Scientific Biography, Cognitive Deficits, and Laboratory Practice
James McKeen Cattell and Early American Experimental Psychology, 1880-1904
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3517816 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Michael M Sokal (Worcester Polytechnic Institute, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 101 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 531-554 |
| Publication date | 2010-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Isis (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-1753 • E-ISSN: 1545-6994 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/655791 |
| PMID | 21077551 |
| OpenAlex | W1511298784 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 47 |
Despite widespread interest in individual life histories, few biographies of scientists make use of insights derived from psychology, another discipline that studies people, their thoughts, and their actions. This essay argues that recent theoretical work in psychology and tools developed for clinical psychological practice can help biographical historians of science create and present fuller portraits of their subjects' characters and temperaments and more nuanced analyses of how these traits helped shape their subjects' scientific work. To illustrate this thesis, the essay examines the early career of James McKeen Cattell--an influential late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century experimental psychologist--through a lens offered by psychology and argues that Cattell's actual laboratory practices derived from an "accommodation" to a long-standing "cognitive deficit." These practices in turn enabled Cattell to achieve more precise experimental results than could any of his contemporaries; and their students readily adopted them, along with their behavioral implications. The essay concludes that, in some ways, American psychology's early twentieth-century move toward a behavioral understanding of psychological phenomena can be traced to Cattell's personal cognitive deficit. It closes by reviewing several "remaining general questions" that this thesis suggests
Biography · Cognition · Experimental psychology · History of psychology · Portrait · Psychoanalysis · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology · Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Law · Psychology
“The art of imposing measurement upon the mind”
The ‘Sub-Rational’ in Scottish Moral Science
A digital future for the history of psychology
The "Splendid Isolation" of Aaron T. Beck
The Perils of Autobiography
Launching a Career in Psychology With Achievement and Arrogance
Epistemological Dizziness in the Psychology Laboratory
The principles of psychology, Vol I.
The principles of psychology.
Psychology from the standpoint of a behaviorist.
From Medical Chemistry to Biochemistry
Psychology as the behaviorist views it.
Inventing the Psychological
Oppenheimer
The origins of the psychological experiment as a social institution
The curious rise and fall of experimental psychology in Mind
Baldwin, Cattell and the Psychological Review
On the origins of behaviorism
British Responses to Psycho-Physiology, 1860-1900
Laboratory instruments in the history of psychology
Struggle for scientific authority
What Is a Tachistoscope? Historical Explorations of an Instrument
Irreversibility and Indeterminism
Introduction
G. Stanley Hall and the institutional character of psychology at Clark 1889-1920
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,47 |
| Citation span | 2011 - 2026 (16) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |