What I would like you to do is to find a topic or person from this week's chapter that you were interested in and search the internet for material on that topic. You might, for example, find people who are doing research on the topic, you might find web pages that discuss the topic, you might find a video clip that demonstrates something related to the topic, etc. What you find and use is pretty much up to you at this point. Please use at least 3 quality resources.
Once you have completed your search and explorations, a) I would like you to say what your topic is, b) how exactly it fits into the chapter, and c) why you are interested in it. Next, I would like you to take the information you read or viewed related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about the topic in a knowledgeable manner. At the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. Keep in mind that it will be easier if you keep it to one topic.
Additional instructions: For each URL (internet resource) you have listed. Indicate why you chose it and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
Chapter6
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 their struggles made way for women today. This fits in with the chapter because of how it expands on the concept of women and minorities in education. I believe I'm so interested in this issue because being a women along with being a minority this issue would have effected me tremendously. Although, it didn't affect me personally, it affected my ancestors, my family.
Nineteenth century, women's roles in American society underwent gradual but definite growth, spurred on by a rapidly changing society. As the nation recovered from its Civil War and slavery faded away, a massive transformation of industrialization took place, and revolutionary scientific ideas, such as those presented in Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, and by Sigmund Freud, caused people to question and to rethink fundamental aspects of their lives, religion, and beliefs. Social reforms in the fields of health, labor, and education developed as the publication of books and periodicals revealed to the public the problems therein. At the turn of the century, women's roles were severely limited by society's concepts of male supremacy and female inferiority. Women were perceived as weak, a notion upheld by the "prevalence of invalidism among nineteenth century women". A woman's priority in young adulthood was to find a husband, and after doing so, raise a family and run a well-kept household. These very definite ideas about a woman's part in the overall scheme of things were responsible for the restricted part women played in their world. Nineteenth century phenomenon among women, developed as a result of the concept of the 'woman's sphere,' whereby the woman's role in life was strictly limited to home and family. As for African American women they were forbidden to read and we limited even more than white women in that time. Female students were not always taken seriously, and were frequently discriminated against, requested to withdraw from certain courses so that more men might enroll. There was also the belief of the "unmarried academic woman" phenomenon where women were either married or educated. Once the education was received that didn't guarantee pursuit of an occupation. Society's expectation that women care for home and family left little room for personal growth and professional development. Women who sought jobs or professional work were still very rare. But once women began receiving higher education, there was no going back. Education changed women's role in society dramatically. Occupations were limited but women began to seep into the male-dominated world. After experiencing higher learning, aspirations changed and gradually society's expectations had to change as well. Education bred confidence and empowerment. With empowerment came the realization that women should not be considered lesser than men and therefore should have the same rights of men. Educated women were more apt to challenge men's role as the dominant figure and the flawed rationale for the denial of suffrage.
http://wikis.lib.ncsu.edu/index.php/The_Struggle_for_Equality:_Educating_American_Women
I chose this webpage because it gave a lot of information about the suffrage of women in the late 1800’s. Gave background on the struggle women went through to further their education.
http://lwvnet.org/tn/nashville/files/the_history_of_womens_suffrage.pdf
This webpage gave more information as well about the trials women went through to further their education.
http://www.connerprairie.org/Learn-And-Do/Indiana-History/America-1860-1900/Lives-Of-Women.aspx
This webpage gave background on women’s lives in the 1800’s and went further in to the 19 century and how women’s rights and social norms began to change. Discussed life of women that furthered their education and how that changed societies view of women.
After reading this chapter I was interested in learning more about Christine Ladd-Franklin. She was mentioned a little bit in chapter six. Christine Ladd-Franklin is who I chose to learn more about this week. She is one of the few women psychologist during her era. She had a very lively childhood. Her mother was a women's rights activist and as a toddler joined her mother at rallies. She was interested mainly in physics but turned to math because she couldn't be granted access to a lab.
Ladd-Franklin is known most for her theory of color vision. When she formed her theory there were two other theories that didn't go along with hers. Thomas Young thought there were only three main colors red, green and blue. Hering while trying to explain color blindness suggested that colors coupled together red-green, black-white, and yellow-blue. Her color vision theory explained the development of heightened distinction in color. She theorized that there were three evolving stages of the color development. She also theorized that seeing black and white was the most obsolete stage of development because black and white vision happens in most visual settings. With this theory ether-waves on the retina could now be explained.
Although she developed the color vision theory she had trouble getting it published because she was a female. She also taught at John Hopkins but worked for no wages. It wasn't until 1929 that her research on vision was finally published.
http://www2.webster.edu/~woolflm/christineladd.html
I chose this website because it gave a lot of information about Christine's childhood that I found helpful in understanding why she chose physics and math.
http://voices.yahoo.com/women-history-psychology-christine-ladd-6177600.html?cat=37
I chose this website because it discussed more about her color vision theory as well as the other vision theories of her time.
http://www.feministvoices.com/christine-ladd-franklin/
I chose this website because it informed me of the reason as to why it took her theory so long to get published.
After reading chapter six, I decided I wanted to learn more about Francis Sumner. I think that he is a pretty importan figure in the history of psychology, and he deserves more recognition that he has been given. I didn't even know about him until reading this chapter. I think that more text books should include him in their contents, because what he accomplished is a huge milestone not only in the history of psychology, but also in the history of the U.S.
Francis Sumner was born in Arkansas in 1895. He only recieved an elementary education. He was self educated after completing elementary, his parents helped him out a great deal as well with the education process. When he was fifteen years old, he passed an enterance exam to Lincoln University, an all black college. After graduating Lincoln, he proceeded to Clark University where he gained his second Bachelors Degree in English. After graduating Clark, he went back to Lincoln for grad school, and also taught German and psychology. He attended Clark for his Ph.D.
Francis Sumner is most widely known as being the first African American to recieve a Ph.D in psychology. He was also the first African American to earn a doctorate at an American University. Such an amazing accomplishment, and it should be more widely known than what it is. During Sumner's time at Clark, he worked very closely with G. Stanley Hall. He was also mentored by Mr. Hall as well. He was credited as one of the founders of the psychology department at Harvard University, and is often referred to as the "Father of Black Psychology." Among all of these great accomplishments, he was also a pivotal leader in the education reform.
As you can see, Francis Sumner was a many of many accomplishments. He beat all odds and made something of himself. Being an African American, in the south, with no high school diploma he really accompllished many great things, and worked very hard towards his goals. I think that he should be mentioned more in psych courses and at least make sure students know who he was, because he really did do amazing things, and set a big milestone for the United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Sumner
http://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/ethnicity-health/psychologists/sumner-prosser.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Cecil_Sumner
The topic I chose to do my research on for chapter 6 was Margaret Floy Washburn. The reason I chose to research more on her was because I am fascinated by women’s achievement’s, especially in a time where the role of women was to be housewives caring for children and completing household chores. The book touched base on Washburn and told of some of her successes and interests, but I wanted to get a more detailed look especially on her life background.
Mary was born on July 25, 1871 in New York City. Her father was an Episcopal priest and her mother came from a very prosperous family. She was an only child and she did not enter school until the age of 7, but she still learned to read and write far before that. At the age of 15 Margaret entered Vassar College as a prep student and as an undergrad she developed a passion for philosophy and science. Because she had such a huge desire to learn and get a degree, she never married or had children which was the role of women during this time. After graduating in 1891 she became determined to study under Cattell at Columbia University but they didn’t allow women to be grad students. Rather, she was admitted as an auditor for a year until Cattell convinced her to go to Cornell University. There she studied under Titchener and conducted many experiments on tactual perception. Two semesters later she earned her Master’s degree and continued her work on the influence of visual imagery on judgments of tactual distance and direction. Later she gave an oral presentation and became the first woman to receive a PhD in psychology. After this she was elected into the American Psychological Association, her dissertation was sent to Wundt, and she was named a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences. Next, she was offered the chair of psychology, philosophy, and ethics at Wells College and from then on out she taught at several different universities throughout the United States.
Throughout her professional career Margaret used her experiments in animal behavior and cognition to present the idea that mental, not just behavioral, events are important psychological areas for study. This idea went against the prior doctrine that mental events weren’t observable or appropriate for serious scientific investigation. She also studied consciousness as an excitation and inhibition of motor discharge, she presented theories in movement and mental imagery, and she wrote 127 articles on topics including spatial perception, memory, experimental aesthetics, individual differences, animal psychology, emotion and affective consciousness. Her best known work and biggest contribution to psychology was her textbook The Animal Mind, which contained her research on experimental work in animal psychology. It covered a wide range of mental activities including: senses and perception, hearing, vision, consciousness, higher mental processes, animal behavior, and kinesthetic/tactual sensation. She studied many different animals including: rats, ants, bees, caterpillars, cats, chickens, worms, dogs, crabs, elephants, raccoons, spiders, pigeons, snails, turtles, and many more. Lastly one of her biggest accomplishments was the motor theory which explains that consciousness arises when a motion or tendency towards movement is inhibitied by a tendency towards another movement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Floy_Washburn
http://www2.webster.edu/~woolflm/washburn.html
http://www.apa.org/about/archives/presidents/bio-margaret-washburn.aspx
After reading chapter 6, I wanted to look further into the research being done about the possible relationship between intelligence and depression/depressive like symptoms. In chapter 6, we learned that William James had a life long battle with depression and suicidal ideation. We also learned that he was a great, perhaps the greatest, American pioneer in psychology who accomplished many things such as publishing the most famous psychology textbook. I was immediately struck with this thought "maybe his outstanding intelligence came with a cost (depression)."
