Kenneth W. Spence

Kenneth Wartinbee Spence

Kenneth Wartinbee Spence was known for his theoretical and experimental studies of conditioning and learning. His analyses and interpretations of the theories of other psychologists also were very influential.

Spence was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1954 and was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Psychological Association (APA).

The son of Mary E. Wartinbee and William James Spence, an electrical engineer, Spence was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1907, but he grew up in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Split-brain Technique

Split-brain Technique

Psychologists have demonstrated that even simple human tasks, like thinking of a word when viewing an object, involve separate subtasks within the brain. These smaller tasks involve identifying the object, assessing its use, remembering what other objects are related to it, determining how many syllables are in the word associated with the object, and so on.

People do not realize the complexity of seemingly simple tasks because the brain integrates information smoothly and flawlessly almost all the time. One structure in the brain involved in the exchange and integration of information from one part to the next is the corpus callosum, a bundle of about 200 million nerve fibers that connect the right and left hemispheres of the brain.

Beginning in the 1940s, neurologists questioned whether the corpus callosum was involved in the development of epileptic seizures. Evidence from monkeys suggested that abnormal neural responses in one hemisphere spread to the other via the corpus callosum, resulting in major seizure activity. As such, it might be beneficial to patients suffering from epilepsy to sever the corpus callosum in order to prevent the spread of this abnormal neural activity.

Benjamin Spock

Benjamin McLane Spock

Benjamin McLane Spock was born on May 2, 1903, in New Haven, Connecticut, the oldest child in a large, strict New England family. His family was so strict that in his 82nd year he would still be saying “I love to dance in order to liberate myself from my puritanical upbringing.” Educated at private preparatory schools, he attended Yale from 1921 to 1925, majoring in English literature.

He was a member of the racing crew that represented the United States in the 1924 Olympic Games at Paris, finishing 300 feet ahead of its nearest rival. He began medical school at Yale in 1925, and transferred to Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1927. He had, by this time, married Jane Davenport Cheney, whom he had met after a Yale-Harvard boat race.

Spock had decided well before starting his medical studies that he would “work with children, who have their whole lives ahead of them” and so, upon taking his M.D. degree in 1929 and serving his general internship at the prestigious Presbyterian Hospital, he specialized in pediatrics at a small hospital crowded with children in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen area. Believing that pediatricians at that time were focusing too much on the physical side of child development, he took up a residency in psychiatry as well.

Sports Psychology

Sports Psychology

Sports—which involve emotion, competition, cooperation, achievement, and play—provide a rich area for psychological study. People involved in sports attempt to master very difficult skills, often subjecting themselves to intense physical stress as well as social pressure.

When psychologists began studying sports in the 1930s and 1940s, they focused on motor performance and the acquisition of motor skills. Sports psychology emerged as a distinct discipline in the 1960s, dominated by theories of social psychology.

Since then, research has expanded into numerous areas such as imagery training, hypnosis, relaxation training, motivation, socialization, conflict and competition, counseling, and coaching. Specific sports and recreational specialties studied include baseball, basketball, soccer, volleyball, tennis, golf, fencing, dance, and many others.

Standardized Test

Standardized Test

Standardized tests are used in psychology, as well as in everyday life, to measure intelligence,aptitude, achievement, personality,attitudes and interests. Attempts are made to standardize tests in order to eliminate biases that may result, consciously or unconsciously, from varied administration of the test.

Standardized tests are used to produce norms—or statistical standards— that provide a basis for comparisons among individual members of the group of subjects. Tests must be standardized, reliable (give consistent results), and valid (reproducible) before they can be considered useful psychological tools.

Standardized tests are highly controversial both in psychological circles and particularly in education because true standardization is difficult to attain. Certain requirements must be rigidly enforced. For example, subjects must be given exactly the same amount of time to take the test.

Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales

Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales

Consisting of questions and short tasks arranged from easy to difficult, the Stanford-Binet measures a wide variety of verbal and nonverbal skills. Its fifteen tests are divided into the following four cognitive areas:

1. verbal reasoning (vocabulary, comprehension, absurdities, verbal relations); 
2. quantitative reasoning (math, number series, equation building); 
3. abstract/visual reasoning (pattern analysis, matrices, paper folding and cutting, copying); and 
4. short-term memory (memory for sentences, digits, and objects, and bead memory). 

While the child’s attitude and behavior during the test are noted, they are not used to determine the result, which is arrived at by converting a single raw score for the entire test to a figure indicating “mental age” (the average age of a child achieving that score).

Statistics in Psychology

Statistics in Psychology

Psychologists rely heavily on statistics to help assess the meaning of the measurements they make. Sometimes the measurements involve individuals who complete psychological tests; at other times, the measurements involve statistics that describe general properties of groups of people or animals.

In psychological testing, the psychologist may interpret test results in light of norms, or the typical results, provided from previous testing. In research, psychologists use two kinds of statistics, descriptive and inferential. Descriptive statistics simply give a general picture of the scores in a given group.

They include the measures of central tendency and the measures of variability. Central tendency involves different kinds of averages: the mean, median, and mode. Variability involves the standard deviation, which indicates how far scores in a group are likely to be from the average.

Stereotype

Stereotype

Some people believe and perpetuate stereotypes about particular ethnic groups: Italians are emotionally sensitive, loud, and talk with their hands; Irish people drink too much; Germans are serious and intelligent.

While such characteristics may apply to few members of that ethnic group, some people characterize all people in a certain group to share these traits.

Psychologists have also noted the role stereotypes play in human memory. When meeting a new person, for example, people sometimes combine their firsthand perceptions of that person—appearance, personality, intelligence—with stereotypes they have formed about similar people.

Robert J. Sternberg

Robert J. Sternberg

From childhood anxiety to a career

Robert J. Sternberg was born in December 1949 in Newark, New Jersey. As a child growing up in Maplewood, New Jersey, Sternberg suffered from a problem common to many children.

An otherwise bright student, he suffered such severe anxiety when taking IQ tests that he consistently scored low. His active brain was evident when he discovered as a sixth grader re-taking a test among fifth graders that his anxiety was pointless.

In seventh grade, his science project was called the “Sternberg Test of Mental Ability.” He gave the test to his classmates along with the traditional Stanford-Binet intelligence scales that he had discovered in the town library. From this point on, Sternberg devoted his time to researching the processes of testing and learning.

Stimulant Drugs

Stimulant Drugs

Stimulants are used for the treatment of certain psychiatric conditions and also used (and abused) for recreational purposes, enhanced levels of energy, and weight loss. They may be prescription or over-the-counter medications, illegal street drugs, or ingredients in commonly ingested substances, such as the caffeine in coffee or the nicotine in cigarettes.

Whatever their form, stimulants increase respiration, heart rate, and blood pressure, and their abuse can cause adverse physical effects and endanger a person’s health and even his or her life. An overdose of stimulants can result in chest pains, convulsions, paralysis, coma, and death.

Caffeine and Nicotine

The most commonly used stimulant (and the most widely consumed drug) in the United States is caffeine. Found in coffee, tea, soft drinks, chocolate, and drugs, including pain relievers, diet pills, and cold and allergy medications, caffeine belongs to a family of drugs called methylxanthines. It works by disrupting the action of a neurotransmitter called adenosine.

Stranger Anxiety

Stranger Anxiety

An infant learns to recognize her parents within the first few months of birth by sight, sound, and even smell. Up until six months, a baby will usually seem interested in other adults as well, engaging in games such as peek-a-boo.

After six months, many babies undergo a period of fear and unhappiness around anyone except their parents. The child may burst into tears if an unknown person makes eye contact or shriek if left even momentarily in the care of an unfamiliar person.

