Certain Phases in the Psychology of Psychologists
The Psychological Clinic Copyright, 1932, by Lightner Witmer, Editor Vol. XXI, No. 2 June-August, 1932
- Author:
Henry E. Starr, Ph.D.
Bead of the Department of Psychology and Director of the Psychological and Mental Hygiene Clinic of Butgers University Many of yon are aware of tlie fact that there is a strong feeling among certain members of our Association that the time has come for a new psychological association, an association neither the Association of Consulting Psychologists nor yet the American Psychological Association, an association which would foster the application of scientific principles to psychological problems. There is a growing feeling that the orthodox academic psychology of today is singularly futile and that a too close inbreeding of systems has resulted in mental sterility. Meanwhile in consultant psychology, our critics say, there is an absence of scientific principles, an attitude of compromise with pseudo-science and, throughout, the manifestation of an inferiority complex. Now, as many of you know quite well, these critics are not “outsiders.” They are, many of them, serious psychologists of high standing in both the A. P. A. and the A. C. P. A number are individuals who have not restricted their studies to the narrow field of accepted psychology, but have sought to keep abreast of the times in other sciences, at least maintaining an intelligent interest in such natural sciences as chemistry and physics. As such, they feel that they have a more nearly adequate perspective of the field than is possible for others whose purview is more restricted. I for one freely grant both their ability and their right to criticize.
And I grant it the more readily because I venture to differ with them in their suggested solution of the problems involved. I do not believe that those of us who are sympathetic with the development of psychology as a science need be called upon at this time to support a third national psychological association. I have frankly stated my views in conference with some of those who are eager to see such an organization come into being and I do not feel that I am violating any confidences this afternoon in thus flushing the quarry, so to speak, with this paper. I think that it would be in the nature of a catastrophe were such an organization to be launched at this time. If launched?and sunk?its organizers would appear ridiculous. If launched and successful, it would mean a depletion of the psychological organizations now functioning. Furthermore, I do not think that it has yet been conclusively proven that a psychologist can not apply his scientific principles and encouragement of the scientific attitude within the bodies of the already established associations at least as effectively as through the medium of a new and untried society. It is quite evident, however, that we should seriously consider the present state of psychology and psychologists in order to ascertain something of the factors which have led many superior individuals within our ranks to register such despair as is indicated by a ‘’ third party’’ movement.
First and perhaps foremost, the bane of many of us is the curse of credulity. Most of us have discarded the dogmatic theology of the past. Somewhere, probably during relatively early adolescence, we entered upon the period which Goethe denominated that of “Sturm und Drang.” It was rather exhilarating, for a time, to see one rather decayed timber after another swept away from beneath our very feet, as it were, until we found ourselves plunged into a rather choppy sea of general doubt. Now under such conditions, one may sink, swim, or for a time merely flounder. If a stray plank happen to float toward us, we may seize it in a panic and cling to it with the intensity and rigidity of tetanus. We want something to cling to, even if it be but the proverbial straw?or a straw of proverb. And so, emancipated from the Old Gods, we become the slaves of the little godlets of the schools. It is so very much easier to do so than to keep swimming with the steady stroke of a truly scientific agnosticism. Yet such is ofttimes our blindness that, while chattering of “scientific freedom of thought,” we become worshippers of a narrow creedal system, whether of Freud, Watson, Pavlov, Kohler or another. And we accept the utterance o the godlet with the blind and slavish obedience of a bigoted zealot at the feet of his high priest.
Now I would in no manner or degree, seek to belittle the contributions to a science of psychology made by any of the individuals I have named. Freud has given us an appreciation of the importance of sexual libido, Watson has done the same for animal psychology, Pavlov for the conditioned reflex and Kohler for configurations. Each of them has, of course, done much more. But even were their contributions limited to those I have just cited, they would merit the appreciation and esteem of all interested in psychology. The point is, that we must be able to take the significant contributions of each and not become entangled in the dogmatic creedal system of any. Let us consider a brief illustration from the cult of the conditioned reflex. The discovery of the conditioned reflex was unquestionably an event of major importance. It demonstrated that the principles of the English Associationist School were largely applicable to the physical, as they were already known to apply to the mental. Thus the reflex salivary secretion of a dog was found amenable to certain of the familiar old so-called “Laws of Learning. ‘’ In many text books, however, one finds the situation reversed and the application of the principle of the conditioned reflex or conditioned response to mental phenomena is presented as if it were a very novel idea?a brand new contribution of behaviorism. Even an elementary acquaintance with the literature of our science shows that what was subsequently reported as “the application of the principle of conditioned response to mental phenomena” was implicit and indeed largely explicit in the writings of the British Associationists of last century. Nevertheless, the “discovery” that ‘association” holds in the mental as well as in the overtly physical realm is brought out as a new thing?with all the pomp and flourish of a stage magician taking a rabbit from a hat?in which it had been reposing beforehand in full view of the audience.
It is this sort of thing which makes us appear as credulous dupes to our critics. This ignorance of what has been done in psychology by previous generations! As if nothing were worth consideration if more than ten or twenty years old. True, we must avoid the equally credulous superficiality which would measure truth 01 sanctity by mere age. Nothing is true simply because it is old. But let us not overlook the fact that, even if old, it may be true. Age argues not greatly one way or the other in this connection and “ve can at least know something of what has been done in our science before our little day if we familiarize ourselves with such splendid summaries as those given us by Murphy and Boring.
There is another danger for which the creed of the conditioned reflex can serve as a warning. We need to realize that a given scientific principle may serve splendidly to explain certain phenomena without necessarily being applicable to other equally important phenomena. This is a warning which Pavlov himself has sounded. Yet in the closed system of the ultra-behaviorists it would appear that if certain phenomena of human behavior can be explained in terms of the conditioned reflex they are so explained, but if other phenomena of human behavior can not be so explained the fact should not be admitted, but the latter class of phenomena should be regarded as non-existent and excluded from all consideration. The attitude appears to be?if the conditioned reflex can not explain it, it isn’t so! One wonders how analytical chemistry could have developed if but one reagent or a single precipitant were religiously insisted upon to the exclusion of all others, and if the filtrate after its addition were immediately discarded as containing nothing more. Such an attitude suggests monomania rather than science.
Simple chemical analogy may throw light upon yet another unscientific dogma in certain psychological sects. The dictum has gone forth with pontifical unctuousness that “Whatever exists, exists in some amount and can be measured.” Perhaps so. Perhaps the imponderable is necessarily the non-existent. It has not yet been proven so, however, and for the present such belief is but an article of faith. Furthermore, reverting to chemical analogy, qualitative analysis must precede quantitative analysis. It may be that after we know what is present in a given chemical compound, we can then proceed to determine its percentage composition. Frequently the most that the analytical chemist can do is to report this or that element or substance as present to the amount of a “trace.” Ofttimes the “trace” is of the utmost importance.
Some day, perhaps, analytical psychology may be as exact a science as is analytical chemistry. One would hardly insist seriously that such is as yet the case. Nevertheless, the dogmatic edict above cited was enunciated with such a ponderous air of finality that it was readily subscribed to by many and it appears to have been no small factor in the subsequent unleashing of packs of mental testers and a veritable epidemic of rabid insistence upon quantitative studies. Measurements are carried far beyond the decimal point and the resultant numbers studied by abstruse statistical methods. And between such sets of figures, minute coefficients of correlation are laboriously calculated. But?just what is it that is measured? By all means let us measure. But let us first know something of what it is that we would measure?and why. Or at the least, let us not assume an attitude of smug superiority toward those of our critics who would have psychologists learn something of scientific technique from such natural sciences as chemistry and physics? even by analogy.
Turning now somewhat more specifically to consultant psychology, it is evident that we need to employ tests which will be of genuine value in aiding us to understand the individual whom we are examining. In each individual case we need familiarity with a wide range of tests in order to be able to select those most applicable to the immediate problem. One reagent will not suffice for all solutions. No single battery of tests is all sufficient. And we must not allow ourselves to be so ensnared by our penchants for certain artificial criteria that we remain ignorant of other useful tests which may not qualify in terms of such criteria. For example, there has recently appeared a portly tome presenting data on a new battery of clinical tests of a specific type. A famous animal psychologist supplies a most enthusiastic foreword in which he states that he finds it hard to speak of such excellent work without emotion, etc. Now I believe that the book and the battery of which it treats will be quite useful. I expect to use them and to find them good. But the book which so stirred the emotions of the writer of its preface, emphasizes the value of the test as indicated by its ‘’ stability.’’ It would appear that it will give the same results with the same person day after day. But is that invariably an asset to a test ? Under certain conditions, do we not rather need a flexible test?one which varies with the individual and fluctuates as he fluctuates? One’s aptitude for many things varies from day to day?pari passu with the condition of his digestion, to cite a single factor frequently important. And so if the clinical study of an individual is to be thorough, should the examiner not have flexible as well as stable tests?
Another catch-word in connection with the tests just mentioned is employed when they are described enthusiastically as being validated.’’ A careful study of the data supplied in the book, however, indicates that the “validation” is simply a matter of correlation with subjective estimates. No new thing in our “quantitative science.” But let us recognize it for what it is?an exceedingly questionable procedure.
