the subject of psychology is. We still have time to make it in the history books as being stepping stones in research. There could still be a lot of things that we have not learned but knowing the history that people have already been through keeps us from making the same mistakes they made and to continue with their successes.
I would like to learn more about the historic human behaviors mentioned in this text. I think the way people use to interact is very interesting, and knowing how we act now will help me to compare. I think it is interesting how much people change over a time period even one as short as the subject of psychology has been around. Im sure the history of analyzing behaviors is very interesting.
While reading this chapter I kept thinking about what all of the previous psychologists were thinking while they were making history. I wonder if they realized while they were doing their research, experiments, or writing that their information would someday be in a history textbook helping us learn.

AC
The first thing that I found interesting while reading through chapter one in the older version of the text book was a quote by E.G. Boring that read, “ If knowing history is no guarantee that mistakes won’t be repeated and if history is an imperfect means of forecasting the future, then what is left? The present. Yet a knowledge of history, although it can never be complete and fails miserably to foretell the future, has a huge capacity for adding significance to the understanding of the present.” I agree with the quote, because knowing our history helps us in understanding the present and in the end will impact the future.
A couple of other things that I found interesting are the different approaches to history. Personalistic history is one approach also known as “The Great Man Theory”, where important events in history are from actions of individuals, such as kings. This view of history seems to leave out the rest of the ninety-nine percent of the population.
Naturalistic history is another approach that views the forces of history and how it can impact an individual. Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy had a naturalistic view when he wrote “War and Peace” which is about how history is impacted “by forces beyond the control of individuals.” I agree with the naturalistic view about the forces of history and also think it is beyond the control of many people because of their socioeconomic status.
I found the most useful information on page 23 where according to the author of our textbook, C. James Goodwin, “The important lesson for the reader of history is to be alert to the dangers of assuming that if something is printed in black and white, it somehow must be true.” I think it could be hard analyzing information to find the truth in the things we read, because words can be twisted with personal bias or opinion of the author. However, it is comforting to know that even professionals make mistakes too.
I think it would be interesting to learn more about Behaviorism and how animal studies led to human studies. Also it would be interesting in learning more about how internal and external forces affect people’s behavior.
Reading chapter one helped me learn how to interpret history with an open-mind and not let my biases control my thoughts.

HR

While reading this chapter, I was amazed how detailed the book was as a whole, and how little the book used dates and names, but was filled with information surrounding these topics.
The first thing I found interesting was that from the 1960s on studies in psychology have had a steady increase. This information was something I have heard time and time again, but it never really stuck inside my head until reading this chapter, and all the ways the beginning of psychology has influences the steady growth. I found this interesting also because the way society views the importance of schooling and having a large economic stability. When first stating I was majoring in psychology, the first two responses I received were “What does one do with a degree in psychology?” and “Will you make a lot of money?”. Because I know I am not the only one who has received these questions, I found it interesting that although the topic is viewed by society as “easy and makes little money”, the study has increased.
The second thing I found interesting was that the book stated that many other fields of schooling don’t have a history based class geared toward that specific field. The example in the book stated that chemistry majors don’t typically have a history class and when there is a class, this class is rarely taught by chemists. I had never thought of this before, that a history class is taught by psychologists, but are other classes always taught by those within that field? Do business classes have history classes taught by previous business majors or business professors?
The third thing I found interesting was the concepts of presentist and historicist. I had never thought of these terms previous to reading this book, and know cannot think of a historical event without thinking about them. The book discussed that a presentist evaluates the past in terms of present knowledge and values, things the individual understands and has knowledge of the present. The book also states that a presentist passes judgement unfairly. However, a historicist does one’s best to avoid imposing these modern values and tries to use a point of view from the past and the knowledge of the past to evaluate the present. Such as using what was occurring at that point in time of the event (historicist) as to what is going on in the present (presentist).
The one thing I found least interesting was the section on sources of historical data. I personally find documenting and finding sources to be one of the most boring things about psychology, so this section about primary and secondary sources was uninteresting to me, and felt like a small repeat of sections I had read in my Research Methods class. Although I had never heard the history of historical data, it was still uninteresting to read.
I cannot state the most useful thing in understanding history of psychology, but I found two things that can be useful. The first is that is important to study history, not because we won’t repeat the past (because that is far from true) but because if we can understand the past, we can hopefully find a better understanding of the present and possibly the future. If we can understand why an individual studied a particular item, we can use this knowledge to understand this item in the present. The second I found most useful is when the book discussed current events. The book discussed that it is nearly impossible to understand a current event without knowing and understanding the previous events leading up to this event. Take Pearl Harbor for example. After the attacking, the United States had to look back on previous events to understand why Japan bombed the harbor that day. The same can be true for many other events and occurrences in history.
Although we had a short discussion on Henry Goddard and his Ellis Island screening of immigrants, I still hope to read more about his screening and his reasoning for sending immigrants back to be “looking too unintelligent”.
While reading, I agreed with many ideas the book stated about learning about history, and found myself comparing the points made in the book to my Art History class that I find so boring. The idea that came to mind is to look at my Art History class in the same light I will now look at this class, that without history one cannot have an idea of where they are going in the future. I had the idea that history is like a road map, and this road map will help guide us along the way through the present time.
Before reading this chapter I was convinced learning the history of psychology, or any topic at all, was unneeded and a waste of class time. However, while reading, I found myself thinking that learning history was in fact needed, and that although learning about history won’t cease for it to occur again in the future, but makes a guide to the future, and how to understand and react to these events when they occur.

