Foreword
TheHistory of Psychologyis the most recent contribution in
a long tradition of the presentation of an account of the im-
portant historical developments and landmarks in the field of
psychology.
In the beginning, when there were only a few psycholo-
gists (in 1892 the new American Psychological Association
had 31 charter members), there were some who could rea-
sonably be described as possessing the whole, or at least a
significant part, of psychology in their consciousness. How-
ever, the ability to speak with authority on the whole of the
field of psychology is now no longer in the hands of any sin-
gle person or source. (A vestigial remnant of this tradition of
“universal psychological knowledge” is in the expectation
that a doctoral student in psychology should be able to take,
and pass, a “comprehensive” examination on the whole field
of psychology’s subject matter and methodology.) And, the
tradition of the comprehensive history of the whole field is
also still with us in the vast textbooks that now introduce
the area to so many undergraduates—some of which have
almost a thousand pages!
But we must grant that the task is an impossible one and
anyone who attempts to carry it out will face serious prob-
lems. Someone smart enough to solve this problem is smart
enough not to try. But, if being smart is not enough and we do
decide to take on the task, who will be selected to undertake
it and how will they be instructed to go about the actual
work? What criteria of selection are in play? If your favorite
topic is included, is something else that I really like going to
be excluded?
Psychology’s history, even if confined to the United States
since 1879, is so large and so various that it is probably be-
yond attempts to cover the whole field in any comprehensive
manner. Instead, the editor has wisely elected to sample the
field so that a description of the part will indicate the possi-
bilities of the whole.
Can we justify the particular sample of psychology that
the editor has arranged here? Since there is no objective stan-
dard for inclusion or exclusion, we must honor the scholar-
ship and integrity of the editor even if there is a nagging
doubt: “How could the volume omit semiotics, or the activity
of Raymond Dodge at Yale in 1924?” The solution is to fol-
low the advice of Aristotle who counseled the observer to
suspend disbelief...and to get with it.
This author is an unindicted co-conspirator in an attempt
to list and define the one hundred most important (central)
concepts in general psychology. In the Dictionary of Con-
cepts in General Psychology (Popplestone & McPherson,
1988), the publisher selected the number 100 (presumably for
its commercial utility), but we coauthors were given com-
plete freedom to compile the list and write the definitions.
We decided that there was no really satisfactory way to define
the 100 core concepts, so we charged ahead on our own
using the indices of several introductory textbooks, the topics
in annual reviews, similar informal sampling techniques, and
our own intense conversations. There comes a time when one
must bite the bullet and just do it,even though this leaves a
wide target for the cheap shot of the reviewer who asks, “By
what criteria were these concepts selected?” but does not
offer a feasible and useful alternative.
Qualitative and quantitative judgments of relevance or im-
pact, however carefully made and subsequently justified,
cannot be utterly free of criticism and appraisal. In the vast
extended field of contemporary psychology there will always
be differences of opinion about selection and emphasis—
often advocated with great enthusiasm.
If psychology is too large and too variable to be totally in-
clusive, then we have a similar problem in the selection of
the observers. There is no one today who would be so bold
as to present him- or herself as having a complete grasp of
the whole of the field, to be able to present the kind of
detailed, thoughtful history that the readers may reasonably
expect.
The editor of the History of Psychologyhas found a solu-
tion to these problems in the judicious sampling of the
content areas and the careful selection of authors to write
about them, while also allowing the authors the intellectual
freedom to deal with the content as their experience and con-
sideration allow.
History of Psychologyis a unique volume. There is nothing
quite like it available for the individual scholar or students,
and so it fills a rather special and useful niche that would oth-
erwise be vacant. Partly this is done by using a team of expertsxiii