Search

This paper deals with the anthropological conception of the first modern Italian anthropologist, Paolo Mantegazza (1831–1910). We will begin by contextualizing the status of anthropology in Italy during the second half of the 19th century. Subsequently, we will delve into some of the inspirations that led the Italians to have such a multifaceted conception of the discipline. Next, we will outline the content of this approach and clarify the meaning of "omnicomprehensive science." From there, we will come to understand the reason for the variety of interests of the anthropologist, who aimed to study the human being in all aspects of life. We will then mention the moral objective present in his professional journey: through an understanding of the complexity of human life, the anthropologist wanted to contribute to the progress and well‐being of society; in other words, to "living well." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Gertrude Buck and collaborators developed a sociologically and pragmatist‐informed approach to language that has been neglected in later scholarship. Buck approached the study of language from the standpoint of pragmatist functional psychology, which is indebted to John Dewey's pragmatism at the University of Michigan, and which views language as a normal, dynamic action of human organisms engaged in necessary cooperative relations with one another. Her approach overcomes the small‐minded pragmatism that would criticize figurative or poetic language as impractical, and instead shows how figuration is essential to the particular ways in which language is action that conveys meaning to others and serves broader social functions. Buck's forgotten work helps overcome criticisms of the application of pragmatic action theory to language and literature, sketching how language structure may be explained on the basis of language as a natural social‐communicative act, how figurative language is inherent in the normal act of communicating situated bodily experiences to others, and how rhetorical speech and writing contributes to participation in democratic social processes. This paper also indicates how Buck's work has been partially rediscovered in Composition Studies, as well as prefigures later reader‐response esthetics and feminist analyses of language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the first two decades of the 20th century unfolded, clinical psychologists, who had until then been mainly associated with intelligence testing, attempted to implement a specific psychological method—Carl Gustav Jung's (1875–1961) word‐association "test"—in individual personality assessments. As one of the early clinical psychologists who attempted to use the method, Carl Ransom Rogers (1902–1987) is conspicuously absent from the historiography of clinical psychological testing. In fact, historians have recently suggested that we are lacking narratives about Rogers' early ideas and techniques in the context of both the development of clinical psychology and the emergence of psychological testing as clinicians' foremost scholarly activity. In light of the above, this paper pursues two main goals. First, it attempts to reconstruct Rogers' first original research project on emotional adjustment testing in young children in the broader context of the development of word‐association tests as carried out by Jung and Whately Smith (1892–1947). Second, it aims to reconstruct Rogers' earliest theoretical ideas as well as his epistemological assumptions regarding test objectivity, validity and reliability. By drawing on unpublished documents and heretofore overlooked primary sources I show that although Rogers initially drew from Jung and Smith's complex and refined tradition, he ultimately rejected it as well as the tests themselves. At first drawn to Smith's quantitative, empiricist and experimental philosophy of psychology, Rogers was deterred when the data gathered through his own research in 1927 suggested that word association tests had no real, effective clinical value when used in children. By showcasing the complex process of test construction and validation undertaken by 1920s clinical psychologists, Rogers' case illustrates the research practices, the methodological problems and the epistemological dilemmas faced by most if not all of his contemporaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary aim of this article is to give a more detailed exposition of the cultural, personal, and theoretical contexts in which the Viennese psychoanalyst, Herbert Silberer's theories were born. When assessing the broader picture that this approach offers, it can be concluded that Silberer was an innovative thinker who inspired several of his contemporaries. Recognized in many respects by the society and scholars of this time, he represented quite a different viewpoint that was significantly influenced by several forms of Western esoteric thinking. Yet his main aim was to contribute to the field of psychoanalysis and develop a theory in which rationalistic psychoanalytic interpretations were combined with nonreductive approaches to mystical experiences. Silberer's name is frequently mentioned in a specific context in which his tragic suicide is emphasized rather than his innovations. Upon evaluating the materials recording Silberer's private life, it seems very likely that his suicide was not triggered by the criticism of Freud alone. Silberer's family affairs, his relationship with his father, and his financial and professional struggles could have all contributed to his tragic decision. This paper contends that Silberer's oeuvre deserves greater attention