Since I wanted more research based articles for this particular topic, I went straight to PsychINFO and typed "intelligence and depression" into the search box. I browsed my results and then decided to try "depression and intelligence" - coming up with the same results. There was a constant theme/keyword in the articles that came up with my search - emotional intelligence. At first, I was a little confused by that term so I went to google. Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, control, and evaluate emotions in both yourself and others. I found numerous articles that examined the relationship between emotional intelligence and depression.
There is a lot of controversy over emotional intelligence. Some experts say it is trait that we are born with, others say it is a gene that can be strengthened over time. There are also several tests that measure emotional intelligence, most rely on self observation or reflective introspective that we also learned about chapter 6. I found two solid research studies that I read about, both addressing the two views of emotional intelligence and its many tests. No matter, the results were the same. There are high correlations with large effects seen in the relationship between emotional intelligence and depression. Those with higher emotional intelligence had lower rates of depression and those with lower emotional intelligence had higher rates of depression. In addition to that, the articles that I found, gave light to my original though that a high intelligence is correlated with a higher risk for depression. One article said "Clever individuals have advanced thoughts so their focuses are more intense, and more inclined to turn in overwhelmed."
In another one of my classes, I am reading a book called Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Through his book, I have been asked to examine the current education system and the corporate in hopes to point out ways in which both inhibit creativity. While learning about emotional intelligence and its differing levels- that some are able to recognize the emotions in both themselves and others better than other-I applied some of what I have learned from that book to this concept. In an article, I learned that artists, in general, have a very high emotional intelligence whereas "bookworms" tend to have low emotional intelligence than the average population.
After soaking in all this information, I came up with some theories of my own.The 'artsy" type are often frowned upon in high school whereas the bookworms are rewarded for their high grades. As bookworms continue to get more into their books, they are more drawn back and some may even "live" in the stories they are reading. Because of this, although they are very intelligent in the academia world, they may lack strength in emotional intelligence. On the other side, "artsy" people maybe sometimes be looked at as less intelligent for sometimes they receive lower grades. However, their emotional intelligence is very high.
Through my research, I learned that treatment of depression cost the United States 9 billion dollars in the early 2000s and that depression is rated in the top 10 for largest cause of global disease burden for its impact on the individual, the family, and the society. I think that if our school systems and corporate world could find a nice balance to enhance "regular" intelligence along with emotional intelligence, our nation would see a boom in productivity; at all stages of the lifespan for depression has no age requirement.
http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0213-61632008000200005
This was an article about a study done in Europe. Subjects were either depressed or not depressed and their emotional intelligence was measured. The relationship between the two was then discussed in the article I read.
http://arca-med.com/depression-intelligence.html
This was a shorter article where I read the author's educated look on the relationship between "regular" intelligence and depression.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167494312001288#
This was a research study similar to the first one I listed but all of its subjects were older adults.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence
Here, I looked up general information about emotional intelligence more for my own purpose, as to better understand the articles I read on PsychINFO.
One thing that I found interesting was how psychologists used mazes to study the mind and how memory works. I was interested in knowing what kind of mazes we use today when studying the mind and how it words. I was also interested to see if we use humans in these maze studies and if we did then how and what they learn from these studies. I know when I think about maze studies that I think about little white mice or rats so when reading the chapter and learning that they also used bigger animals like monkeys, dogs, and cats I was intrigued to learn more. I never really considered the idea that humans could be used to go through mazes, but virtual mazes have made that possible in our modern world.
It is true that we use humans in research by having them go through a virtual maze. Virtual mazes are on computers or other electronical device. These mazes are used to see how long it takes a human being to get from the start to the end. It also helps the researchers to understand trial and error processes that we go through. In these experiments the participants are asked to navigate through the virtual maze. The participants start out facing a door or other passageways and they have to decide, using the arrows, which door or passageway they would like to enter. If when doing in the maze the person reaches a dead end they must back track through the maze.
In one study they participants were asked to complete the maze 15 times and the data taken from that experiment was the amount of time taken to complete the maze and the amount of errors that the participants have. Some studies will only have them do it 6 times while other will have them do it more. Other studies will still look at time it takes for someone to get through a maze, but they will manipulate whether they are blindfolded, whether they get to see the maze first, whether they can see a map of the maze, etc. In most studies it shows that repeated exposure to a maze will lessen the time it takes for a person to get through it. No matter what variable is manipulated the person will still decrease the time it takes for them to get through the maze. It is shown that when wearing a blindfold you may decrease your time to get through the maze, but you still will take a lot longer than those who weren’t blind folded. It doesn’t matter how many times you do the maze there will still be a difference.
It is also shown that there are significant gender differences when looking at the results of these tests. It has been shown that the gender of humans is like the gender of other mammals in that male species are better at completing maze tasks. It was also shown that males took less time to solve the maze and that they also had less errors when completing the maze. The errors are when they go the wrong way or have to turn around because they hit a dead end. In the studies of gender differences they still saw the same result of people getting better and better at a maze the more times that they do it. This is also true for error. The more times people complete a maze the less likely they are to make the same amount of errors. On the opening run through the maze it showed that both men and women had the same amount of initial error which is important when wondering if pales have a better memory when dealing with trial and error. Some more information on why men may be better at mazes is that they have more video game or computer game experience compared to women, but how does this explain why in other species the males are better at mazes? Maybe one day someone will come up with that answer.
SIDE NOTE: When researching this topic I came across something about how researchers would blind participants and ask them to walk in a straight line. They point to this study was to see if people were more likely to turn left or right when walking somewhere. What they found was that most people actually will start to walk in small circles of about 66ft or less in diameter. I thought that was interesting and how that could be used when creating a maze or when having someone walking through a maze. -http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/5504/do-people-intuitively-turn-a-particular-direction
http://depts.washington.edu/huntlab/vr/m2.htm
I used this website because it is an example of a study done in this field of research and it allowed me to see a process that the researchers went through when conducting this study.
http://opl.apa.org/Experiments/About/AboutMazes.aspx
This one is also a study, but it was a good example of what virtual mazes are and how they work. It liked this as a site because it had a good explanation and a good example of what humans do in mazes
http://www.unt.edu/rss/class/mike/5640/articles/moffatspatialgender.pdf
I liked this website because it was an example of another study done, but in this study they compared men and women together to see how they were different when completing mazes.
Chapter 6
While reading chapter 6 this week I decided that id like to learn more about the famous Mary Calkins. Although the book summarized her life decently well, I'd really like to get farther into her life and achievements.
Mary Whiton Calkins was a native of Hartford, Connecticut. Born on march 30, 1863 she soon moved to Massechusetts with her family. Being the eldest of five children, she lived with her family in Massachusetts until she entered Smith College as a sophomore. After only a year of college at Smith, her sister passed away, forcing her to take a year off from school. She would soon return to Smith in 1884 graduating with a concentration in classics and philosophy.
After graduation, Calkins along with her family took a 16 month trip around Europe only to return to an interview with the president of Wellesley College, an all girls college, which her father had set up. For three years Calkins worked as a teacher in the Greek Department until a professor in the psychology department took an interest in her excellent teaching skills. This professor soon offered Calkins a teaching position on the condition that she studied psychology for a year prior to teaching her first class.
Although there were not very many options for women looking to study and obtain a degree in psychology, Calkins made the choice to take classes as Harvard Annex. Although the president of Harvard was less than pleased with the idea of women learning in the same room as men, Mary's professors encouraged her to take regular classes with William James, with men as her peers. Eventually, Charles Eliot, the president of Harvard, gave into the idea of Calkins studies and allowed her to study in the regular classes, with the stipulation that she was not to be a registered student.
Over the next couple years, Calkins worked alongside Edmund Sanford of Clark University, setting up the first psychology lab at Wellesley College. It was here, that Calkins continued to excel in psychology, working on graduate work. In 1894, Harvard was petitioned to admit Calkins as a Ph.D. candidate. Although they eventually declined her, she was soon offered a Ph.D. from Radcliffe. Mary declined to accept it due to the lack of relativity it towards her major studies.
Mary Calkins, over her lifetime, contributed quite a bit to the field of psychology. She also write quite a bit for the field of philosophy, being the author os The Persistent Problems of Philosophy and The Good Man and the Good. Relevant to the field of psychology, Calkins spent many years studying memory and the later concepts of self. Specifically, spending a great majority trying to define the idea of "the self." Eventually, Calkins concluded that she would be unable to define it, although stating that she thought the self dealt with "a totality, a one of many characters… a unique being in the sense that I am I and you are you…" Calkins also worked in dream research while being tutored by Sanford and being given the opportunity to conduct a research project that analyzed dreams within a seven-week period. Calkin's research would eventually be sited by Sigmund Freud when he created his concept of a dream.
Other major accomplishments include being an Associate Professor and then a Professor at Wellesley College, eventually becoming a Research Professor until her retirement in 1929. In 1905 Mary was elected president of the American Psychological Association and then the President of the American Philosophical Association in 1918. In 1909 Calkins was awarded a Doctor of Letters from the University of Columbia and a Doctor of Laws from Smith College and 1910.
http://www2.webster.edu/~woolflm/marycalkins.html
I chose this site due to it's .edu validity and easily organized information
http://www.apa.org/pi/women/resources/newsletter/2011/03/mary-calkins.aspx
Although this site is a bit shorter than most, which is why I chose a 4th site, the information is very specific and easily read.
http://faculty.frostburg.edu/mbradley/psyography/marywhitoncalkins.html
I chose this site because of it's .edu validity and it's abundance of information. This site really emphasized her life accomplishments
http://www.feministvoices.com/mary-whiton-calkins/
This site was one that I chose because of it's emphasis on the feminist part of her contributions to academia.