This stranger anxiety is a normal part of a child’s cognitive development; the baby has learned to differentiate her caretakers from other people and exhibits her strong preference for familiar faces. Stranger anxiety begins around eight or nine months and generally lasts into the child’s second year.

Strange Situation

Strange Situation

The Strange Situation procedure, developed by American psychologist Mary Ainsworth, is widely used in child development research. The goal of the Strange Situation procedure is to provide an environment that would arouse in the infant both the motivation to explore and the urge to seek security. An observer (often a researcher or therapist) takes a mother and her child (usually around the age of 12 months) to an unfamiliar room containing toys.

A series of eight separations and reunions are staged involving mild, but cumulative, stress for the infant. Separation in such an unfamiliar setting would also likely activate the child’s attachment system and allow for a direct test of its functioning.

Although no single behavior can be used to assess the quality of the infant’s attachment to the caregiver, the pattern of the infant’s responses to the changing situation is of interest to psychologists. The validation of the procedure and its scoring method were grounded in the naturalistic observation of the child’s exploration, crying, and proximity-seeking in the home.

Stress

Stress

While there is little consensus among psychologists about the exact definition of stress, it is agreed that stress results when demands placed on an organism cause unusual physical, psychological, or emotional responses.

In humans, stress originates from a multitude of sources and causes a wide variety of responses, both positive and negative. Despite its negative connotation, many experts believe some level of stress is essential for well-being and mental health.

Stressors—events or situations that cause stress— can range from everyday hassles such as traffic jams to chronic sources such as the threat of nuclear war or overpopulation. Much research has studied how people respond to the stresses of major life changes.

Subliminal Influence

Subliminal Influence

The term subliminal is derived from the Latin words sub (below) and limen (threshold). The threshold, in this case, is the threshold of conscious awareness. Can we be influenced by stimuli that are so faint or brief that we are unaware of their presence? In other words, can people be affected by invisible stimuli? This controversial notion has intrigued scientists and the public for decades.

A public relations stunt in 1957 triggered widespread concern that consumers were being induced to “eat popcorn” and “drink cola” by means of subliminal messages flashed onto a movie screen. Although there was never any good evidence that this procedure actually worked, the possibility of such “mind control” caused considerable alarm.

Careful laboratory research has explored the extent to which subliminal stimulation can affect our behavior. The best evidence for subliminal perception comes from studies on semantic priming. In a priming task, the viewer’s task is to decide whether or not a presented letter string (the target) is a word or not.

Suicide/Suicidal Behavior

Suicidal Behavior

The annual death toll from suicide worldwide is 120,000, and it is the eighth leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for one percent of all deaths. Between 240,000 and 600,000 people in the U.S. and Canada attempt suicide every year, and over 30,000 succeed.

The suicide rate is three times higher for men than for women in the United States, although females make three times as many suicide attempts as males. Traditionally, men over 45 and living alone are the demographic group at greatest risk for suicide.

However, in the past 30 years, youth suicides have risen alarmingly, tripling for people aged 15 to 24. The suicide rate among persons aged 10 to 24 between 1980 and 1992 rose an average of 177%. Suicide among women has also increased dramatically since 1960, when the ratio of male to female suicides was 4 to 1.

Harry Stack Sullivan

Harry Stack Sullivan

Harry Stack Sullivan, born on February 21, 1892, in the farming community of Norwich, New York, was the only surviving child of a poor Irish farmer. His childhood was apparently a lonely one, his friends and playmates consisting largely of the farm animals.

His mother, who was sickly, was unhappy with the family’s poor situation, and is reported to have shown her son little affection. These personal experiences seem to have had a marked effect on Sullivan’s professional views in later life.

Sullivan took his medical degree in 1917 at the Chicago College of Medicine and Surgery. In 1919 he began working at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., with William Alanson White, an early American psychoanalyst.