and must be evaluated based upon its own merit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most common questions we get asked as historians of psychiatry is "do you have access to patient records?" Why are people so fascinated with the psychiatric patient record? Do people assume they are or should be available? Does access to the patient record actually tell us anything new about the history of psychiatry? And if we did have them, what can, or should we do with them? In the push to both decolonize and personalize the history of psychiatry, as well as make some kind of account or reparation for past mistakes, how can we proceed in an ethical manner that respects the privacy of people in the past who never imagined their intensely personal psychiatric encounter as subject for future historians? In this paper, we want to think through some of the issues that we deal with as white historians of psychiatry especially at the intersection of privacy, ethics, and racism. We present our thoughts as a conversation, structured around questions we have posed for ourselves, and building on discussions we have had together over the past few years. We hope that they act as a catalyst for further discussion in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article documents the beginning of the intellectual companionship between the founder of ethnomethodology, Harold Garfinkel, and Edward Rose, who is most often associated with his program of "ethno‐inquiries." I present results from archival research focusing on the contacts and collaborations between Rose and Garfinkel in the years 1955–1965. First, I describe the review process for Rose and Felton's paper, submitted to the American Sociological Review in 1955, which Garfinkel reviewed and after Rose's rebuttal recommended for publication. The paper induced Garfinkel to write an extensive commentary that has remained unpublished. Second, I discuss the 1958 New Mexico conference sponsored by the Air Force, which was an opportunity for Rose and Garfinkel to work together on topics related to common‐sense knowledge and scientific knowledge. Third, I give an overview of the ethnomethodological conferences in 1962 and 1963, supported by an Air Force grant written collaboratively by Rose and Garfinkel. Here I focus primarily on Rose's research on "small languages," which stimulated many discussions among the early ethnomethodologists. Rose's work and exchanges with Garfinkel demonstrate the former's affinity for miniaturization as a research approach and search for ways to empiricize topics of sociological theory in locally observable settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the milieu of Hermann Rorschach's Psychodiagnostics (1921/2021) under development between 1911 and his death in 1922 and explores new evidence about the direction Rorschach's test might have taken after publication of Psychodiagnostics. This includes direct and indirect influences from turn of the century continental philosophy and science and innovative colleagues in the Swiss psychiatric and psychoanalytic societies. The availability of newly translated scholarship, including the correspondence between Ludwig Binswanger and Hermann Rorschach following the 1921 publication of Psychodiagnostics, Binswanger's posthumous 1923 commentary in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, and recent new translation of Psychodiagnostics, permits a fresh appraisal of the milieu and foundations of Rorschach's development. Understanding these sources and influences opens new vistas in reappraising the nature of Rorschach's "test theory" which Rorschach considered undeveloped at the time of his death. This paper presents new evidence that, under the influence of Rorschach's close colleague, Ludwig Binswanger, the Geisteswissenschaften and phenomenology might have figured prominently in future developments. The paper concludes that Rorschach, preoccupied with considerations of kinesthetic subjectivity in his innovative conceptualization of human movement responses, was a nascent phenomenologist whose untimely death cut short further developments in his theory of the test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the debates around the "miracle of Maglavit", a shepherd's vision of God that took place in 1935 in Romania and attracted much contemporary popular and intellectual interest. The debates drew in arguments from doctors and theologians, who discussed the psychology of divine revelation and tried to elaborate the implications that such an event could have for the life of the Romanian nation. The paper places these debates in the context of wider contemporary discussions about psychology and religion. I argue that what Maglavit shows is that, in Romania at least, public debates about visionary experience in the 1930s were not only debates about its psychology, but of a psychology thoroughly imbricated with political concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the Chicago sociologist William F. Ogburn's (1886–1959) views about technological unemployment, which were intimately connected to his analysis of the social impacts of technological developments and resulting social problems due to cultural lag. We trace the development of his views as seen through his well‐known 1922 book, Social Change with Respect to Culture and Original Nature, his important contributions to the President's Research Committee on Social Trends (1933), and his lesser‐known pamphlets designed for a broader audience—Living with Machines (1933), You and Machines (1934), and Machines and Tomorrow's World (1938). He used these pamphlets to educate the