I decided to do my blog on Elizabeth Scarborough because she was just briefly mentioned in the textbook for being a woman struggling against a male-oriented discipline in the turn of the century. However, no other information was given about her, or her contributions in the psychology field. Given that the author found it important enough to include her name amongst Calkin, Franklin and Washburn, I deemed her interesting enough to do further research; even if that partially had to do with the fact that I was sick of reading pages full of information about white scholarly men. Obviously Elizabeth Scarborough fits into this chapter one the sole fact that after reading her name one would assume she’s a female, in a male dominated field and time era. Elizabeth Scarborough, when googled, is actually a quite common name, so finding information on her was a little difficult; along with the fact that there wasn’t to much information provided about her once articles were found. After clicking on pointless websites, I did happen to find some containing information that I could use and ended up getting the big picture why she was mentioned in the book in the first place.
Mrs. Scarborough wrote a seminal book titled: Untold Lives: The First Generation of American Women Psychologists, which is an analysis of the lives of a group of earlier woman who established or comprised the first generation American female psychologists and the struggles they went through in order to obtain their degree and status. I felt like this book and the meaning behind it actually followed and played a role in her life. The women in the Untold Lives were woman from the late 1800’s and during this time woman did not get an education, they were to be caregivers and housewives. During Elizabeth’s lifetime which in her younger adult years would have been middle to late 1900’s the same mind-frame towards woman working was still present. It wasn’t as harsh, given that woman could actually vote and attend college, but woman were still shunned in an academic setting. It was almost as if society encouraged woman to get an education, but then scrunched up their noses if you weren’t married with a family, or if you were married with a family then everyone shook their heads at you because you weren’t a dedicated mother. I felt as if Elizabeth experienced this a lot, her husband was a university professor who seemed to require a ‘housewife’ lifestyle; as in dinner preparations and childcare (2 children) and the fact that throughout much of her academic pursuits she adapted her lifestyle and studies around his already established career.
After she obtained her PhD and moved to Illinois for her husband’s career advancement, Elizabeth’s career didn’t really go anywhere; she found part-time work whenever she could until she was offered a position in which she was to write a paper on the history of woman in psychology, a topic that no one had really covered yet and at the time had only three known figures that she could essentially research (Franklin, Calkins, Washburn). From the beginning she had little to no interest in the topic, but as she dug further into the history of psychology she realized there where many forgotten or overseen woman of the first generation of psychologists. This new found interest turned into a 10 year research which ultimately (with the help of woman’s rights movements) turned into the book: : Untold Lives: The First Generation of American Women Psychologists.
Elizabeth Scarborough finally took her own advice; she got a full-time career and a permanent divorce. Remind you that this divorce also took place during an era in which the‘d-word’ was unheard of and frowned upon in our society, but the importance and relevance to the chapter is that she, in my opinion, is your( or was) your typical woman who juggles a family life with an academic career. She waited to pursue her career in full force until after her children were basically rose which is understandable, but more importantly, just like the other woman of the first generation psychologists, she didn’t let society or set backs get in her way of eventually fulfilling her dreams.
http://www.feministvoices.com/elizabeth-scarborough/
http://www.uakron.edu/dotAsset/2257559.pdf
http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Untold_Lives.html?id=HmsHwVIIfDAC
After reading chapter six, I was really interested in the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862, or also known as the Land Grant College Act. Signed by Abraham Lincoln, the Morrill Land Gratn Act of 1862 was introduced by Vermont congressman Justin Smith Morrill. This Land Grant Act gave each state 30,000 acres of public land, a number based on the number of senators and representatives in each state, giving the more popular eastern states a benefit. Morrill envisioned "the financing of agriculture and mechanical education", who also envisioned this grant would provide education to all social classes, not just those of upper middle and upper classes. This grant, along side of Morrill's envision, was originally set up to establish school institutions in each state to educate people in agriculture, mechanical arts, home economics, and other professions that were found practical at the time. These institutions gave purpose to education, shifting the education from classical studies to more practical studies that would prove to beneficial to the everyday life of others. This grant gave a major boost to higher education in America.
Although this situation improved the lives of millions of Americans, this not true with the first Morrill Act. In the early stages of this act, there was a separation of races, especially in the south. In the south, African Americans were not allowed to attend the original land-granted institutions. Mississippi and Kentucky were the only states that set up separate but equal institutions. This situation was addressed and rectified when the Second Morrill Act was passed, expanding the system of grants to include black institutions. From this Second Morrill Act, 17 African American and 30 American Indian colleges were established.
These acts ensured direct governmental support to the educational institutions and ensured there would always be continual money to finance educational facilities. This act was the first federal aid to higher education and laid the foundation for a national system of state colleges and universities.
On a side note, out of the three state colleges, Iowa State University was college established due to this act, along side Kansas State University, Michigan State University, and the University of Missouri.
http://www3.nd.edu/~rbarger/www7/morrill.html
I used this site because it gave the information in a formal and easy to read formation. I used this site to get an overview of the act.
http://www.uky.edu/CampusGuide/land-grant.html
This side had a lot of detailed information that I used to fill in the spots missing from the first site. I also used this site to get the specific schools established in the Midwest.
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=33
Like the second site, I used this site to fill in the details the first website did not have.
While I was reading about chapter six, I found the ideas of self psychology to be very interesting. It seemed to me that self psychology was good for psychology as a whole. The field aimed to bring together functionalist and structuralists. It was the first time that these to sets of ideas could be brought together in order to move psychology forward at the right pace and direction. Calkin's ideas were so important and ground breaking that she eventually became the first president of the APA.
Self psychology is mainly described as stating that all consciousness is an element of self. Calkins wanted psychology to be the study of mental life. These new ideas gave psychology direction. Self psychology is interesting to me because it deals with the inner being. It explains how we are all unique. We all perceive things in different ways and that is what makes us unique. It is important to remember that we all do not think the same way and there is no correct way of thinking. Self psychology explains this to us and is an attempt to get us to study these things. It gives us a starting point, the self. We can start from this point and if it takes us in different directions, we can still study them together. I like this idea because the more you know about what other people are studying, the more you can apply it to what you are studying. It might even cause a breakthrough in a theory or subject you are researching. It is important to work together and be on the same page and self psychology helps us do that.
A new important idea in the area of self psychology is empathy. We must be able to understand someone, and their life circumstances if we wish to effectively make a change. Once we can get inside the world of a patient, we can see what they really need. Meeting their basic needs is the first step in helping their well-being. Problems and tendencies are attempted to be made into a positive light. It is what makes you unique and makes you who you are. The more positively you look at your tendencies, the better you can use them to be successful. More recently, self psychology has become an idea for an individual to attempt to understand themselves to improve their daily functioning.
http://psychclassics.asu.edu/Calkins/self.htm
http://www.goodtherapy.org/Self_Psychology.html
http://www.trisp.org/about.html
terms: self psychology, Calkins, structuralism, functionalism, APA, consciousness, self, tendencies, perceptions
After reading this chapter I decided to look more into Clark University. It fits into this chapter quite nicely due to its significant of being one of the first universities to accept African-Americans, like Francis Sumner, in to earn a bachelor’s degree and teaching place of G. Stanley Hall, along with being one of the first universities to have a psychology graduate department. I became interested in it for two reasons; the first being that it was one of the only colleges in the north around the late 1800’s and early 1900’s that allowed the already disadvantaged blacks at a proper education. Second it was founded not by a scientist but a merchant by the name of Jonas Clark, who just wanted to help educate the youth with his wealth.
Jonas Clark was a well established manufacturer and distributer of chairs and furniture in central Massachusetts. It wasn’t until the early 1850’s that he came to San Francisco, California after selling his business to try his hand in mining and building supplies, along with hardware and furniture once again. Here he became one of the most largest furniture wholesalers in the west coast. It wasn’t long after that’ he became involved in public insurance and the Union to help raise money for the Civil War. In 1864 Clark, with the rate of gold so high, exchanged his gold for paper money and started to invest his money in stocks and bonds earning himself a fortune.
It wasn’t until this fortune that Clark decided to give back to the community by establishing Clark University in 1887. It was then he caught the attention of G. Stanley Hall a student of William James and the first recipient of an American Ph.D. in psychology. From there it was Hall’s ideas and visions that took the college to new heights. Part of this vision included having the best faculty on hand, in order to do this Clark and his committee sent Hall to Europe for eight months to learn from and recruit the best in the disciplines of science. Hall was unsuccessful at luring away any of the brightest minds back to the U.S. among those: Hertz, Helmholtz, and Kelvin. It wasn’t until Hertz recommended an American by the name of Michelson that had been studying in Berlin for the past two year, did things start to pick up. Michelson was offered to be the Professor of Physics and Director of the Physical Laboratories at Clark, a opportunity he couldn’t refuse. In October 2, 1889 the time of Clark University’s grand opening, Hall managed nineteen faculty enough to teach the main departments offered: math, physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology, and an already thirty-five graduate students signed up.
