Developmental Psychology
REVIEWS :Author: Florence L. Goodenough. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1934. Pp. xx-f- 620. In the succession of introductory texts in psychology which has appeared during recent years the present book by Professor Goodenough marks a turning point. Here, for the first time, so far as the reviewer is aware, the developmental principle has been consistently applied to the subject matter of the first course in psychology. The fact that this treatment is possible is striking evidence of the progress that research has made in the psychology of infancy and childhood.
After two brief chapters in which the reader is introduced to psychology, its problems and methods, the student begins psychology with the beginning of life. Chapter III is a systematic, but simple, presentation of the more significant facts of genetics, with special reference to human inheritance. The elementary principles of embryology are treated in the next chapter, with particular attention at the end of Chapter IY to the development and function of the nervous system. The growth and functions of the sense organs are considered in Chapter Y. In the next chapter the behavior of the unborn child is treated. This discussion is organized about the researches of Coghill, of Windle and Griffin, and of Minkowski. Chapter VII contains an examination of the sensory reactions and of the feelings and emotions of the new-born baby. Included here also is a brief treatment of the functions of the autonomic nervous system. The next two chapters treat the physical and motor development of the young child, his emotional behavior, and how he reacts to social situations. General intelligence and its measurement, the kindergarten age, how older children learn, bright and dull school children, the development of personality and character in later childhood, adolescence, educational and vocational guidance for the adolescent, are the titles of some of the later chapters. At the adult level, Professor Goodenough considers motivation of behavior of college students, adult behavior and social customs, and the maturation and decline of abilities. The concluding chapters discuss mental disease and old age.
Most readers of Developmental Psychology, in the opinion of the reviewer, will be pleased with its refreshing treatment of introductory psychology. They will enjoy seeing psychology unfold before their eyes from its beginnings in genetics and embryology, until, through childhood and adolescence, it reaches the mature adult. A few will be disappointed with this book for they will miss the usual discussion of scientific method and its application to psychology, the behavior of the protozoa and other biological material hitherto considered basic to an understanding of human nature. They will also miss much of the detailed anatomy and physiology of the sense organs, of the nervous system, of the muscles and the glands. Gone also is most of the philosophical material that makes up the final third of many conventional psychology texts. The present volume is evidence of what can be done with material that is directly relevant to psychology. All of the researches upon which the text is based are recent; few, if any, date earlier than 1925 and most have been published since 1930.
Charles W. Manzek, New York University. 212
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