public about the dangers of new machines and technological unemployment. In doing so, he drew upon sociological analysis in his professional scholarly writings and his long‐standing personal interests in social betterment and social reform. Our analysis also calls into question the adequacy of existing scholarship on Ogburn that has emphasized his commitment to a statistical, dispassionate, and "objectivist" approach to social science research. We call for a revised, richer, and more complex view of Ogburn's work and legacy as one of the nation's leading social scientists during the first half of the 20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper surveys the last 30 years of Hungarian academic psychology. Around 1989–1990, the time of the great social changes Hungarian psychology was rather Westernized, but still a relatively small scientific field and applied profession. The opening and liberalization of politics made psychology in Hungary a booming profession and a rich research field. Education of psychologists was spreading, and becoming more Westernized in textbook usage and reading materials. Entrance numbers at two universities with 80 students were replaced by 2010 by 6 university programs and about 8000 incoming students. The training system is a Bologna type BA + MA + PhD system, The educational booming has its own problems. As all university subjects, psychology training is also underfinanced, with high teaching loads and a move by university management towards applied areas, neglecting basic research. The research activity is characterized by a fivefold increase of English language publications coming from Hungary over a 20 years period. University research was strengthened, and competitive grant systems were introduced, whth good success aretes by psychologists. Here again, managerial thinking questions many aspects of basic research and liberalized science management. These factors are peculiar to psychology, but they do have an impact on it. The paper gives some details about one chapter of academic psychology, cognitive psychology. Institutionally, support by the Soros foundation in the 90s for the university cognitive programs had as one consequence that three departments of cognition are active in Budapest today. Another aspect of insitutional development was the series of multidisciplinary conferences in Hungary (MAKOG), and Hungarian involvement in international graduate training programs in cognitive science. The most successful cognitive group, at Central European University (5 ERC grants, publications in leading journals) is recently chased out of Hungary by anti‐Western and antiliberal legal moves. This would certainly have a detrimental effect on Hungarian cognitive psychology for quite a time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a brief history of Yugoslav psychology and a review of the current state of psychological research and practice in the former Yugoslav countries. Bibliometric mapping was used to explore the knowledge domain and international visibility of psychological research in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Judging by the number of papers visible in Scopus, psychological research activity in these countries is similar to the other former communist countries. In a relative sense, it is even higher in Slovenia and Croatia. However, psychologists still rely heavily on national journals indexed in Scopus when publishing their papers. Regarding psychological practice, former Yugoslav countries are facing challenges that are more or less typical for all small countries in the global scientific and economic market. Keeping in mind all the obstacles and traumas in the past decades, it should be considered a success that psychology in the former Yugoslav countries is now a fully established profession and a recognized scientific discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussions of the rise of therapeutic culture have tended toward the abstract, in part due to a focus on theory. This article looks at the case of Ernest Dichter's motivational research, particularly a study conducted on fur coats in the late 1950s, to locate this broader cultural shift more materially. Motivational research was a broad project of study that aimed to uncover unconscious consumer desires using the tools of psychology and psychoanalysis. This project materialized culture first through the pen‐and‐paper projective test created for the study, which sorted styles of fur into different classifications of womanhood, and second through the fur coats themselves, which were granted by Dichter a psychological agency of their own in their relationship with middle‐class women. Through this study, Dichter observed a shift in Americans' understanding of the self, a movement away from meeting physiological needs to addressing their inner lives; changing economic conditions had granted more income and free time with which to look inward, and Americans wanted consumer goods to aid in such self‐discovery. Dichter suggested that the fur industry capitalize on this change by emphasizing the versatility of fur and the role of objects more generally in fostering creative self‐expression. The advertising office was where theory was put into practice. In that way, it is a uniquely generative though often overlooked space from which to look into the rise of the therapeutic culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 19th and early 20th century, epilepsy was one of the most investigated disorders in forensic psychiatry and psychology. The possible subsidiary symptoms of epilepsy (such as temporal confusion, alterations