In 1891 the first doctoral degrees are given to Herman Bumpus and Herbert Nichols, in the field of biology and psychology. A year later Hall establishes the APA (American Psychological Association), now one of the largest scientific and professional organizations in use today by the U.S. (clark.edu). Not until 1896 was a vote passed to allow women to enroll into Clark, the first being Theodate Smith. Then in 1899 the APS (American Physical Society) was formed, another widely and popular group in affect today.
http://www.clarku.edu/aboutclark/timeline/1880s.cfm
http://physics.clarku.edu/history/history.html#founding
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_University
After reading Chapter 6 for Tuesdays assignment I was interested in the beggining of the modern University. I liked how there was a direct correlation between peeople who attended, and the great minds and discoveries that came soon after. Along with the beggining of the University came the section that dealt with who got to attend. I found it very interesting to read about the struggles that African Americans, and women had getting into a University. The excuses that white males came up with to keep people out was comical and obsurd. With all this said, I chose to research the famous first Universites that were built and some of the famous people who attended. Also, I wanted to see what famous women and African Americans who revolutionized the times, and attened college.
Like I said before, I wanted to know more about the people who constructed/donated money to build the famous first Universites. The book had mentioned Johns Hopkins University quite a bit, so I decided to research the man himself. I came across a couple dinky websites that the University had put, but I found myself reading mission statements instead. I wanted to know about Johns Hopkins life, not the University, yet. Finally, I came across a website that was perfect ofr my reseach. The article gave me all kinds of information about Johns Hopkins, and I could not have found a better site. John grew up just in time for George Washingtons second term as president. He was born into a Quaker family that owned a plantation. John was not forced to work until Abraham Lincoln passsed a law, and Johns dad emancipated his farm slaves. John was forced to work and lost the ability to go to school. I found this interesting because he became so successful without a University education himself. This could have been why he founded a University. Anyways, he moved to Baltimore to help his Uncle at his grocery store. John soon took over and was general manager. John and his uncle had a couple disputes and John left to start his own business. He hired his brothers as salesmen and sold whiskey and John made a fortune his first year. Johns later business ventures were giving loans to people that were denied by the banks. Apparently he was a good judge of character and knew who to lend to, and also made a fortune doing that. On his death bed John decided to give his money back to the people because he thought that one should not bury their money with them. I thought this was cool while reading the article because John had been such a greedy man his whole life. No one quite knew why John gave that money to fund a University, but most people thought it was because he did not have an education himself. However, people did know why he funding the hospital. In that time period there was poor medical attention, and a lot of deaths because of illness. John suffered from coreha, and wanted to make the world a healthier place. I am glad I came across this article because it gave me a better understanding of who the man was who made the history of psychology what it is. John provided a place where bright minds could go to study psychology. Although he may have not done it intentionally, it is still amazing to think about where the feild of psychology would be if he had not donated the money to make the University happen.
Wanting to know more about the Women and African Americans that first attended Universities, I looked at an African American that the book mentioned. Francis Sumner was one of the first African American men to attend college. Sumner was born in Arkanas in a poor family. Sumner was self taught, and so was his father. His Father gave him strict reading assignments, and Sumner got into Lincoln Univerity by passing an exam because Sumner did not have a high school diploma. Sumner was all over the place when it came to his academic resume. Sumner first got his BA in two different areas before attending graduate school. What the book forgot to mention, and I questoned the time gap between his BA graduation and his masters completion, was that Sumner was enlisted in the army. Sumner sered for a couple of years, and was dischared. His relationships with very key people such as G Stanley Hall gave him the oppurtunity to attend graduate school at Clarke College. This was considered somewhat impossible because G Stanley Hall had the reputation of not a fan of African Americans. Turns out that he and Sumner were good friends, and Sumner made sure that the world knew this by writing about Hall in a letter. I thought this was a cool article because I got an overall perspective of Sumners life. I got to read about his child hood and the main events that took place. Sumner was a significant man in the history of psychology because he was the first African American to graduate with a PHD. Sumner was great professor of psychology, and is considered a revolutionary man of his time because of what he was able to do, along with his race. I know have a better understanding that I did not have before about how Dr. Sumner was so significant to psychology.
Lastly I wanted to look at why women had such a hard time getting into Universities. The book provided many examples that made it clear, but I wanted to know more. I guess that further research would give me the knowledge that I wanted to know why. Maybe reading about the time period would give me this. So I decided to read the book once again to see who it mentioned as one of the significant women to first attend a Univeristy. Turns out that Christine Ladd-Franklin was one of the first to attend Vassar College. Vassar was a man that was very influencial in starting that movement for women attending college. So, I set out to learn more about Christine and what significance she had. In my research I found out that Christine was very significant indeed. Christine was one of the first females to attend Vassar college. She went there for a year then was forced to drop out because of financial reasons. She later returned and graduated with a degree in mathematics. Christine wanted to go into teaching as a professor but this could not be because she was a women. So, she decided to try and get her PHD in matematics at Johns Hopkins Univeristy. Christine was denied, but had a very influencial man named, Slyvester, that made it possible for Christine to attend. She graduated and again wanted to pursue teaching as a professor at a major University. She was not completely denied because in her later years she was aloud to teach at some Universities such as the University of Chicago, but she was never paid for her lectures. I found this sad because of all the things she had been throught, but at least she got to teach. This article gave me further information that the book did, so I was satisfied with my research with Christine. She was a very revolutionary women for her time, and opened many gates for women who followed her.
http://old.library.jhu.edu/collections/specialcollections/archives/jacob.html
This site was helpful because it gave me a better understanding of the man behind the Univeristy
http://legacy.earlham.edu/~knigher/personal%20biography.htm
THis site was useful because I got to know about one of the most influencial African Americans who first attended college.
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/Biographies/Ladd-Franklin.html
This site was useful in my research because I got to know more about Christine, and how she became the first woman to graduate with a PHD.
For this chapter I decided to do my topic on the history of women and minorities being repressed in the early years of psychology research. The reason this fits into this chapter is because it is necessary to see the differences that separate us but don’t necessarily make any one person better than another, this is good because then we won’t make those same mistakes in the future. The reason I am interested in this topic is because I found it quite amusing to see how people were told that one was better than the other off of these random indicators pointed out by people in charge.
One type of way that people were known to be different from others was described by Darwin as the variability hypothesis, and later enforced by Johann Meckel when talking about gender differences. The variability hypothesis was an idea that nature “selected” those who had a high variation to survive and the others would die out. This is a cornerstone in evolution that says some traits will stay because they are useful to spread those traits onto the offspring of that species, whereas others that serve no purpose will just die out. The way this would relate to keeping women and minorities down was that interestingly enough people believed that the woman’s menstruation cycle was a handicap that had not quite been killed out as a trait. Since this trait was in women they were therefore considered inferior to men and therefore not as smart. If women weren’t as smart as men then they really didn’t need to spend time educating them, this held women back. Minorities on the other hand were much more blatant because the color of their skin was considered primal and not evolved so therefore they also didn’t need education to be wasted on them.
Another example that I found entertaining from the book would be that of the reaction time testing in minorities and whites. This was a method that was created by Francis Galton to link reaction time to intelligence in individuals. A lot of the testing by Galton was physical traits such as height, weight, gender etc. to determine intellectual abilities. At the time white males were assumed to be the dominant race and gender and therefore the smartest. So when the testing was done it showed that whites had the slowest reaction time out of whites, blacks, and Native Americans. This was interesting because anybody who would read that would then assume that whites would be the least intelligent out of the three groups. Consequently the people who did the testing came to the conclusion that whites were still the smartest because of their slow reaction it showed that they, the “higher” human form, had reflective reactions and the minorities had primitive reactions showed they were immature and intellectually had backward impulsiveness. This is another example of a weak, but accepted, attempt to keep people other than the ones in charge out of education. It seems like the people at the time were scared of masses of people who have been repressed so long getting a good education and realizing the wrongs being done to them.
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/galton.htm#Theory- Used for Sir Francis Galton information on his theory and experiments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis- Variability hypothesis with Darwin and Meckel information.
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3173639?uid=3739640&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101882023477- More information on the sex differences and how it related to the variability hypothesis.
After reading chapter six of the text book, I chose to learn more about the topic of self psychology and Mary Calkins. The book did not spend a whole lot of time talking about it so I was hoping to find some more background information and interesting details about this psychological concept.
The book talks about how self psychology was one of Calkins' major theoretical contribution to the field of psychology. This was interesting when the book talked about it because she had similar views to the way William James viewed things. Calkins' saw self psychology as a way to solve disputes.
Calkins' developed the school of self psychology in a time where many schools of thought were already dominant. She explained the self as an active agent that acts consciously and purposefully. This is an excellent way to explain the self because she later explained that both functional psychology and structural psychology had relationships to the founding point being the self. Calkins wrote that self psychology was at the core of every psychoanalytic systems. Over time most of Calkins' work has been forgotten and left behind, which is disappointing to read, but sometimes that is the way things work.
Mary Calkins was an interesting individual. She lived during a time where women and minorities were not given equal chances for education, or anything that involved a higher status or higher power. Mary Calkins attended Harvard where she studied under William James and should have received a degree in psychology, but the University denied her degree.
She was later named the first woman president of the American Psychological Association, and was the first women to be in both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association.
Although she was never given her degree from Harvard, she continued fighting for women's rights. She was given honorary degrees from both Columbia University and Smith.
I think it is sad that she earned her degree from such a prestigious school (Harvard) but was not given the degree that she worked so hard for. I cannot imagine how hard it must have been to get denied the final payoff after putting in so much effort.
http://www2.webster.edu/~woolflm/marycalkins.html#self
This site talked about the background of Calkins and self psychology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Whiton_Calkins#Self-psychology
This site talked about the background of self psychology
http://www.apa.org/about/archives/presidents/bio-mary-whiton-calkins.aspx
This site talked about Calkins and the things she accomplished and went through throughout her life.