One thing I found interesting/ didn't realize before reading this chapter was that history can be classified into many categories. One that I found interesting was the distinction between naturalistic and personalistic history. Personalistic history focuses on the people who made discoveries or invented things that revolutionized society.

I have always read history books or learned about history in a way that is personalistic. While learning about a time period in history we would learn about people who did something significant. The book or teacher would talk about their past, any hardships or difficulties they overcame, and what they contributed to history. I believe this was done because it is easier to remember a time frame if you have a specific person you can associate with it.

Naturalistic history talks about the culture of the time that leads to certain inventions or discoveries that are being made. This is also called the zeitgeist. Naturalistic history believes that the culture of the time is what promotes someone to make a discovery or create a new invention that revolutionizes society. It believes that even if the person of relevance hadn't made the discovery, some other person would have, because the culture of the time was encouraging exploration into their field of study.

To me, naturalistic history makes a lot of sense from a philosophical standing. If the culture is there to encourage discoveries of a certain type, then it makes sense that multiple people could have come up with the same discovery. Charles Darwin was not the only person to come up with the theory of evolution. Alfred Wallace came to a similar conclusion at about the same time. Frequently, several scientists are on the brink of making the same discovery at the same time. One person or team just happen to reach the conclusion first and they are the ones who become famous for it.

When learning, however, I feel that it is important to know who was the person who first discovered something. I want to know who did what and how it happened. I don't want a vague answer about the culture being conductive to discoveries. I would like a textbook that tells a story about a person and why that person is important in our lives.

Another thing I hadn't thought of before is how unreliable history textbooks can be. They are written mostly based on secondary sources now. This means that they are using knowledge that was only found in previous textbooks. Using secondary sources increases the chance of errors and moves us farther and farther away from the actual source. This reminds me of the game telephone, where one child tells another a certain word or phrase, and that child repeats it to another, and so on. By the end, the phrase is much different than the one that was told to the original child and the message is distorted. Our history is such an important part of who we are as a culture, that it would be a shame if we were remembering it inaccurately.

Another way that we can receive inaccurate information is from writings by people from a certain historical period. Historians often use letters sent from one person to another as a way to gain information on the past. The problem with that is, these letters were not meant to teach anything. What is put into correspondence may be gossip, it may be a joke, or it could be lies meant to persuade someone into the writer's point of view. You never know that what you are reading is factual, and you don't know the motivation of the person who wrote the letter in the first place.

The same goes with firsthand accounts during memorable moments in history. We know that eyewitness accounts aren't always accurate when it comes to identifying suspects or telling what happened during an event. This is true for the past as well. People who experience a war or a shooting may be traumatized and may not remember what happened, and their mind will fill in the blanks. This happens unconsciously, so a person may believe the story they have told, but that does not make it true. Some eyewitness accounts are given decades later, which means the story is less likely to be accurate.

