The Story of Psychology
Read The Story of Psychology Online
Authors: Morton Hunt
THE STORY OFPSYCHOLOGY
Morton Hunt has been a freelance writer specializing in the behavioral sciences since 1949. His articles have appeared in many national magazines, including
The New Yorker
and
The New York Times
, and have won him numerous prizes including the Westinghouse A.A.A.S. Award for best science article of the year. He has written twenty-one books, the best known of which are
The World of the Formerly Married
(about the lives and psychology of separated and divorced people),
The Universe Within
(cognitive science), and the earlier edition of this present book. He lives in Gladwyn, Pennsylvania, with his wife, writer and psychotherapist Bernice Hunt.
A L S O B Y M O R T O N H U N T
The Natural History of Love
Her Infinite Variety:
The American Woman as Lover, Mate and Rival
Mental Hospital
The Talking Cure
(with Rena Corman and Louis R. Ormont)
The Thinking Animal
The World of the Formerly Married
The Affair: A Portrait of Extra-Marital Love
in Contemporary America
The Mugging
Sexual Behavior in the 1970s
Prime Time: A Guide to the Pleasures and Opportunities
of the New Middle Age
(with Bernice Hunt)
The Divorce Experience
(with Bernice Hunt)
The Universe Within:
A New Science Explores the Human Mind
Profiles of Social Research:
The Scientific Study of Human Interactions
The Compassionate Beast: What Science Is Discovering
About the Humane Side of Humankind
How Science Takes Stock: The Story of Meta-Analysis
The New Know-Nothings: The Political Foes of the
Scientific Study of Human Nature
To Bernice,
for reasons beyond counting
I here put into thy hands what has been the diversion of some of my idle and heavy hours; if it has the good luck to prove so of any of thine, and thou hast but half so much pleasure in reading as I had in writing it, thou wilt as little think thy money, as I do my pains, ill bestowed.
J
OHN
L
OCKE
, “The Epistle to the Reader,”
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Prologue: Exploring the Universe Within
A Psychological Experiment in the Seventh Century
B.C.
1
P
ART
O
NE
: PRESCIENTIFIC PSYCHOLOGY
The Forerunners: Alcmaeon, Protagoras, Democritus, Hippocrates
The “Midwife of Thought”: Socrates
The Commentators: Theophrastus, the Hellenists, the Epicureans, the Skeptics, the Stoics
Roman Borrowers: Lucretius, Seneca, Epictetus, Galen, Plotinus
The Patrist Adapters: the Patrists, Tertullian, Saint Augustine
The Patrist Reconcilers: the Schoolmen, Saint Thomas Aquinas
The Rationalists: Descartes, the Cartesians, Spinoza
The Empiricists: Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, the Empiricist-Associationist School
German Nativism: Leibniz, Kant
P
ART
T
WO
: FOUNDERS OF A NEW SCIENCE
Just Noticeable Differences: Weber
Neural Physiology: von Helmholtz
The Making of the First Psychologist
The Curious Goings-on at Konvikt
6
The Psychologist
Malgré Lui:
William James
Ideas of the Pre-eminent Psychologizer
7
Explorer of the Depths: Sigmund Freud
The Invention of Psychoanalysis
Dynamic Psychology: Early Formulations
Dynamic Psychology: Extensions and Revisions
“Whenever You Can, Count”: Francis Galton
The Mental Age Approach: Alfred Binet
Two Discoverers of the Laws of Behaviorism: Thorndike and Pavlov
Mr. Behaviorism: John B. Watson
Two Great Neobehaviorists: Hull and Skinner
A Visual Illusion Gives Rise to a New Psychology
Out-of-Reach Bananas and Other Problems
P
ART
T
HREE
: SPECIALIZATION AND SYNTHESIS
Introduction: The Fissioning of Psychology— and the Fusion of the Psychological Sciences
11
The Personality Psychologists
“The Secrets of the Hearts of Other Men”
The Fundamental Units of Personality
Late Word from the Personality Front
“Great Oaks from Little Acorns Grow”
Closed Cases: Cognitive Dissonance, the Psychology of Imprisonment, Obedience, the Bystander Effect
Ongoing Inquiries: Conflict Resolution, Attribution, Others
The Value of Social Psychology
14
The Perception Psychologists
15
The Emotion and Motivation Psychologists
Is the Mind a Computer? Is a Computer a Mind?
Freud’s Offspring: The Dynamic Psychotherapists
The Patient as Laboratory Animal: Behavior Therapy
All in the Mind: Cognitive Therapy
18
Users and Misusers of Psychology
Improving the Human Use of the Human Equipment
Improving the Fit Between Humans and Their Jobs