Chapter 18: Late-TwentiethCentury Developments
A History of Psychology:
Ideas and Context (4th edition)
D. Brett King, Wayne Viney, and
William Douglas Woody
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Systems of Psychology
• Psychoanalysis remains strong.
– Psychoanalysis has many active journals.
– Some theorists doubt its continued relevance.
• Humanistic psychology continues to have a small but
significant influence.
• Neobehaviorism and the psychology of learning
remained dominant through the last half of the 20th
century.
– Neobehaviorism has largely been driven by the work and
theoretical perspective of B. F. Skinner.
– Harry Frederick Harlow applied behavioral methods to research
with primates.
– Other learning theorists, including Albert Bandura, Martin
Seligman, and Robert Rescorla have expanded learning
research.
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Cognitive Psychology
• The intellectual traditions of cognitive psychology reflect
the interest in mental life.
– Hermann Ebbinghaus demonstrated that higher mental functions
could be rigorously studied.
– Frederick C. Bartlett developed schema theory.
– Jean Piaget studied cognitive development in children,
particularly in light of genetic epistemology.
– Gestalt psychology and Edward Tolman rejected the rigid
associationism of behaviorism.
• The Gestalt psychologists anticipated current trends in cognitive
psychology
• The Gestalt thinkers reject the currently popular machine model of
cognitive psychology.
• Tolman’s work also inspired and shaped cognitive psychology.
– Verbal learning theory has expanded as a topic area for
behavioral and cognitive researchers.
• Noam Chomsky reviewed Skinner’s book Verbal Behavior.
• Chomsky’s review helped to formally launch cognitive psychology.
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Content Areas
• Content areas of cognitive psychology
diverged from behaviorism.
– Many cognitive psychologists embrace an
information-processing approach.
– Cognitive psychologies focus on an active
interpretation of the role of the participant.
– Cognitive psychology inherited a strong
experimental approach from neobehaviorism.
– Cognitive psychology embraces a wide
methodological scope.
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Criticisms of Cognitive Psychology
• Opponents challenge the use of the
computer metaphor.
– Gestalt thinkers in particular remain skeptical
of linear computers to account for field effects.
• Skinner attacked the cognitive
psychologists for being overly mentalistic.
• Opponents question the ecological validity
of findings.
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Clinical Psychology
• Clinical Psychology is both the science of mental
disorders and a profession that treats mental
disorders.
• The intellectual traditions of clinical psychology
are varied.
– Hippocrates, Plato, and many other Ancient thinkers
– Reformers such as Weyer, Rush, and Dix
– Scholars from early days of formal psychology
including James, Witmer, and others
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Clinical Psychology
• Several critical developments affected the emergence of
clinical psychology.
– World War I provided a boost to applied psychology programs.
– In the Second World War, the military employed many applied
psychologists.
– WWII generated a need for psychological services for veterans.
– In 1949, David Shakow and others formulated the Boulder
Model, recommending that clinical psychologists be trained as
research-practitioners.
– In 1952, the American Psychiatric Association introduced the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
– In 1953, ethical guidelines were established for clinical
psychologists.
– Late twentieth-century waves of treatment have included
behavioral therapy, Cognitive-Behavioral therapy, and
mindfulness-based treatment.
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Clinical Psychology
• Joseph Wolpe pioneered behavior therapy.
– Behavior therapy emphasized the role of learning in
psychological disorders and treatments.
– He developed the method of systematic desensitization to treat
phobias.
• Aaron T. Beck argues that depression is the product of
unrealistic views of the self.
– His approach helps clients identify and correct cognitive
distortions.
• Marsha M. Linehan developed mindfulness-based
treatments.
– Her Dialectical Behavior Therapy blends Eastern approaches
and Western behavioral therapy.
• Future developments and questions in clinical
psychology include the efficacy of treatment and the
possibility of proscribing psychological medications.
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Biopsychology
• Karl Lashley moved from behaviorist
perspectives to physiological explanations for
behavior.
– His principles of mass action challenged claims
shaped views of the plasticity of the brain.
• Donald O. Hebb dedicated his career to the
study of the effects of learning on the brain
– He studied the effect of learning on cell assemblies.