In chapter 6 I found Francis Cecil Sumner to be interesting, because despite the odds and racial discrimination in the early 20th century, he earned his PhD in psychology and was admired by his peers. The first site calls Sumner “The Father of Black Psychology.” After receiving an elementary education in Sumner’s early years, he had to quit school because many African-Americans were not allowed to further their education. Instead Sumner’s parents would be a huge influence in helping him succeed. Sumner’s father rigorously continued to educate his son. He was taught “intense” reading and writing skills. Having completed an entrance exam, Sumner was accepted into Lincoln University, at the time he was only fifteen years old. Four years later, he graduated with “honors in English, modern language, Greek, Latin, and philosophy. After being accepted into Clark University Sumner was mentored by G. Stanley Hall. Although Hall could have been considered a racist by some people, he respected Sumner and his intellectual ideas. In 1916 Sumner earned his BA degree in English. Eventually he went back to Lincoln University, where he continued to study as a graduate student. Some of his interests were psychology, philosophy, and German. Through his continued contact with Hall, he finely earned a fellowship to study “race psychology” at Clark University. However, before Sumner could finish his PhD, he was drafted into the army during World War I. He helped his country, even though his country did not always help him. After his obligations with his service in the army, Sumner was able to return to Clark University with the help of Hall. June 14, 1920 Sumner became the first African American to receive a PhD in psychology.
According to the second site, Sumner’s first teaching job was at Wilberforce University in Ohio. Later he went to West Virginia Collegiate Institute to teach psychology and philosophy. Ultimately he could not believe how poorly African Americans were treated “in the education world.” Sumner eventually established a department of psychology at Howard University. Sumner pushed his students to work hard and helped them to achieve a quality education; he has been contributed for helping many African Americans succeed. One particular student of Sumner’s, Kenneth Bancroft Clark researched, “prejudice, discrimination, and segregation in the developing child,” it was well reviewed and used “in the 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. the Board of Education.” Sumner also contributed to several psychological associations with his intellectual insights. He also had a membership to some dominantly white prestigious honorary clubs, such as Psi Chi, Pi Gamma Mu, and Kappa Alpha Psi. Sumner was interested in studying the relationship between black and white people, especially when it came to equality and justice.
The third site is a journal written by Francis Sumner about the “Psychoanalysis of Freud And Adler” on sex differences. He explains how we are all individually unique with our own characteristics. According to Sumner’s analysis of Freud, “Every individual is a duplex, both masculine and feminine.” He mentions how male and female species are all descended from, “A remote common ancestor in the micro-organic realm.” He applied the principles of a Mendelian inheritance. In which, “Femaleness” was considered to have dominant Mendelion characteristics, and “maleness” was the recessive Mendelion characteristics. In the journal, Sumner illustrates the sex differences between males and females. M2 is when males are predominantly masculine, and M1 is when males are predominantly feminine. The same goes for women, F2 is when females are predominantly masculine, and F1 is when females are predominantly feminine. After fertilization and the cells have divided, we slowly evolve our individual characteristic in which determines our masculine or feminine personality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Cecil_Sumner
http://legacy.earlham.edu/~knigher/sumner.htm
http://www.free-ebooks.net/ebook/Psychoanalysis-of-Freud-and-Adler-or-Sex-determinism-and-Character-Formation/pdf/view
After this chapter I got curious about the origins of introspection. I decided to read about it, and found that it is not strictly a psychological practice. Although many early psychologists used this method as a jumping-off point for studying the mind, introspection has been around for a long time, and has ties to philosophy and many different religions.
It is not surprising to find something that originated in philosophy while studying psychology. The specific branch of philosophy that is known for introspection is called Epistemology, which studies the nature and scope of knowledge. This sounds very similar to the definition of psychology.
Many religions such as eastern Christianity, Hinduism, and Janism reportedly practice introspection. However, I think that the argument can be made that every religion practices some form of introspection.
I am not surprised that psychology, philosophy, and religion have all practiced a similar method for getting in touch with the way one's own mind works. All three fields have a common goal of making people's lives better, and it seems like such a reflection can enable somebody to find inner peace.
I do not think that introspection should be a method of scientific research in the field of psychology, because it produces unreliable results. However, I do think that psychologists could use this technique to their advantage. Researchers can still be philosophers when it comes to asking research questions. Introspection can inspire a person to ask questions that he or she never thought of before. Therapists could also teach their clients how to perform introspection as a way to find inner peace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introspection#Introspection_and_religion
^This is the main source that I used. It was full of information
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology
^This is the website that I used to understand what type of philosophy employed the practice of introspection
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/introspection/
^This website balanced out the first one, and gave a bit of a different perspective on introspection
Terms:
Introspection, Psychological, Philosophy, Religions, Epistemology, Janism, Reflection
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_marycalkins.htm
This site gave me an overview of her study and education leading to her advances in Psychology.
http://www2.webster.edu/~woolflm/marycalkins.html
This site helped me view her set backs. It also gave more information on her contribution to the APA. There is a section on her area of study with philosophy as well.
http://psychcentral.com/classics/Calkins/murchison.htm
This is a site of her Autobiography, it included quotes from her that I found very interesting and helped me understand more of her thought.
For my topical blog assignment for chapter six I choose to research more on Mary Whiton Calkins. I found the chapter informative; however, I believe there could have been more information on the four women recognized in the end. I choose Calkins over the other three because her career aligned with William James. Learning about how successful he was made me feel like there might be more to her story than stated in text.
The text discusses her previous years of being a teacher with the opportunity to teach psychology class. After studying a year of psychology they let her become a teacher of the subject. She brewed up a passion within psychology that lead to multiple let downs. She wanted to study at Harvard, but was only admitted as a guest with no registration rights. During this time William James was a large influence in her participation. She also studies with Hugo Munsterberg who supported her in her study of psychology. After being a guest she began to write a thesis that was presented to her three judges. These three gave her a unanimous pass, however, Harvard still neglected her thesis. She still made a large impact in psychology with most working against her. She studied the paired-associate task. This was a test of memory and mental capability of memorization. Her work was published by Titchener, who claimed all rights to this advancement.
She still maintained to publish some works of her own. She wrote numerous journals and articles and published four books including; An Introduction to Psychology, The Persistent Problems of Philosophy , The Good Man, and The Good. Her advances in Philosophy were not as restricted as her attempts with Psychology. She also contributed to the movement of self-psychology. She studied the area of consciousness and association based on memory. She called this her system of “personalistic absolutism.” Another major accomplishment is that she was the first woman to be president of the American Psychological Association. This is a major turning point of acceptance for women in the field of psychology. Self-Psychology in-depth is the separation of internal and external facts based on the self. The environmental factors and the internal factors that are represented in self is what she studied. After researching I felt better that she still got to contribute to the history of psychology despite her set backs.
For this week's research, I wanted to learn more about prejudice against women in academia. The idea that men are superior to women is an ancient one, and the thought has been engrained into women throughout the times. The arguments made against women are physiological, psychological, cultural, and religious. In academics, women encounter a significant amount of sexism, if only because it is "exactly where they're not meant to be." In 1969, a professor at the University of Chicago, said of a woman working on her PhD that she has "no business looking for work with a child that age," and "We expect women here to be competent, good students; but we don't expect them to be brilliant or original." Those females who completed their PhD were regarded as being somehow crazy. Even at that time, most of the professors would deny the fact that they were sexist. However, a study done at The University of Chicago around the same time, just after the firing of a female sociology professor of nineteen years, suggests otherwise.
These biases have carried over into modern society, as well. The prejudice is far less significant than it used to be, and the prejudice that remains is often not intended. However, it is still a very real problem for those in academia. This problem affects ALL subjects in academia, including the arts and humanities. The sciences (especially those that are math-based, like engineering) are considerably male-dominated. A study by Dr. Henry Ezkowitz (though the Sociology Board of Study at Columbia University) confirmed this. This study followed a variety of faculty and graduate students, both in the sciences, and measured drop out rates and satisfaction rates across the country. The study determined qualitatively that there is still a large amount of prejudice in the way we see science. A combination of the scientific approach and the way we are socialized to think about science hinders women's participation and performance in these areas. It is suggested that we accept a female model of science as well, synchronize biological and tenure clocks by allowing a longer time span before tenure, and make visible a significant number of female role models so that women can better relate to a future in science.