Superego

Superego

The superego is one of three basic components of human personality, according to Sigmund Freud. The id is the most primitive, consisting of largely unconscious biological impulses. The ego uses reality and its consequences to modify the behavior being urged by the id. The superego judges actions as right or wrong based on the person’s internal value system.

Freud believed that a child develops the superego by storing up the moral standards learned from experience in society and from parents and other adults. When a parent scolds a child for hitting another child, for example, the child learns that such aggression is unacceptable. Stored in that child’s superego, or conscience, is that moral judgment which will be used in determining future behavior. Another component of the superego is a person’s own concept of perfect behavior, which presents a second standard used to govern actions.

Synapse

Synapse

Every thought, movement, and sensation occurs due to communication between different neurons, which provide information throughout the nervous system.

Within a single neuron, information proceeds through electrical signals, but when information must be transmitted from one neuron to a succeeding neuron, the transmission is chemical.

For two neurons to communicate, chemical messengers, or neurotransmitters, are released into the synaptic cleft (a tiny gap about one thousandth of a millimeter between neurons), at which point they migrate to the next neuron and attach themselves to locations called receptor sites.

Taste

Taste

Taste, or gustation, is one of the two senses triggered by chemical stimuli (the other is olfaction). A person has approximately 10,000 taste buds. Most are on the tongue, but some are located in the back of the throat.

Grouped together in bumps or papillae on the surface of the tongue, the taste buds contain receptors that respond to four basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. (It has also been proposed that monosodium glutamate (MSG) produces a fifth taste, called “umami,” that enhances other tastes.) Each receptor responds most strongly to one or two of the four basic tastes and slightly to the others.

The receptors that are sensitive to bitter substances are located on the back of the tongue. Beginning at the tip of the tongue and progressing to the rear on each side are overlapping receptors for sweet, salty, and sour tastes.

Television and Aggression

Television and Aggression

For many years, behavioral and educational researchers have studied the psychological effects of television programs on viewers, particularly children. Substantial debate over television began as early as the 1960s.

The term “TV violence” was coined in 1963 as critics accused programs of promoting antisocial violent and aggressive behavior. More contemporary discussions center on the use of rating systems to label the content of programs and the use of technology to allow parents to censor children’s viewing habits.

Although there have been cases of “copy-cat” crimes, where an actual murder or suicide is said to have been triggered by a specific television incident, a direct correlation between what a person sees and does is difficult to prove. Since the 1950s, more than 3,000 studies have been dedicated to tracing more indirect links between actual violence and televised violence.

Temperament

Temperament

Individual variations in temperament are most readily observed in newborn babies. Even immediately after birth, some babies are calm while others cry a lot. Some respond favorably to being held while others squirm and protest.

Some are soothed by soft music and others do not stop crying long enough to hear it. Because of these immediately observable variations, temperament is often considered a biologically based characteristic.

Hippocrates discussed variations in temperament as early as the 5th century B.C. His hypothesis that there are four basic human temperaments that correspond to various bodily characteristics—choleric, sanguine, melancholic, and phlegmatic— endured for many years before modern theories became accepted.

Test Anxiety

Test Anxiety

Physical symptoms of test anxiety include a rapid heartbeat, dry mouth, sweating, stomach ache, dizziness, and desire to urinate.

The anxiety interferes with concentration and memory, making it difficult or impossible to recall previously memorized material and resulting in test performance that does not accurately reflect a person’s intelligence or the amount of effort spent preparing for the exam. Often, the memorized material is recalled once the test is over and the person leaves the test room.

People with text anxiety are usually conscientious students who work hard and have high expectations of themselves. The condition may begin with inadequate performance on a particular test, which then creates a general fear of the testing situation that hampers future performance, creating a vicious cycle of anxiety and low scores.

Thalamus

Thalamus

The thalamus is a relatively large collection of cell body clusters shaped like two small footballs. It is involved in receiving sensory information from the eyes and other sense organs, processing that information, and then transmitting it to primary sensory zones in the cerebral cortex.

