208 Developmental Psychology
Limited, too, was their understanding of their own cul-
ture. Contemporary developmental psychologists recognize
that societal conditions in a variety of spheres—medical, ed-
ucation, economic, political, and social—influence both
development itself and research and theory about develop-
ment. They have seen how historical conditions can shape
choices of problems and theoretical interpretations. The most
celebrated example, of course, is the influence of Victorian
Vienna on psychoanalysis (Lerner, 1986). The repressive
views concerning sex and sexuality held by European soci-
ety in the early 1900s quite clearly contributed to the symp-
toms exhibited by Freud’s patients and the focus on sexual
feelings and processes in Freud’s theory. However, Freud
himself and the other early theorists showed little awareness
of the need to acknowledge the role of societal and historical
influences in their theories of development.
As an emerging discipline, not surprisingly, developmental
psychology was also an interdisciplinary enterprise. The early
theorists looked to philosophy, biology, pedagogy, and sociol-
ogy for ideas. Hall was particularly influenced by philoso-
phy, religion, education, and evolutionary biology. Baldwin
reached out to religion. Freud incorporated anthropology. At
the same time, there was a strong push to disassociate the
emerging field from its roots—especially its philosophical
roots—and to establish the new field as a separate discipline,
especially a scientific one. Baldwin’s theories as well as
Binet’s experimental demonstrations represented clear depar-
tures from the introspectionist approach of the past.
In brief, by 1914, American psychology had become
established as an independent discipline, developmental psy-
chology as a separate science was beginning to emerge, and
the major themes of development that occupied us for the next
century were being defined. In the next phase, the institution-
alization of developmental psychology as a distinctive sub-
field within mainstream psychology began.
A PERIOD OF INSTITUTIONALIZATION AND
FRAGMENTATION (1915–1940)
Two major themes characterize the next period in the history
of developmental psychology. First, this was a period of
establishment of major research institutes. Second, it was an
era both of extraordinary theoretical and empirical advances
in developmental psychology and of multiple voices and rau-
cous cacophony.
The Institutes of Child Development
Reflecting societal concerns about ways to improve the
rearing of children, a number of research institutes were
established around the United States, including those at the
University of Iowa, the University of Minnesota, Teachers
College at Columbia, Yale, and the University of California,
Berkeley. The goals of these new institutes were research,
teaching, and dissemination. The programs were modeled
after the successful agricultural research stations. As
Mrs. Cora Bussey Hillis, an early supporter of these activities,
envisioned, “if research could improve corn and hogs, it could
improve children” (Sears, 1975, p. 19).
The institutes not only created a professional workforce of
child developmentalists but also initiated some of the major
longitudinal projects of the century. Some of these projects
were highly specialized; others were more general. At Yale,
Arnold Gesell (1880–1961) began his intensive studies
of children’s motor development, while John Anderson at
Minnesota provided detailed descriptions of personality de-
velopment (Anderson, 1937). At Berkeley, two sets of lon-
gitudinal studies began in the late 1920s and early 1930s
focusing on a variety of aspects of development—intellec-
tual, social, and motor (see Bayley, 1949; Elder, 1974).
Sontag (1944), at the Fels Research Institute, also started a
longitudinal study in the 1930s that lasted until the 1970s.
The Fels project also used a broadband approach involving
assessments of social, emotional, motoric, and physical de-
velopment. These studies were largely atheoretical and
descriptive; they provided important normative guidelines
concerning early developmental timetables.A Triad of Towering TheoristsBut theory in developmental psychology was not dead. On
the contrary, this was an era of fragmentation, and markedly
different theoretical approaches to the study of development
were all competing for support. In the United States, behav-
iorism under the leadership of John B. Watson (1878–1958)
was a force to be reckoned with, with its strict views that
children’s development was the consequence of conditioning
by the environment. According to Watson, children learn
everything, from skills to fears. All behavior begins as a sim-
ple reflex and is conditioned over time. Fears are most easily
conditioned through pairing with loud noise; love is created
by fondling; even verbal behavior and thinking begin as
babbling, then grow in complexity as they are conditioned
to objects in the environment. Watson’s (1913, 1924) ex-
perimental demonstrations of conditioning, most famously of
little Albert, did much to place the newly emerging field of
child development on a solid scientific footing.
Meanwhile, other viewpoints were emerging as significant
challenges to a behavioral view of development. Most directly
in opposition to Watson’s position was Gesell’s maturational