Wednesday, November 14, 2012

American Psychology Advancements 1880-1920

    Psychology has been practiced throughout the history of the world ever since people started thinking about how the mind works and how thoughts happen. There have been both great and horrific acts taken towards the advancement of psychology in America, ranging from human testing to finding cures for diseases. During the turn of the twentieth century there was a rapid growth in technology advancements and funding for psychology.  People were having more time to study what they enjoyed than working in factories. There was better communication which brought new ideas to the states. All of these factors were what helped to reach for progress towards understanding the mind.
The McLean Asylum 1900
            When America was flourishing in work and leisure, more people started to do things that they enjoyed, like writing books and starting organizations for their passions. This can be paralleled with the Greek Empire when, once they actually got their society up and running, they could have more time to play, learn, and teach. In this time period, people became scholars and professors, much like the people around 1900. The expansion for every aspect of life was incredible, including skyscrapers and apartment buildings. Psychology was not left out. Buildings were springing out of the ground like daises in the springtime. The first psychology lab was established at John Hopkins University in 1883. Hospitals devoted to the Insane included: St. Elizabeth's, The McLean Asylum, and Hudson River State. Particularly the University of Pennsylvania was important because most of the American psychologists came from there, but also Indiana University, University of Wisconsin, Clark University, the University of Nebraska, and also Princeton are known for developing labs and departments solely for psychology.
Sigmund Freud
      1838 was also the year when the famous Inquires Into Human Faculty and Its Development was published by Francis Galton.  Soon after that, J. McKeen Cattel became the first professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Then, the American Psychological Association was founded. In 1900, Sigmund Freud published the Interpretation of Dreams. People were fascinated at this point. New Methods for the Diagnosis of the Intellectual Level of the Subnormals was published by Alfred Binet in 1905. Two years later, Carl G Jung wrote  The Psychology of Demeutia Praecox. An Interesting fact, is that these men were also becoming interested in other aspects than just how to fix weird people and how to control their own minds, they were looking at the tests for child intelligence, and even more interestingly, the animal mind. Binet and Simon were the professors working on the children I.Q. tests, which are still involved today, and Washburn was the man who wrote The Animal Mind.  Finally, in 1911, a man named Thorndike worked on the actual Animal Intelligence. This is where a lot of animal rights activists get the idea that animals have feelings.
NOT DONE YET. I PLAN ON ADDING:
  • talking about sigmund freud
  • the treatment of the patients, who are the patients, reasons why their the patients
  • the three types of Psychology ideas.
  • my other picture:)

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