of consciousness, or increased aggression) played pivotal roles in early forensic and criminal psychological theories that aimed to underscore the problematic medical, social and legal status of epileptic criminals. These criminals were considered extremely violent and capable of committing sudden, brutal acts. Although the theory of "epileptic criminality" was refuted due to 20th‐century developments in medicine, forensic psychiatry, and criminal psychology, some suppositions related to the concept of epileptic personality have lingered. This paper explores the lasting influence of the theory of epileptic personality by examining the evolution of the theories of epileptic criminality both in the international and the Hungarian context. Specifically, it calls attention to the twentieth‐century revival of the theory of epileptic personality in the works of Leopold Szondi, István Benedek and Norman Geschwind. The paper shows that the issue of epileptic personality still lingers in neuropsychology. In doing so, biological reductionist trends in medical‐psychological thinking are traced, and attention is drawn to questions that arise due to changing cultural and medical representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the general societal and political change in November 1989 in Czechoslovakia, the subject "History of Psychology" became the stable component of curriculum of studying psychology at the Department of Psychology of Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague. The author of this paper has taught "History of Psychology" in Czech since 1998 for more than 20 years all students of psychology and he is teaching this subject the students of ERASMUS+ program from whole Europe, studying at Charles University in Prague, now. Indivisible part of the curriculum is represented by the history of Czechoslovak and Czech psychology. In References, the most important publications in the field of history of Czechoslovak and Czech psychology are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

B Member News b I Philippe Fontaine i and I Jefferson Pooley i recently published I Society on the Edge: Social Science and Public Policy in the Postwar United States i (Cambridge UP, December 2020), which traces shifts in the division of disciplinary labor on key US "social problems" over the postwar decades. Anneros published incisive papers on leading figures from the beginnings of modern psychology, including Fechner (e.g., Meischner-Metge, 1987, 2010b), Wundt (e.g., Meischner & Metge, 1980; Meischner-Metge & Schröger, 2020), and Lotze (Meischner-Metge & Meischner, 1997). After retirement in 2005, Anneros remained active in the Institute, publishing her eighth book (Meischner-Metge, 2010b), three book chapters (Meischner-Metge, 2006a, 2006b; Meischner-Metge & Schröger, 2020), and her only English-language paper (Meischner-Metge, 2010a). B EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES (ESHHS) b B In Memoriam: Anneros Meischner-Metge (1940-2021) b Graph B Anneros Meischner-Metge on her 80th birthday (by Hans-Dietrich Metge). b Germany's Anneros Meischner-Metge (née Brückner) died peacefully on March 13, 2021, aged 81. [Extracted from the article]

In this paper, I aim to convey the history of ecopsychology's changing conceptualizations of science and technology and their role in facilitating engagement with the ecology movement. To do so, I compare ecopsychology's treatment of science and technology in two important publications: Gatherings, a non‐peer‐reviewed digital journal of the early 2000s that portrayed ecopsychology in humanistic, socially critical, and artistic terms; and Ecopsychology, a scholarly journal founded in 2009 that regarded ecopsychological questions as testable hypotheses, and distinguished itself from prior ("first generation") ecopsychology on the basis of its embrace of technological progress and the scientific method. As a part of this shift, ecopsychologists of the "second generation" championed the notion that humans are a "Technological Species," an ontological statement that naturalized the increasing sophistication of high technology as the result of inherent human drives, and established conceptual groundwork for studies that used consumer technology such as computers to mediate experiences of nature. In the final part of the paper, I critique the "Technological Species" proposition for obscuring the historical and material conditions that make the existence of consumer technology possible, such as the ecologically devastating mining of rare‐earth metals on colonized land in Central and South America. I argue that, to be socially and ecologically accountable, ecopsychology should turn toward practices that help us make sense of consumer technology's place in systems of colonialist and ecological violence, process our place within these systems as users of consumer technology, and build community less dependent on technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current paper critically assesses and reflects on the ideals and realities of two major (British) child migration schemes, namely the British Home Child scheme (1869–1930) and the Kindertransport scheme (1938–1940), to add to current understandings of their place within wider international histories of child migration, moral reforms, eugenics, settlement, and identity. Specifically, we focus on constructions of "mentally and physically deficient" children/young people, informed by eugenic viewpoints and biological determinism, and how this guided inclusion and exclusion decisions in both schemes. Both schemes made judgements regarding which children should be