The last interesting thing I learned was the reasoning behind why a lot of psychologists started studying human behavior. These scientists started out trying to discover the reasoning behind why animals did what they did. Because animals can't talk, the best way to do this was to study their behavior. However, because studying animal behavior didn't seem relevant to the universities funding these scientists, they were treated with less respect than others and were usually given small, dirty labs in the basement of buildings. The psychologists were upset at this treatment and realized the best way to improve their circumstances would be to start studying humans, which the universities felt was much more useful and important. These scientists were used to studying behavior, so they continued to do so, only in humans. This is how the study of behavioralism started.

One thing that I found wasn't that interesting to me was the discussion of internal versus external history. Internal history is made up of breakthroughs that happen within the discipline of psychology. These things help to show the growth of the discipline, but ignore other factors that may have also influenced psychology. External history focuses on those influences that are outside of the discipline. I think it is important to focus on both the internal and external histories. You want to know what was happening in a specific field and how it relates to other discoveries in that same discipline, but you also need to know what was going on outside of a field that could also have had an impact on it. Without both of these things I feel that we would have an incomplete picture of the history of a field.

The thing I think I will find most useful is just to understand that there are multiple ways of telling any given part of history. Knowing all these different ways now lets me realize that there is a reasoning behind why a story is told a certain way, and that there may be advantages to learning things from a different perspective as well.

I would like to learn more about how each subfield of psychology got its start. It was interesting for me to learn about how behavioralism came about, and so I would like to learn if other programs started this way as well, or what made them develop like they did. Psychology is now such a broad field of study, that I wonder why people decided to break it off into pieces and use it to explore other areas.

While I was reading this chapter I thought a lot about famous people I had learned about in other history classes. I started thinking about what types of information I learned, and what historical orientation I was taught with. Whenever I came upon different types of history (for example, intrinsic and extrinsic) I would look back to my schooling and try to figure out which one I had the most experience with and which one made the most sense to me. Sometimes the ones I grew up with were not the ones I thought made the most sense, and sometimes I realized that it was a good idea to have us learn using a specific orientation.

The first thing that I thought was particularly interesting was the comparison between the history of psychology and the history of chemistry. I thought this was interesting because the book made a very good point. We learn the history of psychology today so we can better understand what kinds of things psychologists are looking at now compared to things we are looking at today. We can see what approaches worked then and what works now. With chemistry, learning the history of it isn’t going to teach you the properties of all the elements and the processes aren’t going to change much. I thought this was interesting because it was something I had never put into perspective before.

The second thing I found interesting was the comparison between presentism and historicism. I thought this point was valid in adding the importance factor of learning about the history of psychology. Presentism is thinking about things that have happened in the past in terms of only the present. This is important because without learning about the history and the terms that were used back then, we are only using what we know now. Historicism looks at an event and tries to understand it with the context of the knowledge and values that were around when the event happened. I think this is an important term to learn as well because it’s necessary to understand the environment in which things happened in the past. If we look at them with the knowledge and values of today, our perception of the event is going to be skewed.

Going along with that is the subject of naturalistic history. Naturalistic history emphasizes the forces of history that act on individuals. He is basically saying that it doesn’t matter the person or people that discovered this at a particular time, somewhere down the line, another person would have discovered the same thing. I think this is an interesting topic because I hadn’t ever given it much thought in terms of psychology.

I found most of the rest of the chapter to be quite boring actually and found it quite amusing that there was a psychologist with the last name of Boring mentioned in the chapter. History is obviously not my favorite subject but I am hoping the next chapters will bring some more interesting topics to look into!

There is really nothing in this chapter that I would like to know more about, I guess I just know that the information will be coming in later chapters.

One thing that crossed my mind while reading this chapter was if the psychologist doing their studies and finding huge breakthroughs actually realize that they were making history as they knew it? If you think about it, we are all making history right now whether or not it seems big right now. Scary!

BR
In chapter one I found the section about presentism interesting. Presentism is something almost everyone can relate to. It’s interesting because you know humans look back on their past choices and compare them to the ones they make now and think they are “dumb” for making the ones in the past. There is obviously no way they could’ve known or maybe the resources that made their present choice possible weren’t available in the past. I agree with the state out of the book saying that the past decision might seem stupid but that’s only because of how much we’ve progressed and what we know now, because if we didn’t progress then that first decision would still most likely stand as a good one.