The thalamus also processes pain signals from the spinal cord as well as information from different parts of the cerebral hemispheres, and relays it to the cerebellum and the medulla. Together with the hypothalamus, the thalamus forms part of the forebrain called the diencephalon.

By registering the sensory properties of food, such as texture and temperature, the thalamus plays a role in appetite. It is also known to be involved in the control of sleep and wakefulness.

Edward Chace Tolman

Arisa Komiya

Edward Tolman was born on April 14, 1886, in Newton, Massachusetts. After graduation from the Newton public schools in 1907 and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1911, he did graduate study in psychology at Harvard.

At Harvard (1911-1915), Tolman witnessed the initial reaction of the academic world to two new sets of psychological ideas: those of the Gestalt psychologists (Wolfgang Köhler, Kurt Koffka, and Max Wertheimer) and those of John B. Watson, the behaviorist.

Tolman’s later theory of behavior is rooted in these two schools. From Gestalt psychology he borrowed the idea of pattern: in Tolman’s theory, perception, motivation, and cognition are regarded as processes in which patterns of stimulation are identified and interpreted and patterns of reactions are planned and executed.

Touch

Touch

The sense of touch is located in the skin, which is composed of three layers: the epidermis, dermis, and hypodermis. Different types of sensory receptors, varying in size, shape, number, and distribution within the skin, are responsible for relaying information about pressure, temperature, and pain.

The largest touch sensor, the Pacinian corpuscle, is located in the hypodermis, the innermost thick fatty layer of skin, which responds to vibration. Free nerve endings—neurons that originate in the spinal cord, enter and remain in the skin—transmit information about temperature and pain from their location at the bottom of the epidermis.

Hair receptors in the dermis, which are wrapped around each follicle, respond to the pressure produced when the hairs are bent. All the sensory receptors respond not to continued pressure but rather to changes in pressure, adapting quickly to each new change, so that, for example, the skin is unaware of the continual pressure produced by clothes.

Traits

Traits

Traits include such personality characteristics as introversion,aggressiveness, generosity, nervousness, and creativity. Systems that address personality as a combination of qualities or dimensions are called trait theories.

The first comprehensive trait theory was that of Gordon Allport (1897-1967). Over a period of thirty years, Allport investigated over 18,000 separate traits, proposing several principles to make this lengthy list manageable for practical purposes.

One was the distinction between personal dispositions, which are peculiar to a single individual, and common traits, which can be used for describing and comparing different people.

Tourette Syndrome

Tourette Syndrome

Tourette syndrome (TS) affects roughly one in every 2,500 persons. The incidence of the condition is at least three times higher in males than in females. Historically, Tourette syndrome has been a largely misunderstood condition; it has been identified as demonic possession, epilepsy, schizophrenia, and other mental disorders, and was formerly thought to be the result of emotional problems due to faulty childrearing.

The condition was first identified as a physiological disorder in 1885 by the French neurologist Gilles de la Tourette. Although the causes of Tourette syndrome are still not fully understood, researchers have made substantial progress in understanding and treating the condition.

Symptoms

Tics—sudden, repetitive, involuntary muscular movements—are the hallmark of Tourette syndrome, appearing in two forms: motor and vocal tics. Motor tics are uncontrollable body movements, such as blinking, grimacing, shrugging, or tossing one’s head.

Transference

Transference

Transference is the tendency for a client in psychotherapy, known as the analysand, to transfer emotional responses to their therapists that reflect feelings the analysand has for other significant people in his or her life. Transference often echoes clients’ relationships with their parents or with other persons who played a central role in their childhood.

They may become excessively dependent on or sexually attracted to the therapist; they may develop feelings of hostility or detachment. Whatever form transference takes, it is considered to be at the heart of the therapeutic process.