included/excluded in the schemes or returned to their country of origin (as was the case with children in the Canadian child migration scheme) fueled by a type of eugenics oriented to transplanting strong physical and psychologically resilient specimens. By viewing the realities of the child migration schemes, including the varied experiences and narratives in relation to child migrants, in light of eugenicist narratives of difference, pathology, victimhood, and contamination, we shed a light on uneven practices, formations of power, and expectations of the times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The board of the ESHHS is pleased to announce the winner of the Early Career Award for 2021 to a paper presented at last year's conference. The European Society for the History of the Human Sciences (ESHHS) is currently planning its next meeting in 2022, to be held in-person in Western Europe. CHEIRON invites submissions of papers, thematic symposia/panels and roundtables that deal with any aspect of the history of the human, behavioral or social sciences or related historiographical and methodological issues. [Extracted from the article]

Anders N. Kiær (1838–1919), the director of Norway's Central Bureau of Statistics between 1877 and 1913, was the foremost promoter, at the turn of the 20th century, of the rebirth of what came to be known as the "representative method" or sample survey. His advocacy of a methodology that had been abandoned at the beginning of the 19th century in favor of complete enumeration (the census) provoked a controversy at the International Statistical Institute (ISI) when he first presented it in 1895. Yet, it was "recommended" in fairly short order, by 1903. This was the result of a convergence of factors that prevented the dispute from degenerating into a full‐blown conflict and facilitated continuing the discussion while preventing a potential break‐up of the association. To understand how this came about, the paper examines (1) the role of the historical background from which the ISI emerged; (2) the epistemic beliefs that informed the ISI members in their daily professional practice; (3) the social structure of the ISI and its "ethos"; (4) the professional standing Kiær enjoyed within the international statistical community. This is a case‐study in the sociology of how and why some scientific practices initially seen as "dangerous" gain acceptance and become part of science's lore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little has been written on the financial support behind Timothy Leary's unorthodox research into mind‐altering drugs like LSD and psilocybin and his subsequent psychedelic movement. Indeed several individuals and organizations helped the psychedelic cause by directly funding Leary's ventures, offering legal and logistic assistance, and organizing fund‐raising campaigns. I argue that classic philanthropic attitudes and wealthy patrons played a major supporting role for Leary's psychedelic movement in the first part of the decade and that the changes in Leary's research objectives and his transition from academic to LSD guru were accompanied by changes in the patterns of support that occurred throughout the 1960s. This paper also connects Leary's legal troubles in the second part of the decade with the rise of the movement to legalize cannabis and points to historical continuity by looking at contemporary endeavors to fund psychedelic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this article is the mind–body problem in mainstream modern psychology examined from a decolonial perspective. The construction of the idea of the separation of mind and body is a seminal point of division of labor in the history of modern capitalism. This division perpetuated by the mind–body dualism idea was necessary to justify the enslavement of some and employment to others. Colonization processes have had profound importance on the mind, feelings, behaviors, and political settings. Throughout its history, the subject treated in EuroAmerican psychology has sought to deal with the mind–body problem as an individual, a separate entity, not as part of the psyche as a whole. A new perspective where the mind and body play an intertwined role is necessary considering subjectivity in a cultural‐historical approach. The subjective level is defined by the unification between symbolical and emotional cultural processes. The body (emotions) operates in conjunction with the culture and, when amalgamated, constitutes what we entitle as subjectivity. An ontology defines the assumptions that lie under a cosmovision and sustains a way of seeing, feeling, thinking, and acting with oneself, others, and the whole living world. It is what defines the real. The trajectory of this paper is an invitation to shed light from a decolonial perspective on social inequality concerning the present crises of humanity. The consequences of social inequality expressed today indicate the difficulties created by the dichotomy of mind and body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(1851 is the year here sometimes wrongly assigned to the publication of E. H. Weber's seminal paper, "Der Tatsinn und der Gemeingefühl" [The touch sense and common sensibility/feeling], first published in a handbook of physiology in 1846.) Here, another recent book (again appearing too late for Paterson's use) covers similar ground in great detail: Andreas Mayer, I The Science of Walking i (2020). What I think is most valuable in the chapter, an approach to the muscle sense as a modality among a complex of bodily senses, is rather lost sight of. [Extracted from the article]