If you ask me how the makers of the test could have bettered it, I shall not pretend to say. The purpose of this paper is simply to point out a few phases of the psychology of psychologists that appear a bit too stuffy and which should be ventilated by the wholesome breezes of scientific scepticism. Just as the consultant psychologist may be unable to make an adequate study of an individual case because of lack of proper test material, or unfamiliarity with such tests as might be useful, so the research psychologist in the laboratory may be unable to study certain problems of mental phenomena because they are not amenable to present laboratory technique. Obviously, this does not mean that he is thereby justified in minimizing the importance of such problems, or, as might be illustrated by several cases in point, in blandly and stupidly asserting the non-existence of the problems. It is so easy to react to a feeling of inferiority by the assumption of an air of infallibility. And personal infallibility is always questionable. We can learn much from the attitude of the leading physicists of today. A few weeks ago, in an able address before the Rutgers Chapter of the Sigma Xi, the Head of the Physics Department of Cornell University, who is also the Dean of its Graduate School, discussed the dilemma of modern physics which finds matter now corpuscular and again wave motion, while energy is found to be now wave motion and again corpuscular. Pointing out that matter thus acts as if it were corpuscular on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and wave motion on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, he concluded with the admission that the behavior of an individual electron is absolutely unpredictable. Statistical laws of probability may hold for the general reaction of a few billion electrons acting together, but the behavior of no single electron in the group can be predicted with any degree of certainty. It was a most wholesome admission and quite characteristic of the better class of modern physicists. May we as consultant psychologists not make ourselves ridiculous by insisting upon our ability to predict the behavior of every individual who comes to our clinics. The physicist frankly admits his inability to predict the behavior of an electron even in his laboratory under experimentally controlled conditions. Yet many a psychologist feels inferior because he can not always predict with 100 per cent accuracy the behavior of some client out on the highways of life.
The same sort of shamefaced attitude is also in evidence with many when it is necessary to refer to phenomena suggesting certain of the older problems of psychology. You are no doubt familiar with the trite and hackneyed expression that ‘’ Psychology first lost its ‘ soul,’ then lost its ‘ mind’ and is now rapidly losing ‘ consciousness.’ ” True enough, in its way. But one of these days, some bright youngster doing his bit for the American Mercury or some similar journal of cleverness, is going to point out that the “soul” has returned to psychology. And he is going to do this not by pointing to such an obvious place as the writings of the Zurich School, but by referring to various “hard-headed” American studies of “personality.” Turn back to some, not merely old but even ancient, writings on the “soul,” substitute therein the word “personality” for “soul” and see if it doesn’t make sense. Although I ‘11 not promise that it will make any more or any better sense than did the original unaltered passage. Similarly, turn to American made modern books on “personality” and substitute therein “soul” for “personality”?and they will frequently sound like the writings of a medieval saint. It seems that certain ideas persist through many changes of fashions of speech.
At all events, we need not be ashamed to be familiar with the old writings. Human nature is not a new thing and its observation was, perchance, as carefully done by certain of our predecessors as by ourselves. Not all of our ancestors lived in the tree tops. Some of them designed the Pyramids of Egypt. And others built them. Someone must have understood something of human behavior in those days. Something of psychology might be found in the records they have left us. And even hieroglyphics may be deciphered with patience and perseverance.
Finally, many of us have a definitely mechanistic, materialistic bias. “We need to be sceptical even of that, if we would avoid this curse of credulity in the omniscience of the latter day godlets. It may prove as dangerously blinding as was the gross superstition of the justly termed “dark ages.” Jung sounds an important warning lest by our habits of concretistic, sense-conditioned, passive thought, we become incapable of more actively apperceptive thinking with more intellectually synthetic mental processes. The truly scientific mind possesses great mental celerity. It questions all things however impressively they may be presented. Indeed the more impressive the presentation, the greater the need of scientific questioning. It is only a system conscious of its own weakness or error which opposes free investigation of itself, whether that system be the creed of a group or the complex of an individual. The truly scientific mind is not too credulous even of the reports of the sense modalities. If we, as psychologists, can and do maintain this attitude of open-minded and wholesome scepticism toward the unproven, characteristic of the natural sciences, our critics will have little to urge justly against us. And instead of a third national psychological association being founded and perhaps foundered, both the Association of Consulting Psychologists and the American Psychological Assocation may indeed function as centers for stimulating genuine scientific research along psychological lines wherever the trail may lead. In conclusion may I thank you for having assisted me today in conducting a psychological experiment on psychologists. That a paper such as this was placed on today’s program and that you have listened to it, apparently with interest and certainly with patience, may be taken as evidence, I think, that the Association of Consulting Psychologists itself may serve our critics as a forum and an avenue for what they term “scientific encouragement.” You have demonstrated, I believe, that a third national psychological association is not necessary.
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