Origins and early years of the American Psychological Association, 1890-1906.

Abstract

The American Psychological Association (APA) emerged at a particular time, in a unique social and institutional environment, and as the result of actions of specific individuals. Like any organism suddenly appearing in a given environment, it had to adapt to its ecological setting and find itself an ecological niche in which it could thrive, or at least survive. The course of events surrounding its establishment reflected America in the late Gilded Age, its emerging university system, the organizational precedents set by other American scientists of the period, and the personal interplay between G. Stanley Hall and his contemporaries. These factors did more to shape the course of events surrounding its establishment -and its character during its earliest years-than did any of the intellectual and scientific issues to which psychologists devoted their attention during that period.From the start, APA was explicitly the American Psychological As-Reprinted from American Psychologist, 47, 111-122 (1992).

Beyond the Schools of Psychology 1: A Digital Analysis of Psychological Review, 1894–1903

“…Another one is by Joseph Jastrow. The Cattell article is, in fact, the famous report to the APA by Cattell, Jastrow, and Baldwin on the nature and future of mental tests (see, e.g., Sokal, ). One of the most interesting items in this cluster is, perhaps, the article on automatism by Gertrude Stein.…”

Between Peirce (1878) and James (1898): G. Stanley Hall, the origins of pragmatism, and the history of psychology

“…For such information, see Ross (1972) and Leary (2006), in particular. Other helpful sources are Bringmann, Bringmann, and Early (1992), Burnham (1925), Fisher (1925, Leary (1987), Morawski (1982), Pruette (1926), Rosenzweig (1992), Sanford (1924), Sheldon (1932), Siegel and White (1982), Sokal (1990Sokal ( , 1992, White (1990White ( , 1992, and Wilson (1914). Hall's Life and Confessions of a Psychologist (1923) provides valuable insights, though it glosses over certain matters and must be used with caution as regards certain factual statements and interpretations.…”

Psychical research and the origins of American psychology

“…Divided by epistemological, methodological and political disagreements as well as by personal animosities (see, for example, Sokal, 1992; Taylor, 1994), leading US psychologists found themselves in rare unison agreeing that psychical research was not to be associated with the ‘new psychology’. Hence, the aggressive rejection of psychical research as the ‘unscientific Other’ of academic psychology, which James’ opponents perceived as a threat to rationality and the scientific and social order, was a vital unifying principle aiding early psychologists to achieve something like a scientific identity (Leary, 1987).…”