Another interesting aspect I found was the section about personalistic history. This type of history talks about the “Great Man” theory stating without good or bad guys shaping the past our present would have turned out a lot different. I would agree with this theory because if we didn’t have some of the great inventors or even presidents of our country I think the present would be completely different or not as progressed if certain things weren’t invented, fought for, or put on paper. The past of what evil men and good men did has shaped our future in some way as maybe to learn from or just to build off of.

I would like to learn more about the old versus new history. This section was interesting and would be nice to learn more because the old history laid out all the ground work to continue to progress to today’s history. It’s stated that the old history tends to be presentist, internal, and personalistic, whereas new history is more historicist, external and naturalistic. At one point the old history was the new history so therefore it was seen as presentist, internal and personalistic at some point, but it just shows that the progression into new history makes the perspectives shift about the old history.

The topic of why we study history from this chapter wasn’t interesting to me. This part of the chapter just bored me and didn’t keep my interest when reading. I do think it’s important to learn about history but it’s not important to everyone in the same way. Some people learn history to better understand, some to progress or fix problems, and some just for fun. I don’t think there is any right answer as to why we learn history.
Some ideas I had about this chapter and what was on my mind the most was about people who played such a huge role in the past and how their actions have shaped where we stand today. I’m excited to learn more about past psychologists and their careers and the influence they have had or made to help contribute to present day psychology.

Chapter 1
After reading the first chapter I found that it was rather slow in the beginning but thankfully started to get more and more interesting as the chapter proceeded. The first of three things that I found interesting in this chapter were some of the quotes that they pulled out of other authors. This may seem strange but I really liked the way that these other people described how you should look at history through different metaphors. One that I liked in particular was by E.G. Boring, “The past is not a crystal ball. It has more whence than whither to it. The seats on the train of progress all face backwards: you can see the past but only guess about the future.” This really illustrates to me how you shouldn’t put such an emphasis on how the past can sort of predict the future in a way. A lot of things need to be taken into account like the economical, societal, and institutional influences at the time; therefore you shouldn’t look backward for answers to the future. A second interesting thing that I learned from this chapter was the comparison of presentism versus historicism. This was the look of how we try to understand the events in terms of the knowledge and values of the time of the event (historicism), and the view of events with only reference to modern knowledge and values (presentism). I found this interesting because it really actually broke down how we look at history. If we look at it from a presentism view we may feel the people at the time are making stupid choices, whereas if we took the historicism approach we would better be able to understand the person’s ideas because of the things that were going on at the time of the event. The third thing that I found interesting from this chapter was how the author felt he should lay this book out for the reader. The author notices that there are certain things for colleagues and certain things for students. With this in mind it eases my mind that the textbook will be easy to understand and connect with later in this semester.
The one thing that I found the least interesting with this chapter was how there can be problems with the history that you are reading. One thing stated was that history will always be good to the person who is writing it. This raises the concern that I won’t know if what I’m reading is accurate or just changed to fit the favor of the person writing it at the time. This can then be correlated to other things I’ve read and make me doubt lots of things that I’ve read in the past about historical events. The only thing that keeps me from disregarding everything I’ve read about history is the fact that historical events get reevaluated on a regular basis to keep accuracy. This section was just my least favorite because it seemed kind of sketchy.
I think the most useful thing that will help me in understanding psychology is when the author told you to not judge what was happening in an event by what the outcome was if you knew it. If you start to look at history with that bias of the outcome it will make it a little bit harder to understand completely what was occurring externally at the time of the event.
A topic that I would like to learn more about that was in this chapter would be about the progress from animal research to human research in psychology. I found it interesting that people focused a lot on animal behavior before they ever made the transition into human behavior because it wasn’t known that you could correlate animal behavior with human behavior. This would be cool to see how this sudden study of behaviorism exploded in the field of psychology.
The only ideas I had while reading the chapter were about what was to come later in the book. The introductory chapter is usually the same in every book and just talks about how the book will read out and a few terms that the book will be looking at often. I look forward to getting more specific about the topics later in this history book.

