Unit 3: Chapters 12, 13, 18, & 19
(Developers and Specialists)
COLQ 2994 Honors
Dr. Joseph A. Mayo
Introduction: Fissioning of Psychology
►“Fission
products of psychology”:
 no unifying theory by mid-20th century
 cluster of related, though diverse fields
 “era of the schools” gave way to over 50
areas of specialization
Chapter 12: The Developmentalists
►History
of developmental psychology:
 children = “miniature adults” until 17th
century
 tabula rasa (John Locke)
 influence of Darwin’s evolutionary theory
(mid-late 1800s)
 G. Stanley Hall (early 1900s):
* “father of developmental psychology”
* “ontogony recapitulates phylogeny”
* questionnaire studies with adolescents
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 research-oriented and largely
atheoretical by 1920s (Arnold Gesell)
 the rise of developmental theory:
* Jean Piaget (1930s-60s):
~ cognitive development in children
* Lawrence Kohlberg (late 1960s-80s):
~ moral development
* life-span theories:
~ Erik Erikson’s (1950s) pioneering theory
of personality development
~ Daniel Levinson’s contemporary view
(all aspects of development; adaptation to
changing realities)

Modern-day developmental learning theory:
 Albert Bandura (1960s-80s): social-cognitive
learning theory




observational learning
latent learning
vicarious learning
modeling & imitation
► Developmental
psychology today:
 somewhat disorderly (but perhaps out of necessity)
►not
a single dominant stage theory
on some points, disagreement on others
►life-span developmental psychology more an
approach than a theory
►agreement
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Chapter 13: The Social Psychologists
►Social
psychology (defined):
 no unifying concept, clear-cut identity, or
generally accepted definition
 psychology  sociology bridge
►History
of social psychology:
 both recent and ancient area of inquiry
 Norman Triplett (1897): social loafing
 Muzafer Sherif (1930s): conformity
 Kurt Lewin (1890-1947):
“father of social psychology”
boldly imaginative experimental style
- primary training center in U.S. (MIT, 1944)
- field theory:
-
• mathematical terminology (e.g., vectors)
• “life space”
• present and future, ignoring past history
• untestable & subjective (dualistic)
• motivation lies at the core
► Social
psychology after Lewin’s death:
 languished until WWII
 explosive expansion in 1960s
► “Closed
cases”:
 Solomon Asch’s (1950s): conformity
 Leon Festinger’s (1950s): cognitive dissonance
 Stanley Milgram’s (1960s): obedience
 Philip Zimbardo’s (1970s): deindividuation
 Group dynamics: social facilitation vs. inhibition
 John Darley’s & Bibb Latane’s (1960s):
bystander effect
 Psychology of prejudice
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►“Open
inquiries”:
 attribution theory:
first proposed by Fritz Heider (1958)
displaced cognitive dissonance as leading topic
by 1970s
- absorbed into social cognition since 1980s
-
►Value
of social psychology:
 multicultural validity?
 validation of “middle-range” theories despite
no unifying theory
 a true applied science
Chapter 19: Psychology Today
►Portrait
of a psychologist (traditional
stereotypes vs. contemporary realities):
 Caucasian
 male
 doctoral-trained
 clinician
►Portrait
of a science:
 knowledge not always cumulative (laterdisproved theories & no all-inclusive
theory)
 “soft science” (many “unstable” ideas)
 many culture-bound principles
 much fragmentation without unifying
theory (pros and cons)
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► Schism:
 American Psychological Association (1892)
 American Psychological Society (1988; renamed the
Association for Psychological Science in 2006):
academic & science-oriented psychologists who
oppose including clinicians in their ranks
► Psychology
and politics:
 psychological research seriously under-funded by
federal government and private foundations
 potentially valuable research blocked by multiple
approval constraints
►
Status report (past through present):
1. mind-body problem:
- objective-naturalistic cycle:
* ancient Greek naturalism
* contemporary behaviorism, neuroscience, &
physiological psychology
- subjective-dualistic cycle:
* Wundtian psychology and much of prescientific
psychology before him
* contemporary cognitive psychology and
humanistic psychology
2. nature-nurture debate:
* interactionism remains the definitive conclusion
►The
future of psychology:
 emergence as a unified science?
 absorption into those disciplines from which
it had originally sprung (i.e., philosophy,
natural sciences)?
 growth of an even more interdisciplinary
foundation (e.g., political psychology, music
therapy)?
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