Sigmund Freud believed that clients need to relive the central emotional experiences of their lives through transference in order to become convinced of the existence and power of their own unconscious attachments and motivations.

Transgender

Transgender

Transgender, or transsexualism, a condition in which the individual defines him or herself as male or female in opposition to their physical gender, or feels strongly that he or she wants to live as a member of the other gender, is rare. By some estimates, no more than 1 person in 350,000 believes he or she was born the wrong gender.

As they progress through childhood, their inability to relate to their own gender identity increases. Some seek the advice of a physician, and by the time they reach early adulthood, begin to take medical action to alter their gender.

Since more males than females are diagnosed as transsexuals, it is more common for males to receive hormone treatment to develop secondary sex characteristics, such as breasts.

Twins

Twins

Identical, or monozygotic, twins are of the same sex and are genetically and physically similar because they both come from one ovum, which, after fertilization, divides in two and develops into two separate individuals. Fraternal, or dizygotic, twins occur when the mother produces two eggs in one monthly cycle and both eggs are fertilized.

The conceptions may take place on two separate occasions and could involve different fathers. Fraternal twins, who are no more genetically alike than ordinary siblings, may be of the same or different sex and may bear some similarity of appearance.

Twin pregnancies occur on the average in one out of every 80 to 100 births. However, the incidence of twins reflects the number of twin babies born per thousand completed pregnancies, and it is a fact that many more twins are conceived than are born.

Type A Personality

Type A Personality

In the 1970s, psychologists started investigating possible links between personality and health. Initial research seemed to indicate that persons with a type A Personality were at higher risk for coronary heart disease—a medical condition that consists of a narrowing of the blood vessels that supply blood to the heart. Type A people are achievement oriented, irritable, impatient with delays, and seem to be always in a hurry.

The association between heart disease and type A behaviors was evident, even when other risk factors such as smoking, obesity, or family history were ruled out. In contrast to type As, type B people are less competitive, and more easygoing than their type A counterparts.

In a traffic jam, a type A might curse, fume, and change lanes. A type B might relax and listen to the car stereo. While most people do not fall into the extreme ends of the continuum, there are significant numbers of people who do seem to be far more intense and reactive than others.

Unconscious

Unconscious

Sigmund Freud assumed that the human mind was divided into three divisions: the id, ego, and superego, which, in turn, had both conscious and unconscious portions.

The id, motivated by two biological drives—sex and aggression—operates according to the pleasure principle, seeking satisfaction and avoiding pain. Guided by the reality principle, the ego’s goal is to find safe and socially acceptable ways of satisfying the id’s desires without transgressing the limits imposed by the superego.

Developing from the ego in childhood, the superego, or conscience, has as its goal to apply moral values in satisfying one’s wishes. Both the ego and superego operate consciously and unconsciously, according to Freud, while the id is entirely unconscious.

Unconscious Motivation

Unconscious Motivation

Unconscious motivation plays a prominent role in Sigmund Freud’s theories of human behavior. According to Freud and his followers, most human behavior is the result of desires, impulses, and memories that have been repressed into an unconscious state, yet still influence actions.

Freud believed that the human mind consists of a tiny, conscious part that is available for direct observation and a much larger subconscious portion that plays an even more important role in determining behavior.

The term “Freudian slip” refers to the manifestation of these unconscious impulses. For example, a person who responds “Bad to meet you” instead of the usual “Glad to meet you” may be revealing true feelings.

Underachiever

Underachiever

Although the term “underachiever” commonly refers to anyone, child or adult, who performs below his or her potential, psychologists typically use the term to refer to a student whose performance in academic studies falls significantly below his scores on standardized tests of aptitude or ability.

A student may also be considered to be underachieving based on the educator’s evaluation of her learning potential in relation to the quality of the work she does on class assignments.

There are many explanations for achievement that falls below evaluated potential. Some problems may be the educational experience itself: bright students may be bored by class assignments, and therefore do not give them much attention; or a student’s learning style may conflict with the method of instruction used in his school.

