Search

This paper traces the formation of the German "Gesellschaft für psychologische Forschung" ("Society for Psychological Research"), whose constitutive branches in Munich and Berlin were originally founded as inlets for alternatives to Wundtian experimental psychology from France and England, that is, experimental researches into hypnotism and alleged supernormal phenomena. By utilizing the career trajectories of Max Dessoir and Albert von Schrenck-Notzing as founding members of the "Gesellschaft," this paper aims to open up novel perspectives regarding extra-scientific factors involved in historically determining the epistemological and methodological boundaries of nascent psychology in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the history of the Royal Prussian Phonographic Commission, a body that collected and archived linguistic, ethnographic, and anthropological data from prisoners-of-war (POWs) in Germany during World War I. Recent literature has analyzed the significance of this research for the rise of conservative physical anthropology. Taking a complementary approach, the essay charts new territory in seeking to understand how the prison-camp studies informed philology and linguistics specifically. I argue that recognizing philological commitments of the Phonographic Commission is essential to comprehending the project contextually. My approach reveals that linguists accommodated material and contemporary evidence to older text-based research models, sustaining dynamic theories of language. Through a case study based on the Iranian philologist F. C. Andreas (1846-1930), the paper ultimately argues that linguistics merits greater recognition in the historiography of the behavioral sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores what it means to work with decontextualized or mysterious archival traces within collections that already contain obscured provenance. In particular, it compels us to consider what a single object can tell us about the individual, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, and what it can teach us about the larger queer community from which it may have originated. Astrology, the occult, and new forms of spirituality proliferated in Weimar Germany, emerging from the late 19th century psy sciences and evolving within Berlin's urban landscape. The extent to which these occult and alternative pathways held a queer dimension is unknown, but not improbable., (© 2022 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

An increase in interest for German scientific psychology followed the rise of liberalism in late nineteenth-century Spain. This paper deals with Spanish scholars' endeavors to participate in German psychology: It outlines the intellectual and institutional background of Spanish preoccupation with German philosophy and psychology, and deals with the personal experience and testimony of two Spanish philosophers, Eloy Luis André and Juan Vicente Viqueira López, who traveled to Leipzig, Berlin, and Göttingen between 1909 and 1914 to gain firsthand experience in the nascent science of psychology in Germany at that time. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After 1945, both the Western Allies in Germany and some German social scientists embraced empirical public opinion research. This article examines the rhetoric, practices, and collaborative professional efforts of two of the most significant institutions conducting opinion research in West Germany in the 1950s: the Allensbach Institute and the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt. Although the political stances of these institutions differed, they were motivated to apply empirical research methods associated with Anglo-American social research to the West German population by shared concerns about the fragility of democracy, faith in the empirical sciences as an antidote to Nazi-era thought patterns, and the need to form a united front against doubters within West Germany. Even while declaring their desire to incorporate the latest empirical advances from the United States, however, they sought to articulate the meaning of their methods and findings in terms of the specific challenges faced by West Germany., (© 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

This article examines a little-known chapter both in the history of socialist labor relations and the history of psychology: Social Psychological Training (SPT) for industrial leaders in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Based on previously untapped archival sources, it uncovers the transnational genesis of SPT and its intricate relationships with Western "therapeutic culture" of the 1970s. Governmental perspectives are addressed, as well as the level of individual appropriation of SPT and possible unintended side effects of techniques that were drawn from the social psychological and therapeutical fields. This case study helps to explore the functions of psychological expertise in authoritarian political contexts, as well as the polyvalence of group methods of change, the effects of which could turn out repressive as well as liberating on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The history of SPT solicits a polycentric view on therapeutic culture, capturing its diverse manifestations and interconnections between different societies and political economies., (© 2022 The Authors. Journal of The History of the Behavioral Sciences published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

The article presents information on the 2011 History of Science of Society meeting to be held November 3-6, 2011 at the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio, the 2011 German Studies Association Conference to be held September 22-25, 2011 in Louisville, Kentucky and the Third Conference of the European Philosophy of Science Association to be held October 5-8, 2011 at the University of Athens, Greece.

In the context of social and intellectual developments and the changing role of German universities in the first half of the nineteenth century, which led to the local institutionalization of the discipline of psychology at German universities, the structure and content of textbooks of psychology are discussed. Textbooks in the first half of the nineteenth century had a pedagogical function in training teachers, in socializing students into the field, and in providing students and readers with knowledge about the subject matter, methodology, and topics of psychology. The textbooks, representative of influence, philosophical-psychological orientations, and different decades in the first half of the nineteenth century, are reconstructed with regard to the definition of psychology, the ways of studying the soul, and how to conceptually organize the field. The textbooks by Herbart, Beneke, and Waitz, which were written within a natural-scientific programmatic vision for psychology, are contrasted with the traditional philosophically intended textbooks of Reinhold, Mußmann, George, and Schilling. Fischhaber's textbook for Gymnasien is summarized. Issues regarding the continuity of psychology are discussed, and discontinuous developments in the history of German psychology are identified. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the attempts of academic psychologists and critical occultists in Germany during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to construct a psychology of occult belief. While they claimed that the purpose of this new subdiscipline was to help evaluate the work of occult researchers, the emergence of a psychology of occult belief in Germany served primarily to pathologize parapsychology and its practitioners. Not to be outdone, however, parapsychologists argued that their adversaries suffered from a morbid inability to accept the reality of the paranormal. Unable to resolve through experimental means the dispute over who should be allowed to mold the public's understanding of the occult, both sides resorted to defaming their opponent. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the course of extensive philosophical debates on aesthetics in nineteenth-century Germany, Robert Vischer introduced the concept of Einfühlung in relation to art. Theodor Lipps subsequently extended it from art to visual illusions and interpersonal understanding. While Lipps had regarded Einfühlung as basically similar to the old notion of sympathy, Edward Titchener in America believed it had a different meaning. Hence, he coined the term empathy as its translation. This term came to be increasingly widely adopted, first in psychology and then more generally. But the lack of agreement about the supposed difference between these concepts suggests that Lipps had probably been right. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Franz Boas as an aspiring professional geographer during the 1880s: his Baffin Land research, his publications, his participation in geography organizations, and his struggle to attain a university appointment in geography. Frustrated by a seeming lack of opportunity for advancement in Germany, Boas explored career opportunities as a geographer in America and launched a series of unsuccessful but meaningful attempts to dominate the intellectual direction of American geography. Finally, the article reviews the circumstances surrounding Boas's appointment as an anthropologist at Clark University in 1889. Through examining Boas's own words and actions, the paper demonstrates that his professional identification with geography was lengthier and stronger than earlier accounts have suggested. It also critiques the myth of a Baffin Land "conversion" to anthropology, and delineates the circumstances of his shift from German human geography to his Americanist recasting of anthropology after 1889., (Copyright 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

This paper presents an account of four Japanese men, three of whom had an audience with Freud and who, with differing experiences and ambitions, returned to Japan to practice and develop psychoanalysis. Only two received any formal training, and two were strongly influenced by Buddhist thought. Freud gave no clear sign as to whom to appoint as leader, leaving the situation unsettled. This may have contributed to the continuing split and rivalry between groups, a split which was not resolved until the formation of the Japanese Psychoanalytic Society for trained analysts and the Association for interested laymen in the 1950s. From the beginning the development of psychoanalysis in Japan was informed by a paradox: the need to get Freud's approval and hence appear orthodox, while assimilating some of the concepts to the dictates of the culture.