Reading about Dr. Boring was one thing from the chapter which fascinated me. Dr. Boring believed that discoveries in science were not just one man contributing an idea, but all discoveries were inevitable because many people were experimenting with the same theories at about the same time. If Einstein had not put forth his theory of relativity then someone else would have, and if Roentgen had not presented his cathode ray tube first, then we would be celebrating another scientist for the discovery of x-rays.
I was also interested to read in the text about Boring’s dislike of the field of applied psychology, and how he would emphasize research psychology in his writings. The book points out that one chapter in the text which Boring published in 1929 was flawed because it had erroneously stated that Dr. Titchener’s systems were inspired by and closely related to Wundt’s psychology. Even though Dr. Boring had been taught by Dr. Titchener, he had never realized that Titchener’s ideas were far removed from Wundt’s ideas. In his textbook, Boring tied the systems of the two psychologists together (largely due to loss in translation of Wundt’s works). This was one example given to us by the text which points out how psychology is evolving even today. By understanding the historical context of each discovery, we can better understand how the conclusions were drawn and correct ourselves as needed.
The third most interesting thing I learned from this chapter was that Dr. Boring had a television show in which he attempted to teach psychology to the masses. There is even a picture in the text on page 15 which shows him sitting on a desk and pointing out data. I could not help but think about how he had made such a great effort to live up to his name! There he was with a pointer, sitting on the edge of a desk and probably (in monotone) droning on about psychological research findings. That show may be what inspired people to create cable and satellite programming in order to offer an opportunity to turn to another channel.
I thought that the chapter started out slow because there were a lot of details (and dates) about the founding of the psychological organizations, and the differences in those organizations. I know that it is important for us to know these organizations, but it is still very tiring to read about them and their politics. The text brings to mind how the competitiveness of professional organizations can detract from the overall advancement of scientific learning. Instead of working together for the common good, they denigrate each other and compete for membership, very much like the Harvard versus Yale argument but on a grander scale.
I believe it will be useful to know the history of notable psychologists because knowing their backgrounds is to understand the spin they may have put into their writings. If we understand the climate in which they were working then we can better understand what may have influenced the conclusions drawn from their research
I would like to know more about the Archives of the History of American Psychology, and how to access those archives. I think it would be interesting to go through the research records and learn more about the people who contributed to those records. It makes me wonder what research did not make it into the archives and why.
I could not help but think about the competing factions in psychology, and how that competition may have caused many early psychologists to destroy notes and papers which could have given us better insight to their methodology.

M.S.
I was pleasantly surprised after reading Chapter One. It was what I expected it to be and more. I expected an introduction to the course, background information and a lot of explanation but what I didn’t expect was that I would be so interested. I often found myself yelling things like, “really!?” or “why!?”
One thing I found interesting was that there are data selection problems simply because “’data might be missing on purpose.” I was amazed to learn this! All of the time and effort that is put into finding data and there are researchers like John Watson that intentionally burned his work. I can’t say I understand why he would do this. When Watson’s secretary asked him why he was doing this, he said, “when you’re dead, you’re all dead.’”(p.21) I assume when he says this, trying to say that when you die, so does everything you did when you were alive but in my opinion, that is a horrible why to think about life and the work you’ve done. Even Freud destroyed his finding because he wanted to keep his sources a secret. I don’t understand why you would throw all of the work you’ve done away.
Another thing I found that was interesting was that Charles Darwin’s grandfather, Erasmus Darwin developed evolution first but the theory was “ahead of his time.” This interests me because I always thought it was ahead of Charles Darwin’s time. There are only a generation between Charles and his grandfather which makes me wonder how much time changed. I would like to what happened to make it more appropriate for Charles to announce his theories that it would have been for Erasmus to announce his. Did Charles have more research? How much did Charles stem off his grandfather’s work if he did at all. I would like to understand more about what is was like for Erasmus to conduct his research.
The third thing I found interesting was how much of the data that is in the Archives of the History of American History. I could believe that psychologist Walter Miles included a brick from the building site of a new lab. Though this seems like it has little significance to data that could be used for future reference, it is still a part of history and Miles work. Even more odd, I was surprised to read that there is a folder that contains a pharmacist’s packet with cocaine in it. This packet of cocaine was retrieved by the authorities from research done be Carl Koller who was experimenting with cocaine as an anesthetic in eye surgery. Cocaine! It’s such a no no, a very illegal drug but they have a packet of it from research 1884 in the AHPA. Even though some researchers throw away their data, so much was preserved.
I only thing I can really say I didn’t find interesting was Interpretation Problems. I found this least interesting because it’s something that I’ve learned quite a few times. I know that all history is biases that each person has a different perspective on what was happening. And even though I know it was just an example but I really disliked how some people believe that the Holocaust didn’t happen and that only certain events happened. I know that everyone has their own perspective and this is a great example how some are skewed.
A topic I would like to learn more about is the lifestyle and society Erasmus Darwin lived in. I would like to know what his research consisted of and how closely related it is to Charles research. I would like to know what kind of relationship the two had. I’m surprised that I have never heard of Erasmus Darwin and I want to find out why that is.
While reading this chapter, I kept thinking that I would love to visit the AHPA. It would be so interesting to be able to use the AHPA as a source. Even if I’m not able to look though the data, it would still be fascinating to just look around. At the end, I though the author did very well in summarizing what he thought was important. I also like that he gave insight in what to expect for the rest of the book.