In psychology specifically, female faculty are undervalued as researchers. Most students prefer teachers and role models of the same sex, and since psychology is itself female-dominated, female faculty are pressured into abandoning their passion for research in exchange for a life of teaching. Teaching is not a problem in itself, as most find it enjoyable and rewarding in its own right. However, there are much fewer opportunities for advancement in such positions. Female faculty who have the opportunity to do research are often denied funding for their research, so they are underrepresented as a whole. The disadvantages for females (and minorities across the board) have been institutionalized. Though the issue is one that many take personally, it's also a scientific issue. If women are being misrepresented and underrepresented, we aren't getting the most out of science. The removal of these prejudices will have positive implications for females and their rights as well as the progression of science and thought.
http://people.mills.edu/spertus/Gender/EKNU.html
^ I used this article to talk about the prejudices that still exist for women in academia and some of the solutions
http://www.thepsychologist.org.uk/archive/archive_home.cfm?volumeID=19&editionID=132&ArticleID=987
^ I used this article to reference current problems female psychologists face in academia.
http://www.jofreeman.com/academicwomen/howdiscrim.htm
^ I used this site for anecdotes/quotes about the history of academic sexism
I chose to focus on G Stanley Hall and his focus on Psychoanalysis. Hall fits into this chapter because he is an American Pioneer and is partially responsible for the development of American Psychology as we know it today. I am interested in this subject because, as my brain goes off on tangents I begin to think of some really interesting sub-thoughts. I feel like when we learn about different psychologists, we tend to think of them as individuals who claimed certain areas of study and were solely responsible for that material. I did not realize that Hall was such a big advocate for the psychoanalytic theory, nor did I realize that he helped Freud to expand his theories internationally. Hall believed that the natural expression of sexual behavior should not be inhibited. I find this very surprising because of the time period in which Hall lived. To suggest something of this nature was unheard of, and it sparked some controversy. Hall organized the Clark Conference and hosted Freud and Jung to speak about their theories of psychoanalysis. I think this is important not only because it helped the psychoanalytic theory to spread, but because it showed that Hall was not afraid to challenge the status quo, something that is very important for a scientist to be able to do. I think that this shows how important the works of other people are in the success of any science. If all that happened was that a scientist found something and no one else thought critically about it or spread the word, it would be irrelevant and the information would be useless. I think it goes to show that the credit of important theories/findings does not belong solely to the original finder of the information, but also to those who work tirelessly to see it progress and change.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._Stanley_Hall
http://psyc405.stasson.org/evans.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1483855/
I originally wanted to write about Charles Renouvier, but decided that his work wasn’t important enough to the chapter that we read. So instead, I am deciding to write my blog post about the Scottish idea of realism. I was appalled to find out that both my intro class and every other psychology class I have taken seemed to just skip over the important of the idea of realism and its relationship to American psychology. The Scottish had the idea of that the brain (the mind) was an active part of the body. Before, people had thought that the mind was passive part of the body. This idea of the brain being an active part of the human, and being in control of both passive and active actions was one of the things that drove American psychology.
From what I understand, the idea of realism is that our reality is theoretically independent or separate from our conceptual ideas or thoughts. This meant that we perceive reality while experiencing it. My guess is that people then thought that they could see how people experience reality and then be able to test it. This could have opened a whole world of research for the new field of psychology. Realists really push the idea that the mind has the power to create a world that was past reality. To give an example of what that is really like, think about a red ball. In your head you can bounce this ball, it can float on water, and you could even kick it really far. All of this is happening within your mind without it happening in reality.
The idea of realism was brought to the United States by Scottish immigrants, but most notably was James McCosh. He brought the idea directly from Scotland and passed it through intellectuals through Princeton University where he was president. Noah Porter was another man who helped spread the idea. He taught common sense realism at Yale. Common sense realism was a branch off of the Scottish idea of realism.
William James accepted the thought of the common sense realism and requested to listen to speakers from Harvard talk about its ideals. The passing of knowledge helped William James form his idea of American psychology that we know today.
http://www.unm.edu/~rgoodman/american.html Gave a lot of background knowledge on Scottish realism and helped show how realism affected William James.
http://mb-soft.com/believe/txc/scotreal.htm Another source that gave background knowledge and explains what realism is in comparison to other philosophical ideas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Common_Sense_Realism As always, wikipedia is helpful to find other links relating to the topic and to give a better general understanding.
The topic I chose to do further research on was William James. In chapter six, there were a couple pages devoted to William James and his contributions to psychology. I found him most interesting because when asked, many colleagues of James says that he was a great psychologist but when you asked William James if he was a psychologist, is would say no. This made me want to know more about him and his work.
William James was a physiologist, psychologist and a philosopher. He is considered the father of psychology and is well known for writing the Principles of Psychology. James was born into a wealthy family that provided him with many opportunities. James first chose to study at Harvard and when first studying there, he could not decide what he wanted to do. James studied chemistry and then anatomy but till couldn’t find what fit. Because of this uncertainty, he was considered to be aimless and a late-bloomer. James finally ended up at Harvard Medical School and eventually graduated. He later because a physiology instructed and stayed at Harvard for most of his career. Soon after his career at Harvard began, James married his wife Alice Gibbons and they works on his well known, 1200 page Principles of Psychology together. They eventually had a son who died early on at six months old. This tragedy led William and Alice to do further research into supernatural finding and spiritualism. Once he founded the American branch of the Society for Psychical Research, he began to follow in his father’s footsteps and taught religion and ethics.
http://www.goodtherapy.org/famous-psychologists/william-james.html
I chose this site because it gave a lot of detail about James’s Principles of Psychology.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/james/
I liked this site because it had more information on James’s work.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/americancollection/american/genius/william_bio.html
This site had the most information and was most helpful.
Terms: William James, Principles of Psychology, psychology, physiology, philosophy, Society of American Research.
I decided to study the current theory of emotion after reading chapter six and learning about the James-Lange theory of emotion. What I found was even though the subject has been heavily studied in the past few decades, there is no current theory that scientists can agree on right now. I found that some support a contemporary evolutionary theory of emotion which says emotions evolved to motivate behaviors that were adaptive to our ancestral environment. Emotions are central to planning and decision-making, so it is conceivable that poor decisions could cause evolution to have an effect.
Somatic theories are theories of emotion claiming that physiological responses and bodily changes precede or are at least analogous to emotions. These theories assume these physiological responses are key to the emotional experience. The James-Lange theory fits into this category. Two other somatic theories are the Cannon-Bard theory and Stanley Schachtner’s Two-factor theory. Walter Bradford Cannon and Phillip Bard agreed that emotion is triggered by an event, but that the event causes simultaneous physiological response and cognitive processing of the experience. Cannon and Bard suggested emotion is a combination of physiological response and cognition.
Stanley Schachtner also believed physiological reactions mattered in feeling and understanding emotions, however, he believed the physiological response focuses and triggers a cognitive appraisal of the situation. For example, the sight of a snake will trigger high heart rate, sweating, and increased blood pressure. The brain, in order to explain the physiological changes, scans the area and notices the snake. The brain interprets the physiological changes as fear of the snake and the person feels accordingly. Schachtner did an interesting experiment to support his theory. He injected patients with epinephrine in order to induce physiological changes. Many emotions have similar or even the same physical responses, so the epinephrine could be identified as almost any emotion. The subject was then put into a room with actors who all expressed either excitement and happiness (positive emotions) or anger (negative emotions.) Those who were put in a room with actors claiming to be excited and happy also expressed feeling those same emotions. The same occurred for those subjects placed into a room full of angry actors. This suggests that appraisal of the situation is very important in understanding emotions.
It has been widely researched and discussed which comes first, cognitive appraisal of the situation or the physiological changes. Scientists seem to still be working on this and have not come to a generally agreed upon conclusion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion
http://people.ucalgary.ca/~branniga/excitation.html
http://www.iep.utm.edu/emotion/
I am fascinated with William James’ depression because it may have helped to form his idea of introspection as a way to conquer dark moods. He read the works of Charles Renouvier and gained a perception of self which may have contributed to his recovery and helped to shape his ideas for self psychology. When I researched his depression I was able to find a self-described incident of when he had encountered a feeling of fear and depression. Today we might call the episode a panic attack, because the way James’ fear was described it sounds like he was experiencing random episodes of terror. James’s own ideas of psychology, physiology and self-control may have helped him through those dark hours. If his mind was actively trying to understand the physiology of the fear and whether the physiological reactions came first to cause the fear or vice versa, then the speculation may have distracted his mind from the emotion and allowed him to consider his own depression in a more clinical way.
I found that I am certainly not the first nor the last to wonder what role James’ own depressive states played in shaping his theory on self psychology. He began suffering from depression after his return from the Amazon. James then turned more to philosophy, abstract thinking and spiritualism. Possibly his breakdowns may have been due to too much introspection and consideration to the beginnings of life and rational thinking, or giving way too much thought to what happens after people die. He started to focus more on spiritual texts and wondered about the ability of the mind to live beyond the physical death of the body. I read a passage in our text (Goodwin, 2008, pg. 184) which said that James opposed requiring licensure which would have prevented mental healers and mediums to practice their trades. However, the text also stated that he was skeptical of such healers and mediums, even taking opportunities to disprove the mediums’ claims. I am also skeptical of mediums and faith healers, but I do not deny their powers over the people who do believe in them. I think that there is an ability within the mind to overcome some mental or physical illnesses when there is strong belief in a healing power, the same way that depressive thoughts can cause some illnesses.
It could be that James viewed his own rise from depression as a self-healing, and it gave him cause to explore spiritualistic and psychic phenomena in an effort to understand his recovery. I also read that James’ own physical and mental exhaustion could have been the cause of his illnesses, but I believe that there might have been another explanation. James reportedly came down with illness after travelling (much like Darwin), and today we know there are forms of illness borne by mosquitoes, ticks and countless other parasites. However, in spite of his illnesses James was able to write books and papers based on his own experiences, studies and retrospections which have been foremost in the areas of psychology and physiology. William James did have a beautiful mind which he was able to distract from self-destructive tendencies in order to work through the madness and remain productive throughout his life.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/james/ - I used this as a timeline reference for the life of William James.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bernard_Renouvier - I used this to further research Renouvier because James grasped at the Renouvier’s ideas on free will and that people are in control of their own thoughts and it allowed James to work through his depression.
http://sirojs.wordpress.com/2007/06/01/depression-disconnection-and-spirituality/ - I used this site to understand James’ spiritualistic views and depression.
http://www.american-philosophy.org/archives/past_conference_programs/pc2001/Discussion%20papers/Selective_Individualism.htm - I used this site to further understand James’ use of Renouvier’s ideas about free will and how it helped James with his own depression.
