American pioneers: what are the thoughts of James, Hall, Calkins and Thorndike? - Chapter 8

It became clear at the conference in Munich in 1896 that psychology was slowly becoming a respected scientific and academic discipline. The two professors who were responsible for this, were sadly not there: Wilhelm Wundt and William James (1842-1910). Ironic enough, despite the contribution of both professors to the creation of an intellectual climate, both the professors did not appreciate each other's work. Wundt thought that there was little new information or original content in James’s writing, except for his style, which Wundt called personal and informal (he thought it was beautiful literature, but that it did not fall under psychology). Another reason that Wundt was not all that enthusiastic about James' work, for one was because James also criticized the work of Wundt. The reason for this was in the fact that it took James twelve years old to write his book "The Principles of Psychology ". The two professors each had their own style and stood behind different ones psychology, yet they were two of the most influential professors of their time.

What did James' early life look like?

William James was born in New York. He was the eldest child and came from a rich family. During his childhood and adolescence, he regularly moved with his family around in Europe and America. His father, Henry James Sr., had suffered a restless life and experienced regular anxiety attacks. After he had recovered, he focused on teaching his children and he searched for the best place to do so. Despite that he never actually found this perfect place, all four children remained highly motivated to study.

James had a talent for drawing and art, but because the subject was rejected by his father, he was sent to Harvard in 1861 to study chemistry. At Harvard, he shifted his attention from chemistry to physiology and in 1864 he registered himself at the medical school. A year later ,he interrupted his studies to go on an expedition, supervised by Louis Agassiz (1807- 1873). Agassiz was a biologist and one of the most outspoken critics of Darwin's book 'Origin or Species'. During this trip, James found out that biology was not suitable for him anyway and he returned home.

James convinced his father in 1867 to let him go to Germany, for the mineral baths that were good for his back among other reasons. But after a series of events in 1870, he experienced his first anxiety attack as well and he had trouble recovering from it. Until he read an article about free will in 1870, written by the French philosopher Charles Renouvier (1815-1903). Because of this he started to believe in free will. Also an article about customs ('habits') written by the philosopher and psychologist Alexander Bain (1818-1903) impressed James.

Believing in free will released him from his intellectual inhibitions and caused him to take psychology and mechanical physiology more seriously. He discovered that he could take mechanical ideas seriously on a scientific level, without fully accepting them personally. He decided to evaluate ideas based on their usability within specified and restricted contexts. For example, free will was a useful concept in his personal life, which was why he accepted it as "true". Determinism (if it is scientifically useful), could also be "true" when he stood in his role as a scientist. The evaluation of relativistic ideas going on of varying usability in varying situations became the hallmark of William's general philosophy that he called pragmatism.

James treated his students as intellectual equals and was therefore very popular. At the start of his career his interests were plenty and varied, but when he worked on his book "The Principles of Psychology", he decided to focus on psychology. It is also sometimes said that Wundt had brought psychology within the university for the specialists, but James made psychology vividly alive subject for anyone who chose to read about it or to listen to it.

What did James write in his book 'The principles of psychology'?

James wrote his book over a period of twelve years, but he was never really satisfied with it and quickly concluded that 1) there was no such thing as the science of psychology and 2) that he was incapable. Two aspects of his self-criticism were partially correct: 1) his book was enormous and 2) the psychology was presented as unsystematic and incomplete. But James proved wrong on thinking he was incapable. It soon became the most prominent book on the psychology, in which all major and important topics of psychology were discussed. Below is there a number of aspects from his book that he discussed.

The most well-known thing that James has brought forward was the chapter about the flow of thoughts ("stream of thoughts"). In this chapter, he discussed that the content of the human consciousness was better comparable to a stream than a collection of discrete elements or ideas. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus had previously observed that someone was not could experience the same current twice, because the current changes constantly. James found himself quite liking this idea. No one can experience exactly the same sensation, the same idea or the same experience, twice in the exact same way. Every new experience is formed and influenced by previous experiences and, because the background constantly changes, two experiences can never be exactly the same. James also believed that thoughts and a stream could both be called conscious. A subjective feeling of continuity is maintained, even if someone goes to sleep and the person only wakes up later. James was of the opinion that it was unwise to analyse the flow of thoughts in terms of elements (such as sensations and feelings). A real thought cannot be "stopped" long enough to be studied analytically, without causing any damage to the real nature of the thought. To James, psychology meant the study of dynamic and constantly changing consciousness processes, among other subjects.

In the chapter 'habit', James discussed the influence of habitual responses for maintaining our society. He felt that habit was the flywheel of society and proved to be a valuable tool for the preservation of this society. A fragment out his book where this is clearly described can be found on page 318 of the book. After James had emphasized the inevitability and strength of human habits, he also discussed his own experiences in combination with Bain's ideas. The laws of habit formation are impartial, thus capable of producing both morally good and morally bad actions. Once a good or bad action has been established into a habit, this is not complete irreversible, but more difficult than it would have been before.