To be completely honest I thought that chapter one was a very long and boring read, but on a more positive note I think it will get a lot better. The one thing that I disliked most about this chapter/found the least interesting was all of the vocabulary and its definitions. This chapter kind of dragged on about these definitions (presentism, historicism, external history, internal history, personalistic history, etc) and made them a lot more complex than they needed to be. I understand that they are all very important but I did not think the way that they described them was very effective, at least for me. I understand this was just and introduction to the book so they needed to cover the basics, but I am glad it is over and I can start reading about actual people and events. On the contrary, I found the close up on Edwin Boring to be very interesting. I have never heard of this psychologist before, but I learned a lot from this section on him. I found it very interesting that he went to school for engineering but was so intrigued by psychology he went back and got his PhD in it. I would like to learn more about this psychologist because I am intrigued by his areas of study: human maze learning, nerve regeneration, the learning processes of schizophrenics, and especially the dissertation about visceral sensitivity. I did not fully understand the books description on this and I would like to figure out his actual process of how he did this. Another thing I learned and found interesting from this chapter was that Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus developed a theory of evolution prior the Darwin, I thought that this was a really good example of a theory being “ahead of its time.” The last thing that I found interesting, although very miniscule, was the fact that psychology has only been around for 125 years. I was astonished when I read that, it may be common knowledge to some, but I have not been exposed to much psychology in my lifetime and when I read that I was very taken aback; I thought it had been around much longer.
One thing that I read in this chapter that really made me excited about taking this class was that “history courses can serve as a synthesizing experience.” It mentioned that there are many specialties in the field but the one thing that they all have in common is their history which provides a sense of unity and connects different ideas of psychology. I think that this concept will be very important as I progress through this class because I will be able to better understand connections between various topics covered in all of my psychology classes. Also even though the terms were boring to read/learn I think they will be very important while trying to understand psychology because I will have a better view of the situation the psychologists were in , their resources, mindsets/views, values, and I will be able to take that into consideration while learning about them.
As I was reading through the chapter there were many things I had questions about. The first was why is psychology such a new field of study? Since I was so surprised by its creation date I wanted to know more about why it got started and when it did. I also was wondering about the significance of the 60’s and why that was the time when a new interest in the history of psychology came to be. Next as I was reading through the WHY STUDY HISTORY? Section of the chapter I made a remark in my notes about David McCullough’s analogy to love and I said that it was very helpful in getting the point across. Another helpful analogy was in the section about naturalistic history by Boring. He referred to history as continuous and sleek and great people being the handles, this made a lot of sense and I was better able to define the terms. Another thing that interested me about Boring was when he said that without Darwin, someone else would have produced a theory of biological evolution… I thought this was a very bold statement and I wondered how he could be so confident.