BR
From chapter six I chose to do more research on William James and his theory of emotions. William James was an American native born in New York City on January 11 in 1842. He came from a weathly family and recieved great schooling and a lot of experiences that only one could have if they had money. In 1867 William studied under Helmholtz and other important psychologists, and this experience is what allowed him to be thoroughly educated with New Psychology. It was then in 1875 that James was offered a professor job at Harvard in psychology. He became the first professor there to teach psychology, and he was also the first to set up an experimental psychology lab. Wundt didn’t set up his lab until four years after, but William isn’t really recognized for having the first lab because it was used for teaching demonstrations. One of his greatest accomplishments was his book called, Principles of Psychology.
His publication of this book is considered to be the most important text in the history of modern psychology. Characteristics were combined to yield some of the most loaded descriptions of human behavior, and human nature in this book of non-fiction. James’s text was really innovative in the sense of how the subject matter of psychology was approached, and this was the most important characteristic. He took a more non-traditional approach with his topics, such as; habit, stream of thought, consciousness of self, discrimination, hypnotism, etc.. These topics were introduced in ways that changed the teachings forever. William James had many contributions but among all of them three of were the most significant in the history of psychology: his analysis of the stream of thought, his characterization of the self, and his theory of emotion. Out of those three I found his theory of emotion to be interesting and decided to do more research on this topic.
James’s theory of emotion stated that emotion could be easily triggered by memory or imagination as by direct perception of an emotion producing event. According to William James emotions feel different from other states of mind because they have certain bodily responses that give rise to internal sensations. He also thought different emotions feel different from one another because they are accompanied by different bodily responses and sensations. William James was not the only one who came up with this theory, he worked with Carl Lange. They both came up with the same theory that “emotions do not immediately follow the perception of an event but rather occur after the body has responded to the event”. The theory is called the James-Lange theory of emotion. All in all they concluded their theory of thinking that one’s environment can trigger bodily changes; for example, if you come across a growling dog your heart starts beating fast, your breathing gets harder, in conclusion you are afraid. James was smart in his research on emotions and was correct in some aspects but the question he wasn’t asking was why do some events make us run away and feel emotional whereas others do not? James and Lange’s theory was a big contribution to the field of psychology and helped with studying one’s emotions and personality; it also was the groundwork for other psychologists to come after them to broaden their findings to learn more about our emotions and bodily functions that coincide. I’ve always found emotions to be interesting, because they aren’t something that we can always control, and they can be universal. The fact that William James had so much success in his findings with emotion and his publication of his text was interesting to me and makes we want to read more of his book.
http://psychclassics.asu.edu/James/Principles/wozniak.htm
http://www.psychology.sbc.edu/William%20James.htm
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/James/Principles/prin25.htm
http://faculty.mercer.edu/spears_a/studentpages/james/james.htm
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/Early-Theories-of-Emotion.topicArticleId-25438,articleId-25365.html
http://www.cns.nyu.edu/~vessel/courses/NeuralAesthetics/Readings/08_Mar_22/Rolls_Emotion99_ch4.pdf
As a woman, I am grateful for women like Mary Whiton Calkins who opened doors for women in the world of education. She attended Harvard and completed everything needed to be in order to receive a Ph.D., and yet she did not receive it. I think it was very strong of her to endure this, and also to turn away the same degree offered by a different college. Even though she was the first woman president of the APA, she never received that degree; I thought it was really stubborn of Harvard to withhold that from her, even later in life. I feel very lucky to have been born in a more accepting time than that of Calkins’. However, from what I’ve read so far, some male psychologists were more ahead of their times and more accepting of women psychologists. In this case, Munsterberg, James, and other males who allowed women in their labs, and also advocated for women like Calkins to receive their Ph.D.’s. I’ve read about her research on association and memory, and her intelligence is captivating. Her studies on paired-associate learning and recency with number responses and color stimuli seem to be some of the most well-known, as I’ve seen in my research. The most interesting thing to me while researching was her research on dreams, even though she was embarrassed of it later on in her life. Calkins stated that a dream was, “a reproduction of the persons, places, and events of a recent sense perception.” In most senses she was right, and Freud backed some of her points. Another theory she had was that dreams were somehow related to organic influences and external stimuli. The fact that she kept at her studies and received an upper level education during a time when most people would look down on her for it gives me a greater respect for her. This is what most intrigued me to choose her as a research subject. I would like to further study women like Mary Whiton Calkins who experienced the same setbacks as she did— Washburn and Ladd-Franklin, for example.
Terms: Mary Whiton Calkins, American Psychological Association, psychologist, Munsterberg, James, paired-associate learning, association, perception, memory, recency, stimuli
http://www2.webster.edu/~woolflm/calkins.html I chose this resource because of the amount of content on the page; after reading, could tell that this was quality.
http://www.ukessays.com/essays/psychology/achievements-of-mary-whiton-calkins.php After three pages of Google resources, this was the most quality resource I could find. Most of them were exactly the same, but this one stood out as different; interesting read.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdjbOxyRwEM&playnext=1&list=PLds6m8-J9mFi3_AWha3UewkQ5Z4nMAXZ7&feature=results_video I wanted to get a little more background information on the status of women’s rights at the time in all aspects, as Calkins was ahead of her time in saying that discrimination of women was “illogical.”
After this week’s blog I decided to do more research on the topic of education for women and minorities. Right now I am in a minority group relations class so this topic really interested me. The topic fits nicely into this chapter because in the chapter they are talking about how the first universities started. They talk about how women and minorities weren’t offered the same education as upper class white men. Times have changed greatly since then were still not to the level I feel that we should be. Women still get paid less than men and I want to do more research into the educational aspect of the inequality between them.
The first school that used tax money to educate girls was in New England in the year 1767. It was optional. The next place to educate girls was Northampton, Massachusetts not until after the 1800. The next place soon after that was Sutton, Massachusetts. Both of these towns were very wealthy. They used tax money but they only taxed the houses that had children for the money for the school. Boys and girls learned different skills. Girls mainly needed to learn how to read so they could read religious material but it wasn’t necessary for them to write because they didn’t need to know how to write when raising children. They would just sign their names with an X. Many of the rich would insist on a higher education for their daughters. They would pay for private female academies which caused education to be out of reach for anyone who wasn’t in the 1% of the population that was rich.
Many parents taught their kids at home with a bible and a hornbook which is a wooden board with a handle. They rarely used paper because it was so expensive. The hornbook would have lesson sheets of the ABC’s, the Lord’s Prayer, small and capital letters, etc. The lesson sheets were attached to the board with a thin layer of cow’s horn protecting it. Most girls never went to grammar school with the boys instead they would be given lessons on how to run a household. They were taught how to sew, preserve food, direct servants, and serve meals. The more money you had the more subjects you could learn. If you were rich you could learn to play musical instruments and sing. The main goal was to produce socially responsible citizens. It wasn’t until the 1800’s when an organized education system came into play. In 1821 the first public high school was established called Boston English High School. Also in 1823 Hartford Female Seminary was opened as a private school for girls in Hartford, Connecticut. Then twelve years later the first college for women was opened called Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. Schools for women were established earlier than I was expecting the only problem was is the same problem we have today. It was worse back then but you have to have money to get education. Even in the public education system. If you live in a poor neighborhood the public school in that neighborhood isn’t going to get the same funding as a school in a suburb.
Throughout history people with disabilities have been slightly included in the educational system. In 1829 the New England Asylum for the Blind was opened as the first school in the U.S. for children with visual disabilities. There have been other schools established for people with disabilities such as the New York State Asylum for Idiots. I don’t feel that the educational system really knew what to do with people with disabilities though. They put them in asylums and mental institutes for a lack of a better option. Today we still are not to the level we should be with our mentally ill. Not until the Disabilities Act of 1997 did we start to integrate kids with special needs into our public school system. We have had schools in the past for kids with disabilities but never have we seen what they have as abilities. We always separate them from the “normal” kids because they are different; when in fact kids with ADHD have shown to be more creative. We have made strides in our development of the education system with women but we are still lacking in education of minorities and disabled.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_education_in_the_United_States#Women_and_girls
http://www.chesapeake.edu/Library/EDU_101/eduhist_19thC.asp
http://www.eds-resources.com/educationhistorytimeline.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_education
After this week’s blog I decided to do more research on the topic of education for women and minorities. Right now I am in a minority group relations class so this topic really interested me. The topic fits nicely into this chapter because in the chapter they are talking about how the first universities started. They talk about how women and minorities weren’t offered the same education as upper class white men. Times have changed greatly since then were still not to the level I feel that we should be. Women still get paid less than men and I want to do more research into the educational aspect of the inequality between them.
The first school that used tax money to educate girls was in New England in the year 1767. It was optional. The next place to educate girls was Northampton, Massachusetts not until after the 1800. The next place soon after that was Sutton, Massachusetts. Both of these towns were very wealthy. They used tax money but they only taxed the houses that had children for the money for the school. Boys and girls learned different skills. Girls mainly needed to learn how to read so they could read religious material but it wasn’t necessary for them to write because they didn’t need to know how to write when raising children. They would just sign their names with an X. Many of the rich would insist on a higher education for their daughters. They would pay for private female academies which caused education to be out of reach for anyone who wasn’t in the 1% of the population that was rich.
