Janet Taylor Spence
Elizabeth Mattachione
Jamie Ward
Nicole Larson
Masaki Osada
Jordan Heroux
Spence’s Background
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born August 29, 1923 in Toledo, Ohio
Family – emphasis on female education
Marriage – Kenneth Spence
Education
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High school
College – undergraduate
College – graduate
Internship
Postgraduate Career
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Northwestern University – 1st woman in psychology
department – controversy
Courses taught – statistics, abnormal psychology,
personality theory, experimental psychology, history
and systems, adjustment, and introductory psychology,
as well as undergraduate advising.
Students like her – “She was loved by all of us—a
marvelous, dedicated teacher…students were attracted
to her like flies”
After marriage – nepotism policies
Return to psychology
Ashbel Smith Professor of Psychology and Educational
Psychology at University of Texas.
The Zeitgeist
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Manifest Anxiety: Hull-Spence Theory
Reinforcement, Feedback, and Intrinsic
Motivation – extrinsically motivated
behavior
Gender Issues & Achievement
Motivation– rise of feminism
Professional Obstacles
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1940s
 Yale faculty
 Availability of classes
 IQ research
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1970s
 Cognitive psychology
 Death of husband
 Women’s rights movement
Learning Theory
and Behaviorism
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Personality
Individual differences
Manifest Anxiety Scale
 Research with Schizophrenia and
Reinforcement
Comparing Sex Role
Attitudes across Ages (1979)
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Across all ages, males more traditional
Among females, younger more liberal
Among males, younger more
conservative
Multifactorial Gender
Identity Theory (1993)
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Continuum of Masculinity-Femininity
College men more traditional sex roles
College women are less likely to accept
traditional roles
Spence’s
Influence on Anxiety
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Worked under Kenneth Spence and
furthered the Hull-Spence Hypothesis
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“Quite simply, I investigated whether chronically anxious
individuals would classically condition more rapidly than less
anxious individuals.”
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Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale
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1951 - "Anxiety and strength of UCS as
determiners of the amount of eyelid
conditioning" and "The relationship of
anxiety to the conditioned eyelid
response"
Spence’s
Influence on Schizophrenia
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Veteran’s Hospital in Iowa City (1960)
Austin State School for the Mentally Retarded
(1964)
Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology :
“Associative interference in the verbal learning
performance of schizophrenics and normals”
(1964)
Journal of Abnormal Psychology : “Rote
learning in schizophrenics and normal subjects
under positive and negative reinforcement
conditions” (1965)
Spence’s Influence on
Women in Psychology
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Northwestern University: first female faculty member (1949)
University of Texas Austin at Austin School of Education:
Department of Educational Psychology Chair (1964)
"Who likes competent women? Competence, sex-role
congruence of interest, and subjects' attitudes toward women
as determinants of interpersonal attraction" (1972)
Attitudes Toward Women Scale (1972)
President of Southwestern Psychological Association (1972)
Personal Attributes Questionnaire (1974)
Editor for Contemporary Psychology (1974)
President of APA , sixth woman to do so (1984)
Founder and president of American Psychological Society
(1989)
*Only woman to have been president of
both the APA and APS
Words Reflecting
Her Impact…
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“I would consider her impact to be comparable
with that of Helen of Troy, the face that launched
a thousand ships. In Janet of Austin, we have the
face that launched a thousand dissertations.”
– Robert Helmreich
“I began to receive invitations to give talks at
other universities do that I could 'serve as a role
model' for their women students. The implication,
I think unintended, was that whether one had
something worth listening to was relatively
unimportant; it was enough to be a woman.”
– Janet Taylor Spence
Spence’s
Influence on Psychology
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Several publications influencing gender,
learning, personality, and schizophrenia
Concepts of Personality (1963)
Awarded the Gold Medal Award for Life
Achievement in the Science of
Psychology (2004)
Strengths of Spence’s Ideas
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Development of new views
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Anxiety
Importance of Intrinsic Motivation
Development of new measurements
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Manifest Anxiety Scale
Attitudes Toward Women Scale (1972)
Texas Social Behavior Inventory (1974)
Personal Attributes Questionnaire (1974)
Work and Family Orientation Questionnaire (1978)
Extended Personal Attributes Questionnaire (1979)
Male-Female Relations Questionnaire (1980)
Weakness of Spence’s Ideas
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Validity of the new measurements
Janet Taylor Spence
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In summary…
References
Gold medal award for life achievement in the science of psychology (2004). American Psychologist, 59,
361-363. Spence, J.T. (1963). Learning Theory and Personality. In J. M. Wepman & R. W. Heine
(Eds.), Concepts of Personality (3-28). Chicago, IL: Aldine Publishing Company.
O’Connell, Agnes N. & Russo, Nancy Felipe. Women in Psychology: A Bio-Bibliographic Sourcebook. New
York: Greenwood Press, Inc., 1990.
O’Connell, Agnes N. & Russo, Nancy Felipe. Models of Achievement Reflections of Eminent Women in
Psychology. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.
Psychiatric Rating Scales for Anxiety. (n.d.). Retrieved June 10, 2007, from
http://www.neurotransmitter.net/anxietyscales.html
Spence, J.T., & Lair, C. V. (1964). Associative interference in the verbal learning performance of
schizophrenics and normals. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 68 (2), 204-209, from
PsycARTICLES database.
Spence, J.T., Lair, C.V., & Goodstein, L. D. (1965). Rote learning in schizophrenic and normal subjects
under positive and negative reinforcement conditions. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 70(4), 251261, from PsycARTICLES database.
Spence, J. T., & Helmreich, R. L. (1979). Comparison of masculine and feminine personality
attributes and sex-role attitudes across age groups. Developmental Psychology, 15,
583-584.
Spence, J.T., & Helmreich, R.L. (1978). Masculinity and femininity: Their psychological dimensions,
correlates, and antecedents. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Spence, J. T. (1963). Learning theory and personality. In J. M. Wepman, & R. W. Heine (Eds.),
Concepts of Personality (pp.3-29). Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company.
Spence, J. T. (1993). Gender-related traits and gender ideology: Evidence for a multi-factorial
theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 624-635
Swann, William B., Langlois, Judith H., Gilbert, Lucia. Sexism and Stereotypes in Modern Society: The
Gender Science of Janet Taylor Spence. Washington, D.C: American Psychological Association, 1999..
Wepman, J. M., & Heine, R.W.. Concepts of Personality Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1963.
Women’s Intellectual Contributions to the Study of the Mind and Society. (n.d.). Retrieved June 9, 2007,
from http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/spence.html