• Roger W. Sperry employed animal models of
surgically separated brains to study epilepsy and
the functions of the cerebral hemispheres.
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Biopsychology
• Donald B. Lindsley pioneered the electrical study of the
brain.
• Eric R. Kandel used Aplysia and other animal models to
study reductionistic physiological models of memory.
• Technical advances in neuroscience have led to new
discoveries and methods of understanding.
– These advances have included the following, among others.
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single cell recording
the EEG
measurement of event related potentials
CT scans
PET scans
MRI techniques
fMRI techniques
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Psychopharmacology
• Psychopharmacology is the study of the effects
of drugs on thought and behavior.
– Otto Loewi discovered the first neurotransmitter.
• He demonstrated that neural communication was chemical.
– This discovery led to new treatments of people with
psychological disorders.
– The use of medications to treat people with mental
illnesses began in 1949.
• The first medication was lithium to treat bipolar disorder.
– The field grew in the 1950s with the development of
tricyclics and monoamine oxidase inhibitors to treat
depression.
– Psychopharmacology exploded in the 1980s.
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Behavioral Genetics
• Behavioral Genetics is the study of the
role of genes in cognition and behavior.
– The field was influenced by studies in biology
and ethology.
– Topics include aggression, jealousy, and the
role of genetics in intelligence.
– Recently, genetic manipulation techniques
have allowed researchers to use animal
models to evaluate genetic differences on
behavioral dependent variables.
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Psychoneuroimmunology
• Psychoneuroimmunology is the study of
the interactions between the brain,
behavior, the immune system, and the
environment.
– The field synthesizes psychology,
neuroscience, and immunology.
– Applied health treatments have emerged from
the basic research.
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Social Psychology
• Floyd H. Allport first demonstrated the power of social
variables to shape behavior.
• Muzafer Sherif demonstrated conformity and group
norms with the autokinetic effect.
• Solomon Asch investigated conformity in small groups
using judgments of line length.
• Stanley Milgram demonstrated the power of destructive
obedience.
– Philip Zimbardo followed Milgram’s lead in the classic Stanford
prison study.
• Current developments in the field include the following.
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Expansion of topic areas
Inclusion of social cognition,
Evolutionary psychology
Health psychology
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Industrial-Organizational Psychology
• Mary Parker Follett investigated political psychology and
the psychology of leadership.
• Walter Dill Scott, an early leader in applied psychology,
focused his research on practical motivational problems
and a wide variety of business problems.
• Marion Almira Bills bridged science and practice in the
psychology of employment.
• Lillian Gilbreth made substantial contributions to
industrial-organizational psychology as well as military
psychology, education, sports medicine.
– She and her husband were early leaders in ergonomics.
– They developed helpful and efficient tools and procedures for
homemakers, workers, and people with disabilities.
• Current directions in industrial-organizational psychology
include diverse areas such as lighting, incentive, morale,
advertising, and other fields.
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Psychology and Law
• Intellectual traditions of the intersection
psychology and the law reach back to insanity
cases.
– (e.g., the case of Daniel M’Naughton).
• Louis Brandeis set precedent by citing
psychology research in a 1908 case.
• The case set precedent for the use of social
science in legal decisions.
– The plaintiffs in Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
relied extensively on social science.
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Psychology and Law
• Hugo Münsterberg helped psychology and the law
research gain prominence.
– The field faded due to internal and contextual factors related to
Münsterberg.
• In the 1970s, Elizabeth F. Loftus led a renaissance of
interest in psychology and the law with her work on
eyewitness testimony.
• Current directions of the field include many areas.
– Applied work as expert witnesses and trial consultants
– Basic research into interrogation, pretrial publicity, and jury
decision making.
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Diversity and Pluralism
• Many theorists have questioned the diversity and
pluralism in modern psychology.
• Contemporary psychology is increasingly eclectic in
many ways.
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Subject matter
Methodologies
Assumptions
Required core courses
• Strain exists between scientific psychology and
professional psychology
– APA and APS
• Psychology is as unified as other contemporary
sciences.
• Pluralism may hold scientific advantages.
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