On Tue, 02 Sep 2008 23:53:50 -0700, Charles S . Harris
[snip]
>Chris--
>I was shocked to see an eminent historian of psychology reduce a
>department's history to simply a list of people! Here's one example
>of how much more there is to such an account:
>
>http://www.psych.upenn.edu/history/history.htm
I understand that Jonathan Baron appears to be the author of
the website referred to above but my immediate impressions of
the website are:
(a) it is pretty superficial and naive, at a level of an undergraduate's
knowledge of the history of the institution and the history of
psychology,
and
(b) I can't tell whether this is supposed to be advertising fluff for
the psychology department (the lack of detail about events, few
citations of relevant publications and documents, etc.) or a
"pre-publication" draft of a more serious document.
Consider the following "blurb" from the website:
|The beginning: James McKeen Cattell
|At the end of the 1880s, several American colleges and
|universities wanted to expand into the new field of psychology
|in various ways. Penn was among the first, along with
|Johns Hopkins and Indiana. Arguably, the first professor of
|psychology in the U.S. was James McKeen Cattell. Cattell
|began what is now the Department of Psychology, but left
|after a few years for Columbia. He had an interesting career.
It probably would be useful to explicate why Cattell was
"arguably" the first professor of psychology. The use of
such "weasel" words tries to make one point ("we were
the first") while suppressing another ("people will disagree
with this position"). If there is an argument about the point,
what is it? I understand that such discussion might detract
from advertising copy which tries to provide a simple and
uncomplicated message but honest scholarship, I think,
demands it.
Also, what is with the use of the word "Czar" for program head?
Was such a term actually used among the faculty and others?
What is one to make of using such a word? That program
heads saw themselves as heriditary rulers of their "fiefdom"?
If such an imperial and authoritarian perspective was maintained
by programs heads, wouldn't be useful to examine how and why
this occurred. I may be wrong but it appears that the only
way to deal with this situation was to eliminate the programs
which then concentrated power in the departmental chair
(was that person now referred to as Czar as well or was some
other colorful title used, such as "Head Authoritarian In Charge"
[HAIC]).
A couple of other points:
(1) At most universities with medical schools that have a department
of psychiatry, the amount of interaction between the psychology
and psychiatry depts tends to be limited. It depends upon the
individuals and the degree people are concerned about their "turf".
So, though I can understand why Penn's psychology dept would
like to claim that Ulrich (sic!) Neisser as one of their own, he is
listed
as being the department of psychiatry. This raises a number of
questions
such as why wasn't he in the psychology dept (especially since the
psychology dept is trying to get the Neisser rub).
(2) It is interesting that Martin Orne is mentioned but not Aaron Beck,
one of the initiators of cognitive therapy, also at the medical school.
This is odd because I am aware that Marty Seligman had some sort
of relationship with Beck and students worked with both.
(3) Although one can easily list the people who had been part of
a psychology department and identify what they did while there, this,
I think, is hardly serious scholarship because it ignore issues of what
was the prevailing intellectual and sociocultural context in the
department.
What was the intellectual environment, what was supported, and what
was denigrated? Then there is always the question of whether faculy
behaved badly (e.g., male facutly dating and marrying their
undergraduates).
Perhaps coming up with a history of psychology department is not
such a good idea given the sensitive issues that might be uncovered
by asking too many questions about what and why certain things had
happened. Embarassing events may be uncovered that the department
might want to keep "quiet".
Then again, perhaps a project such as developing a "National Enquirer"
view of the history of psychologists and psychology department might
be of tremendous interests to undergraduates. Last I heard, academic
psychologists were only human too. ;-)
-Mike Palij
New York University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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