History of Psychology

A number of recent textbooks have claimed that the American psychologist E. B. Twitmyer discovered the conditioned reflex in 1902 independently of and even prior to Pavlov. Various explanations for the obscurity of Twitmyer's discovery were offered. However, closer scrutiny of Twitmyer's publications, viewed in their contemporary context, does not find much support for such speculative explanations. It is argued that Twitmyer's work with the knee jerk constituted neither a knowing nor an unknowing discovery of the “conditioned reflex.” Instead a retrospective and anachronistic view of history, employing an overly simple notion of discovery and a reified concept of the conditioned reflex, had discovered Twitmyer in order to teach some “lessons from history.”

Anachronism · Cognitive psychology · Context (archaeology · Epistemology · History of psychology · Reflex · Scrutiny · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology · History · Law · Neuroscience · Philosophy · Psychology · Psychology Research and Bibliometrics · Social Representations and Identity

• A Bibliography of Articles of Interest to Teachers of Psychology Appearing in Psychological Reports 1955–2010

  Open Access•Charles I Abramson, Lisa A Curb et al.•Psychological Reports•2011

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• The principles of psychology.

  William James•1913

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• The conditioned reflex or conditioned response as a common activity of living organisms

  Hulsey Cason•Psychological Bulletin•1925

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• J. B. Watson's Little Albert, Cyril Burt's twins, and the need for a critical science

  Franz Samelson•American Psychologist•1980

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• Edwin Burket Twitmyer

  Samuel W Fernberger•Psychological Review•1943

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• History, Origin Myth and Ideology

  Open Access•Franz Samelson•Journal for the Theory of Social…•1974

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• Eponymy, obscurity, Twitmyer, and Pavlov

  Open Access•Deborah J Coon•Journal of the History of the…•1982

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• The method of Pawlow in animal psychology

  Robert M Yerkes, Sergius Morguli et al.•Psychological Bulletin•1909

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