Many parents taught their kids at home with a bible and a hornbook which is a wooden board with a handle. They rarely used paper because it was so expensive. The hornbook would have lesson sheets of the ABC’s, the Lord’s Prayer, small and capital letters, etc. The lesson sheets were attached to the board with a thin layer of cow’s horn protecting it. Most girls never went to grammar school with the boys instead they would be given lessons on how to run a household. They were taught how to sew, preserve food, direct servants, and serve meals. The more money you had the more subjects you could learn. If you were rich you could learn to play musical instruments and sing. The main goal was to produce socially responsible citizens. It wasn’t until the 1800’s when an organized education system came into play. In 1821 the first public high school was established called Boston English High School. Also in 1823 Hartford Female Seminary was opened as a private school for girls in Hartford, Connecticut. Then twelve years later the first college for women was opened called Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. Schools for women were established earlier than I was expecting the only problem was is the same problem we have today. It was worse back then but you have to have money to get education. Even in the public education system. If you live in a poor neighborhood the public school in that neighborhood isn’t going to get the same funding as a school in a suburb.
Throughout history people with disabilities have been slightly included in the educational system. In 1829 the New England Asylum for the Blind was opened as the first school in the U.S. for children with visual disabilities. There have been other schools established for people with disabilities such as the New York State Asylum for Idiots. I don’t feel that the educational system really knew what to do with people with disabilities though. They put them in asylums and mental institutes for a lack of a better option. Today we still are not to the level we should be with our mentally ill. Not until the Disabilities Act of 1997 did we start to integrate kids with special needs into our public school system. We have had schools in the past for kids with disabilities but never have we seen what they have as abilities. We always separate them from the “normal” kids because they are different; when in fact kids with ADHD have shown to be more creative. We have made strides in our development of the education system with women but we are still lacking in education of minorities and disabled.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_education_in_the_United_States#Women_and_girls
http://www.chesapeake.edu/Library/EDU_101/eduhist_19thC.asp
http://www.eds-resources.com/educationhistorytimeline.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_education
This week I chose to discuss the women’s sphere, which is defined as the women’s place in society. In this week’s chapter, women’s and minority’s access to education was discussed, or the lack of. Access to education for women was not only denied, but was denied so because of their biological makeup. This topic interests me not only because I am a woman, but because I find the theory behind this absolutely crazy, and crazy interests me.
The women’s sphere term was coined in the 1800’s and referred to the woman’s ‘place’ in society, or what was accepted and what was not. While men had many roles among society, women only had one; in the home with the children. Biologically women were seen as the weaker sex. Scientists said this was due to biology. The uterus held emotions that men didn’t have. These made women unable to deal with the things men did. The fact that women we’re weaker both emotionally and physically made them reliant on men to protect them, and men felt that it was their duty to do so. Once married, women had even fewer rights than they did previously. There life after marriage was dedicated to reproducing and taking care of the children. It was believed that women had high morals and were more religious than men, and it was important to the family for the women to push these beliefs on the family and hold them to her high standard. Without the push for high morals and religion it was felt the family could fall apart by falling to the sins of society. While the men held jobs outside the home, women didn’t have that option; at least for the most part. Women of middle and high class weren’t allowed jobs outside the home, or education. If they had any desire in work, it was to be done in the home. Lower class women were to work in factories, but still were declined access to education and their own thoughts because they were still considered weaker. The basis of women being weaker and not have a place in society other than for child bearing is outrageous. While they were being denied access to education, educated men were being taught by professors who stood by their ideals that women were biologically weaker. It will forever boggle my mind that the one who was seen ‘smarter’ came up with this idea.
http://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/ENGL405-6.1-Womens-Sphere-and-the-Emergence-of-the-Womens-Rights-Movement-FINAL.pdf
This was the most in depth article out of the three, giving detail to the women’s and men’s rights and place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separate_Spheres
This site was informational on the women’s ‘place’ in society.
http://www.ushistory.org/us/25e.asp
The above link was very informational as it gave examples of what was ‘okay’ and ‘not okay’ according to women’s life starting in the 1800’s.
The topic I chose to research further this week was Francis Sumner. Francis Sumner is a key figure in this chapter of our book, because he was not only was he the first African American to earn a PhD in the field of psychology, but he was part of a rapid growing time in higher education. During Sumner’s time, being an African American held him back from the educational opportunities white males had at that time. While schools for African Americans were becoming more common, Sumner played a huge role in the students who would receive degrees under him. I am interested in knowing more about his early life and his contributions while teaching.
Sumner was home schooled and often taught himself until the age of 15. After being turned down from two universities, his education started when he was attended Lincoln University in 1911. In his undergraduate education he received two B.A. degrees, one from Lincoln and another from Clark University in 1916, and eventually was the first African American to earn a doctorate degree in the field of psychology. Sumner also served the in military from 1918-1919. After receiving his PhD, Sumner taught at many universities until he ended up Howard University, serving as the Psychology head chairman. During his time at Howard, Sumner contributed many writings and studies in his new department and was a very influential leader during his time. His main focus was on the expansion of education for African Americans, and many of his research was done on ideas surrounding equality for blacks. He also wrote 45 articles during his time, mainly focusing on equality of education for blacks during this time. During his time, education and universities were still growing for people of color and by 1972, 60 out of 300 African American students earning their doctorate degree, were students of psychology studying under Sumner. Today, Howard University still has a successful psychology department and his influences paved the way for many who came after him.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CEUQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Forgs.utulsa.edu%2Ftrapt%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2014%2F02%2FFrancis-Cecil-Sumner.cantrell.ppt&ei=dpg5VIGZBM6yyAStpoDwCg&usg=AFQjCNFLedspw61pGz9cO4qu4e0xu3X3ig
This powerpoint was very helpful in understanding additional and specific accomplishments, publications, and studies, that Sumner is known for.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Sumner
Helped to sum up everything and was more in depth of his education.
http://psychology.okstate.edu/museum/afroam/bio.html
Helped to describe his education and his contributions to psychology.
1) Once you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the chapter we have covered this week, and why you are interested in it.
My topic is Mary Calkins. She was talked about at the end of the chapter as being one of the most influential psychologists in America. Mary Calkins is interesting because she was one of the first women psychologists. She achieved that accomplishment when it was thought that women were inferior to men. She also accomplished it when prestigious schools wouldn’t allow women to officially attend their schools. She was also the first women president of the American Psychological Association or APA. I find it amazing that she was able to accomplish all of this and more at a time when women were looked down on.
2) What are three aspects of the topic you want to talk about for this assignment?
Three things I will talk about are her education, her theories, and her impact on psychology.
3) Next, I would like you to take the information you found from the various sources and integrate/synthesize them into the three aspects of the topic, and then write about the topic.
Mary Calkins was born March 30th, 1863. She was the oldest of five children. Her father was a minister who moved around a lot for his job. Her father was interested in his children’s education and after Mary finished high school her father had planned her studies so she could go to college. In 1882 she started her college career as a sophomore at Smith College. She graduated in 1884 with a major in philosophy. In 1886 her family went on a trip to Europe. They were there for sixteen months. While there Mary did some studying on her own to learn more about Europe. When the family returned home from their trip Mary’s Father had scheduled an interview for her at Wellesley College. They hired her to tutor Greek. While there a professor in the philosophy department offered her a job teaching new psychology. His only circumstance was that she would have to get trained in new psychology. She would apply for admittance into Harvard. Harvard would not admit her into their school because she was a woman. After her father and some colleagues at Wellesley College sent some letters to Harvard they granted her permission to sit in on lectures. She attended lectures by William James and Josiah Royce. While at Harvard she got to get experience one on one with William James. In 1891 Mary returned to Wellesley to teach new psychology. When she returned to teach she also established a psychology laboratory. She wanted to further her education so she returned to Harvard to complete a masters program. Once again Harvard would only let her attend the lectures and labs as a guest. In 1895 Calkins had finished everything needed to graduate with her masters. Harvard did not recognize her as a graduate however, because she was only a guest at the University.
Mary Calkins had two major interests to her. They were memory and self-psychology. She was also interested in philosophy by I will just focus on memory and self-psychology. Mary Calkins came up with the term paired-associate learning. She wanted to test and see if people could recall a number when it was paired with a color. She would show people a series of numbers that had colors paired with them. She would then show people a color and see if they could tell her the number that went with that color. She found that frequency and recency were the two biggest factors that would determine if they remembered the number or not. This research experiment was advancing the findings of Ebbinghaus. Her theory and findings are still used today in memory research. Mary Calkins was also intrigued by self-psychology. She was one of the firsts to try and study it. She came up with the definition that the self is an active acting purposefully and consciously. At that time that she came up with the idea Freud and psychoanalysis played a big part in society. Calkins thought that her self-psychology fit into the theories that Freud had. Today Calkins work on self-psychology isn’t recognized because it is outdated.
Mary Calkins had a few big contributions to psychology. Her biggest was her idea of paired-associate learning. That theory is still used today in memory research. In 1905 she was elected president of the American Psychological Association. She was the first woman to hold the positon of president. Besides her documented theories and ideas Calkins made a huge contribution to psychology by being a woman and being successful. Because Calkins never gave up and wouldn’t take no as an answer she paved the way for women psychologist to practice and to get into schools. She was a big influence on women and she fought for women’s rights. She held the belief that women were just as good as men. She believed that in a time where men were thought to be better than women. If Mary Calkins didn’t succeed and didn’t keep being persistent with her schooling psychology might look different today. Today more than half of the people in psychology are women and I think a lot of that is due to the contributions of Mary Calkins.
4) Finally, at the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. For each URL you have listed indicate why you chose the site and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Whiton_Calkins this site was helpful with her education achievements and her ideas on memory and self-psychology.
http://faculty.webster.edu/woolflm/marycalkins.html this site was helpful with her education and her self-psychology.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70bv79PqU6g this sight was good for her ideas on memory self-psychology and her contribution to psychology today.
Mary Calkins, paired-associate learning, William James, Josiah Royce, Ebbinghaus, self-psychology, APA, and Freud.