Violence

Violence

The high incidence of violence in the United States is of great concern to citizens, lawmakers, and law enforcement agencies alike. Between 1960 and 1991, violent crime in the U.S. rose over 370 percent, and over 600,000 Americans are victimized by handgun crimes annually.

Violent acts committed by juveniles are of particular concern: the number of American adolescents arrested for homicide has increased by 85 percent between 1987 and 1991, and more juveniles are committing serious crimes at younger ages than ever before. Young African American males are particularly at risk for becoming either perpetrators or victims of violent crime.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has identified homicide as the leading cause of death for this demographic group, estimating that one in every 28 black males born in 1987 is likely to be murdered. For white males born in 1987, the ratio is one in 205.

Vision

Vision

The human eye is sensitive to only a limited range of radiation, consisting of wavelengths between approximately 400 to 750 nanometers (billionths of a meter). The full spectrum of visible color is contained within this range, with violet at the low end and red at the high end.

Light is converted into neural impulses by the eye, whose spherical shape is maintained by its outermost layer, the sclera. When a beam of light is reflected off an object, it first enters the eye through the cornea, a rounded transparent portion of the sclera that covers the pigmented iris. The iris constricts to control the amount of light entering the pupil, a round opening at the front of the eye.

A short distance beyond the pupil, the light passes through the lens, a transparent oval structure whose curved surface bends and focuses the light wave into a narrower beam, which is received by the retina. When the retina receives an image, it is upside down because light rays from the top of the object are focused at the bottom of the retina, and vice versa.

Vocational Aptitude Test

Vocational Aptitude Test

As a general example, a vocational aptitude test might consist of an instrument that assesses an individual’s abilities, personality characteristics, and interests, and compares the individual’s responses to those persons considered to be successful in their occupations and professions, with a notation of points of similarity and dissimilarity.

Vocational aptitude tests are valuable to both employers and prospective employees in a given occupation. To the prospective employee, the test results offer guidance in choosing a particular career. To the employer, they aid in the process of screening suitable employees.

Vocational aptitude tests measure a wider variety of skill areas than scholastic aptitude tests. For example, the Differential Aptitude Test, one of the most widely used vocational tests, measures verbal, numerical, abstract, and mechanical reasoning; spatial relations; clerical speed and accuracy; and language usage.

Margaret Floy Washburn

Margaret Floy Washburn

Margaret Floy Washburn was the first woman ever to receive a doctorate in psychology and the second woman to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences (1931), the most eminent scientific society in the United States. The only child of Francis Washburn and Elizabeth Floy Davis, Washburn was raised in a middle class home in New York.

The women in her family were exceptional and attained high levels of academic accomplishment for the era. Educated both in public and private schools, Washburn graduated from Vassar College in 1891 with a keen interest in science and philosophy.

She audited graduate courses taught by James McKeen Cattell at Columbia University, but in spite of his full support, she was denied admission to the graduate program due to gender restrictions. Admitted as a degree candidate at Cornell University, she won the Susan Lynn Sage Fellowship in Philosophy and Ethics.

David Wechsler

David Wechsler

David Wechsler developed the first standardized adult intelligence test, the Bellevue-Wechsler Scale, in 1939. Likewise, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, published in 1949 and revised in 1974, was considered to be the best test available. The concept that intelligence involves the abilities necessary to succeed in life was one of Wechsler’s major contributions to psychology.

He promoted the idea that intelligence includes personality traits and emotional states, as well as mental abilities, and that all of these should be measured to assess intelligent behavior in one’s environment. Wechsler also promoted the idea that educational, cultural, and socioeconomic factors must be considered when evaluating intelligence.

The author of more than 60 books and articles,Wechsler served as president of the American Psychopathology Association in 1959-60 and earned the Distinguished Professional Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association in 1973.