The thing I found most interesting in this chapter was the idea of presentism. It’s kind of amusing that humans are so judgmental at times that they even judge things that happened in the past. People really love pushing their ideas and values on others, and I think it angers us that we cannot go back and change the past. We can also become a little egotistical at times and think that we are superior to the past in accomplishments and knowledge. A good example of this in the book is Henry Goddard at Ellis Island before World War I. Personally, I think he took a good thing and turned it bad; notice we pay more attention to what he did than the actual invention of the IQ test. It may be naïve of me to do this too, but it is only human nature to judge based on today’s values. Like many other scientists of his time, Goddard believed that intelligence was an inherited and naturally selected trait, based on what they knew at the time. I would really like to learn more about this particular topic in the future since I thought it was the most interesting topic/concept. I also believe that this particular concept of presentism could really help us in not only understanding the history of psychology, but also being more understanding in terms of the values at the time and people’s reasons for doing things.
What we can learn from instances like this, though, is that we need to be aware that our own technologies are maybe not as advanced as we think they are. Furthermore, we need to be careful what we do with them; for example: evaluating the mentally ill in court. There are many different versions of tests for this purpose, and there is really no set guideline. A verdict is usually based on what a psychologist recommends to a judge, which is dangerous because that person could be wrong. I bet that in the way future, people will have found ways to perfect this process a little more, and I’m sure they will be quick to judge us on this topic as we judge Goddard for his actions. We send the mentally ill to institutions based on less than perfect test results, as to protect our society and give them the help we need. He deported the immigrants based on a brand new test, and maybe he wasn’t doing this to be racist. As the book says, our country was afraid of being overpopulated with new immigrants, as well as the fact that most people thought intelligence was a naturally selected trait that corresponded with a person’s physical strength in some way. Perhaps Goddard’s objective was to aid in strengthening the country and maintaining that strength.
Another thing that I thought was pretty neat was the reasons for studying history and the history of psychology. They never really explain to us in high school the point of studying the subject; it is widely heard that one of the reasons is so we do not repeat mistakes of the past. I feel like the points that the book comes up with makes us think more in depth about the reason we study history. I think one of the best points is that we cannot really understand anything about the present if we don’t know anything about the past. An example of this that I came up with is the reviews on websites; we can learn so much about a product or place before even going there, based on others’ experiences. Furthermore, the history of a product or place could be what draws us to it in the first place, and knowing more about it can help us have new experiences and discoveries. A third thing I found interesting was the “Great Man”, or personalistic theory, which is a theory that discusses a human need for “heroes” as well as people influencing history. The contrast to this, we learn, is naturalistic history, which is basically history’s influence on individuals, and the one that Boring favored. My least favorite topic was the writing and references section. It was not very interesting at all.

The first part that I really enjoyed was the close up on Edwin Boring. I always find it interesting when someone becomes so prominent in an area that they did not master until trying other occupations first. Boring seemed to be a very talented man. It reminds me to keep my eye open as I get older and not get stuck on one career or occupation. There is no denying his attributions to the area of psychology, while at Harvard. Psychology is such a huge field now that it is crazy to think that it was held with the philosophy department. I think it is interesting that he went on to make educational television to try and educate the masses. That showed that he really cared about his society.
I also thought that the section where they talked about why study psychology’s history to be interesting. Most students find history to be very boring and pointless. When you really think about it though, it really is important. It can lead us in the right direction, and stop us from making the same mistake as someone else in the past. It can also give us ideas. I really do not find history to be that interesting at all, but I do so why it is important to learn about it.
The next section that I thought was interesting was the one on problems with the writing of history. Some books will reflect more of the author’s opinion, although the facts still may be true. As we read these texts we must try and formulate our own opinions about the events described. I also have thought about how hard it would be to write a historical book. It would take a massive amount of research and you would have to verify your sources. It would probably be a huge headache. I respect anyone who can write a textbook.
I found the sources of historical data to be very boring. I think we all know what a primary and secondary source are by now. I definitely know what an archive is. I think it was probably necessary to start the first chapter with this but it could have been shorter. I found myself skimming through a lot of that section.
I think that the part on the writing of history was very helpful. It reminds me to read objectively and formulate my opinion. Instead of just repeating what the author said, I can formulate my own opinion and generate my own thought regarding the material. This will be the most helpful as I continue.
I would like to know more about the process of historiography. I think it would be interesting to find out more about how these authors make these books. It has to be a long process to find all of this information. I am sure they have some techniques to lighten the load. I think it would be cool to see what some of these authors have to say about the process.
My thoughts were basically about why we study history. I have to constantly remind myself of why we do it in order to force myself to learn it. It may seem boring but it really is useful information. I will try my hardest to maintain focus while I read these chapters.