In the chapter 'emotion', James involved his experiences with anxiety attacks. On this subject, he introduced one of his rare theoretical contributions to psychology. According to James, emotion is a consequence and not the cause of the bodily changes that are associated with the expression. According to him we feel regret because we cry, and we feel anger because we attack, and feel we fear because we shiver. He didn’t not think that we cry, attack or shiver because we regret it or feel anger or fear, but actually the other way around. The Danish physiologist Carl Lange (1834-1900) published a similar perspective and also believed that emotions represented the unconscious perception of body reactions. This is called the James-Lange theory of emotion. Nowadays, we know there are some limitations this theory, yet it is not entirely unusable.

James defined a voluntary action as an action that is accompanied by a subjective feeling of mental effort or attentive effort. Attentive effort is essentially the phenomenon of the will. He wondered if the subjective feeling of the effort needed for targeting attention is a completely mechanistic consequence of a thought process, or that there are some not mechanistic and unpredictable influences. Scientific psychology can work better with the first finding, while the personal, subjective experiences support the second more. According to James, science always had to be deterministic and free will did not fit within the science. He also did not believe that it was possible to get all the answers from science and psychology. Therefore, when he was not in his role as a psychologist but as a moral philosopher or human being, he adopted a conviction with the help of free will. This was the essence of James' psychology. This attitude matched James' conviction that the decision to believe in free will was pragmatic, adaptive and correct because it worked. Later on he applied the pragmatic criteria unconsciously to psychological theories, looking at the usability in specific contexts. James took over the term pragmatism for his philosophy definitions, but he expanded the approach to include emotional, ethical and religious could contain ideas, as well as scientific theories. James' psychology consisted of a collection of personal reflections about the most important areas of the newly merged science. Students who read about James did not learn only the most important facts of the new psychology but were also challenged to use it on practical and creative ways to think about problems.

What did the later career of James look like?

After 1890, James became frustrated by the limitations and uncertainties of science and the psychology started to play a smaller role in his life. One of the topics where he started to focus on was on psychological research. He kept busy with it for a while, investigating paranormal activities, but in his last years, he was mainly occupied with philosophy.

What is pragmatism?

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) promoted a perspective that he called pragmatism. According to pragmatism, one can never be sure of scientific ideas and knowledge. Scientific ideas and knowledge can only be subject to different levels of pragmatic beliefs. Peirce and his group regularly used Darwinian perspective, which states that no adaptation to the world is perfect or permanent. It is always susceptible to evolution. Peirce applied this idea to theories and knowledge. James wrote several books about his philosophical ideas. It included not only scientific, but also emotional, ethical and religious ideas. James retained a great interest in spirituality and religion experiences. His book The Varieties of Religious Experience became his most famous book. The influence of James's psychology is great, despite his short career. He created an atmosphere in which psychology was thought of as interesting. James has had a major influence on American psychology and his work differed from that van Wundt. James asked his followers to develop their own individual approaches develop. Now the three most important students are discussed.

Who was G. Stanley Hall?

Hall (1844-1924) graduated from Williams College in 1867. At that time in New York, the controversial theory of Darwin was making its rounds, and it seemed to be more attractive than theology. After this, Hall studied philosophy and physiology in Germany, together with Du Bois-Reymond. He then went on to teach at Harvard, where he met William James and was encouraged by him to experiment with the role of muscle signals in the perception of space. 

In 1878, Hall travelled to Leipzig and he became the first American student of Wundt. After returning to Cambridge, he began to teach again. This was important to him in two ways: firstly, it made him focus on the problems of developmental psychology and pedagogy and secondly,  his lectures had managed to snag the attention of the president of the John Hopkins University in Baltimore. Hopkins ensured that Hall received a research laboratory and in 1887, Hall created the "American Journal of Psychology ". After these two successes, he went to Massachusetts where he spent the rest of his life.

Hall is therefore the most important founder of laboratories, departments, journals and professional associations. On this aspect, he looks more like Wundt than James. But he was closer in his research with the functional and practical tradition of James. His innovative work revolved around psychology, pedagogy and evolutionary theory. Hall came up with the Darwinian theory of child development. According to this theory, an individual goes through the intellectual, emotional and general psychological development parallel to the phases that our ancestors in evolution have gone through. From crawling to walking, a child repeats the evolutionary order that lead to modern humanity. He also led the Child Study Movement and made extensive use of questionnaires. This perspective is no longer just like it is nowadays accepted, but it was the beginning of developmental psychology. Hall found hard to get along with his colleagues and he also regularly turned against them. E.G. Boring (1886-1968), however, wrote about Hall and James that they appreciated each other, but that they were walking both different paths. Yet his colleagues (Wundt, Freud, James) had to thank him for their ideas being distributed in America. Four years before Hall died in 1924, he supervised his final PhD student, Francis Cecil Sumner. This was the first Afro American who had a Ph.D. in psychology. He was particularly interested in the psychology of religion. He became head of the psychology department at the Howard and supervised here the most famous African-American couple in the history of psychology: Mamie Phipps Clark and Kenneth B. Clark.

