The History of

1

• The History of
• Psychological Concepts
• Dr. Geoff Bunn

2

• Learning Outcomes
• To understand
• the difference between a natural kind of thing
  and a psychological kind of thing.
• why psychological objects have to be understood
  historically and culturally.

3

• Natural objects (the things studied by the
  natural and biological sciences, e.g. Sodium
  Chloride)
• are not the same as
• Psychological objects things studied by
  psychology, e.g. Intelligence.

4

• Lets try to illustrate the difference between a
  natural kind of thing and a psychological kind of
  thing.
• Consider this question
• Whats the difference between a broken bone and
  a broken heart?
• Write down as many differences as you can think
  of.

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Broken Bones, Broken Hearts

• Broken bone a natural object, appropriately
  studied by anatomy, physiology, medicine and
  physiotherapy.
• Broken heart a psychological object that can
  only be understood in terms of experience (One
  of the worst things that happened to me. I
  know what youre going through) and meaning (It
  turns your world upside down.)

6
Broken Bones, Broken Hearts

• A broken bone is real!
• A broken heart is also realbut not in the sense
  that a broken bone is real.
• A lot of Psychology has laboured under the
  mistaken impression that it is studying natural
  objects (broken bones) when in fact it is in
  fact studying psychological objects (broken
  hearts). This is a category error!

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Whereas in orthodox sciences there is always
some external object of enquiry rocks,
electrons, DNA, stars, - existing as essentially
unchanging in the non-human world this is not so
for Psychology. (Richards, 2002, p.7)
8
picture of A natural object Adenosine
triphosphate
9
diagram of Krebs Cycle
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• There are no theories of equivalent complexity
  in psychology!
• because psychology has no natural objects.
• Natural objects have stable, predictable and
  controllable properties.
• Psychology possesses no objects with these
  properties.

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Draw up a list of

• Natural objects
• Psychological objects

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Natural Objects, Psychological Objects

• Natural objects rocks, atoms, electrons,
  chemicals, cells, stars, genes, electricity,
  weather, hormones, viruses, bones, trees,
  dinosaurs, gravity.
• Psychological objects depression, love,
  melancholy, intelligence, schizophrenia,
  self-esteem, autism, attitudes, motivation,
  emotion, dyslexia, cognition, behaviour,
  nostalgia, mind, soul, ADHD, shell shock,
  sexuality, race, personality, development,
  introversion, feeblemindedness, hysteria,
  temperament.

13
The Tragic Case of Clark Hull

• American behaviourist psychologist (1884-1952).
• Devoted his life to finding a Global Theory of
  Behavior to explain all human action.

photograph of Clark Hull
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Stimulus Response chains account for all
behaviour
Pictures of Skinner box and behaviorist mazes
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sEr (sHr x D x K x V) - (sIr Ir) /- sOr

• Where
• sEr, Reaction potential
• sHr, Habit strength, is determined by the number
  of reinforces.
• D, Drive strength, is measured by the hours of
  deprivation of a need.
• K is the incentive value of a stimulus
• V is a measure of the connectiveness.
• sIr, Inhibitory strength, is the number of non
  reinforcers.
• Ir, Reactive inhibition, is when the organism has
  to work hard for a reward and becomes fatigued.
• sOr accounts for random error

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The Strange Case of William McDougall (1871-1938)

• ..the most celebrated British psychologist of
  the first half of the century. (Thomson, 2006,
  p.55)
• Hugely influential hormic psychology,
  1910-1950s.
• His Introduction to Social Psychology (1908)
  marked an epoch in the history of psychology.
  (Hearnshaw, 1964, p.188)

photograph of McDougall
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The Strange Case of William McDougall (1871-1938)

• But McDougall is studied by no-one today and he
  left no intellectual or practical legacy.
• Hull and McDougalls psychological objects have
  vanished.

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Psychological Objects

• are not mythical they do exist (if
  temporarily!)
• exist within networks of other linguistic
  categories (discourses).
• make possible human experiences, identities,
  capacities, feelings and qualities.
• It does matter which word you choose to describe
  the experience in question it does change the
  nature of the experience!

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Unlike natural objects

• which can exist in an isolated pure state (e.g.
  pure Oxygen, Sodium Chloride, DNA) outside of
  human culture and society, psychological objects
  are made possible by a network of related
  discursive terms - which is itself a reflection
  of a particular human society and culture.

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Psychological Objects

• Are not reducible to more fundamental or basic
  units (unlike e.g. molecules).
• Cannot be described in mathematical terms (unlike
  e.g. electricity).
• Do not produce stable phenomena across time and
  place (unlike e.g. gravitation).
• Do not have predictable qualities (unlike e.g.
  light).
• Cannot be integrated into complex theories (e.g.
  genes into evolutionary theory, or ATP into the
  Krebs Cycle).

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Questioning the Historical Continuity of
Psychological Objects

• Much of contemporary psychology believes that
  the objects of current psychological discourse
  are the real, natural objects and that past
  discourse necessarily referred to the same
  objects in its own quaint and subscientific way
• (Danziger, 1990, p.336, emphasis added.)

22
Questioning the Historical Continuity of
Psychological Objects

• Much of contemporary psychology believes that
  the objects of current psychological discourse
  are the real, natural objects and that past
  discourse necessarily referred to the same
  objects in its own quaint and subscientific way.
  What this organization of historical material
  overlooks is the possibility that the very
  objects of psychological discourse, and not just
  opinions about them, have changed radically in
  the course of history.
• (Danziger, 1990, p.336, emphasis added.)

23
Natural Objects, Psychological Objects

• Natural objects rocks, atoms, electrons,
  chemicals, cells, stars, genes, electricity,
  weather, hormones, viruses, bones, trees,
  dinosaurs, gravity.
• Psychological objects depression, love,
  melancholy, intelligence, schizophrenia,
  self-esteem, autism, attitudes, motivation,
  emotion, dyslexia, cognition, behaviour,
  nostalgia, mind, soul, ADHD, shell shock,
  sexuality, race, personality, development,
  introversion, feeblemindedness, hysteria,
  temperament.

24
Natural Objects

• have always existed (they have no history).
• retain their properties in different historical
  and geographical contexts.
• are universal.
• can be purified.
• can be isolated and studied in the laboratory
  without altering the object.
• exist independently of our descriptions of them.
• exist outside of human culture they are not
  embedded in particular forms of human life.
• are uncontested and not controversial.

25
Psychological Objects

• have not always existed (they have a history).
• change between historical and geographical
  contexts.
• are not universal.
• cannot be purified.
• can be isolated and studied in the laboratory
  only if violence is done to the object (i.e if
  the object is changed in the process).
• do not exist independently of our descriptions of
  them.
• do not exist outside of human culture they are
  embedded in different forms of human life.
• are contested and controversial.

26
Natural Objects, Psychological Objects

• The proper way to study natural objects is in the
  laboratory, using the tried and tested methods of
  science.
• The proper way to study psychological objects is
  through an analysis of the meanings and
  descriptions of human experiences in their
  particular contexts.
• The proper way to study psychological objects is
  through historical and conceptual analysis.