John Broadus Watson

John Broadus Watson

John Broadus Watson is best known as the founder of behaviorism, which he defined as an experimental branch of natural science aimed at the prediction and control of behavior. Its model was based on Ivan Pavlov’s studies of conditioned reflex: every conduct is a response to a stimulus or to a complex set of stimulus situations. From birth, a few stimuli elicit definite reactions. But most behaviors are conditioned; they result from the association of unconditioned stimuli to other stimuli.

Watson was born in 1878 to a poor, rural South Carolina family. His mother was a pious Baptist; his father left the family in 1891. After taking a traditional classical curriculum at Furman University, he studied philosophy at the University of Chicago.

Disappointed with John Dewey’s teaching, he began work in animal psychology, and received his Ph.D. in 1903. Watson was a professor at Johns Hopkins University from 1908 to 1920, when he was dismissed because of his relationship with a graduate student, Rosalie Rayner.

Rosalie Rayner

He divorced his wife, married Rosalie, and had a successful career in advertising. In 1957, he was awarded a gold medal by the American Psychological Association (of which he had been the youngest president, in 1915). Watson died in 1958.

Developmental issues were crucial for behaviorism. According to Watson, unhealthy adult personalities resulted from habit systems carried over from infancy. Early childhood was key, and a detailed knowledge of child development was indispensable for designing a behavioral social technology.

child development

The significance of childhood and child-study for behaviorism is summed up in Watson’s most famous statement: “Give me a dozen healthy infants ... and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select ... regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and the race of his ancestors.”

By 1917, Watson had focused his research on children. He carried out pioneering observational and experimental work on newborns and infants, produced Experimental Investigation of Babies (1919), one of the first psychology films done in the United States, wrote the bestselling manual Psychological Care of Infant and Child, and became a popular child-rearing expert.

learned behavior

Much of his research was directed at distinguishing unlearned from learned behavior. Observations of hundreds of babies revealed that sneezing, hiccoughing, crying, erection of penis, voiding of urine, defecation, smiling, certain eye movements and motor reactions, feeding responses, grasping, and blinking were unlearned, but that they began to become conditioned a few hours after birth. Crawling, swimming, and handedness appeared to be learned.

Watson also traced the beginnings of language to unlearned vocal sounds, and found that three forms of emotional (“visceral”) response can be elicited at birth by three sets of stimuli: fear (by loss of support and loud sounds;

controversial experiments

Watson did not notice that his conditioning fear of fire through burning alone contradicted his view), rage (by hampering of bodily movement), and love (by stroking of the skin, tickling, gentle rocking, patting). Just as there was no innate fear of darkness, there was no instinctive love of the child for the mother; all “visceral habits” were shaped by conditioning.

In one of the most controversial experiments of all psychology, Watson conditioned eleven-month-old “little Albert” to fear furry objects; this case was for him proof that complex behavior develops by conditioning out of simple unlearned responses.

professional application

Watson considered the ultimate aim of psychology to be the adjustment of individual needs to the needs of society. He encouraged parents to approach childrearing as a professional application of behaviorism.

Psychological Care of Infant and Child (1928) is dedicated “to the first mother who brings up a happy child.” Such a child would be an autonomous, fearless, self-reliant, adaptable, problem-solving being, who does not cry unless physically hurt, is absorbed in work and play, and has no great attachments to any place or person.

strict routines

Watson warned against the dangers of “too much mother love,” and advocated strict routines and a tight control over the child’s environment and behavior. His disapproval of thumbsucking, masturbation, and homosexuality was not moral, but practical, and he encouraged parents to be honest about sex. He agreed with psychoanalysts on the importance of sexuality.

Partly because of the premature end to Watson’s university career, his views did not have a decisive influence on academic child psychology. They contributed, however, to professionalizing childrearing, and bolstered contemporary arguments, by Fred and John Dewey for example, on the determining lifelong effects of early development.

John Dewey