Who was Mary Whitkon Calkins (1863-1930)?

Calkins grew up in an intellectually stimulating environment and graduated from Smith College. Calkins then applied for the job to teach experimental psychology and had nothing else to offer than an interest in the subject. Because there no better candidates had applied, however, she was hired. The only problem was that she was a woman. In the end she contacted one of the Harvard professors, who was deeply impressed by her.  There at Harvard, she also met James. Together with Royce, the Harvard professor, he successfully stood up for Calkins so that she could teach at the university. Meanwhile, during her study with James, she also received advice from Edmund C. Sanford (1859-1924) on how she could equip psychological laboratory. Sanford helped Calkins to plan a fully functional laboratory for the university.

Together with Sanford, Calkins worked on an experimental study about associations, which she ultimately also published. Calkins created the "paired-associates technique". She presented cards with stimuli consisting of numbers linked to colours. After a number of times the cards presented in different ways, she showed the colours only and tested if the participants could remember the corresponding numbers. She showed that figures with vivid colours were better remembered than with neutral colours, but that the main determining factor for remembering was simply the frequency of exposure. Calkins also developed an influential psychology of her own. Calkins saw the concept of self as one active, guiding and purposeful means, that was present in all conscious actions and was essential for a complete introspective report. She was of the opinion that the conscious self is the basic subject in the psychology is and defended this position against behaviourists and Gestalt psychology.

Despite being formulated in terms of an introspective experimental psychology that is no longer carried out in our current society, the self psychology of Calkins was the forerunner of the personality theory of Gordon W. Allport. Together with Ladd-Franklin and Washburn, Calkin made the road for women to graduate easier after they were the first ones were given the permission to graduate. Edna Heidbreder (1890-1985) published the book Seven Psychologies in 1933, and with this she proved herself to be one of the clearest authors on the systems of the psychology. She also addressed a deeper question: what is a system of psychology? She also analysed the different systems in relation to each other. She was also a beloved teacher.

Who was Edward Lee Thorndike?

Thorndike (1874-1949) studied English and French literature at Harvard. The only book that Thorndike voluntarily bought that was not literature, was the book of James. After he read this, he became enthusiastic about psychology, after which he turned his attention entirely to psychology. Inspired by C. Lloyd Morgan's descriptions of experiments that were carried out on chickens, he decided that studying chickens could give him a title relatively quickly (because he wanted a title as soon as possible). James, who did not understand much about Thorndike wanted to achieve, agreed nonetheless.

Thorndike placed chickens in a loft and observed how and how quickly they learned to find the exit to the loft. Then he moved his attention from chickens to cats and constructed a puzzle box. An animal could only escape from this puzzle box if it gave a very specific reaction or action: pulling a rope, pressing a button and so on. In more difficult boxes, the cats had to perform two actions in a certain sequence in order to escape. In his experiments, he placed hungry cats in the boxes and observed their behaviour while they were out trying to escape from the box to get food. First the cats, just like the chickens, showed only trial-and-error behaviour until they inadvertently gave the right reaction, but after a number of times, the cats learned the right reaction and they escaped faster. Thorndike suggested that specific stimuli and reactions are linked together. He called this the "law of effect". This law states that when someone conducts a behaviour and there is a pleasant response to it, the person will exhibit this behaviour more often. If someone shows a behaviour and there is a negative response, such as punishment, the behaviour will weaken, and it will tend to occur less.

In 1899, Thorndike and his friend Robert Sessions Woodworth (1869-1962) decided to to study "transfer or training". This is the effect of instructions about and practice of one certain mental function on the presentation in another function. For the rest of his career Thorndike became more interested in people than in animals. He also concluded that intelligence is not a separate quality, but a combination of many specific ones skills. Based on that idea, he developed intelligence tests that tested skills on separate functions, such as math and vocabulary. He also believed that these components are hereditary.

Through all the work of Thorndike, he was seen as the leader of functionalism.  Unlike structuralism, where one only defines the content of conscious experiences and describes, functionalism focuses on the usability and purpose of behaviour. The functionalism emphasizes individual differences. Other important functionalists from the Thorndike's generation are Woodworth, James Rowland Angell (1869-1949), Harvey Carr (1873- 1954) and John Dewey (1859-1952). In the end, the theories about learning, education and hereditary intelligence of Thorndike were far too simple. Later the debate lost Structuralism and functionalism are necessary when behaviourism emerged. Nowadays is Thorndike especially known for his first publication about trial-and-error learning in cats and the law of effect, which was the starting point for behaviourism.

ExamTips

• Try to understand why James and Wundt didn't like each other and how they inspired each other in that sense to do better.
• Why wouldn't Thorndike's experiments not be accepted anymore in this day and age?