Putting Psychology in Its Place: Critical Historical Perspectives

365 Pages·2022·8.605 MB·English

by  Graham Richards, Paul Stenner

Putting Psychology
in Its Place
This fourth edition of Putting Psychology in Its Place builds on the previous three in introducing the history of
Psychology and placing the discipline within its historical and social contexts.
Written by esteemed Psychologists Graham Richards and Paul Stenner, this crucial text aims both to answer
and raise questions about the role of Psychology in modern society by critically examining issues such as how
Psychology developed and why psychoanalysis had such an impact. It discusses enduring underlying conceptual
problems and examines how the discipline has changed to deal with contemporary social issues such as religion,
race and gender. The fourth edition features revised and updated chapters, though the core structure remains
unchanged. The final chapter has been restructured and jointly re-written. This text was written to remain
compatible with the British Psychological Society requirements for undergraduate courses and is imaginatively
written and accessible to all.
Putting Psychology in Its Place is an invaluable introductory text for undergraduate students of the history
of Psychology and will also appeal to postgraduates, academics and anyone interested in Psychology or the
history of science.
Graham Richards retired from his posts as Director of the British Psychological Society’s History of Psychology
Centre and Professor of History of Psychology at Staffordshire University in 2006. His previous publications
include Human Evolution: An Introduction for the Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed., 2020), Psychology: The Key
Concepts (2008), ‘Race’, Racism and Psychology: Towards a Reflexive History (2nd ed., 2011), On Psychological
Language (1989) and Creationism: Design Errors and Cross-Purposes (2014).
Paul Stenner is a Professor of Social Psychology at the School of Psychology and Counselling at the Open
University, UK. He is Past President of the International Society for Theoretical Psychology and a Fellow
of the Academy for Social Science and of the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung. His recent books include
Liminality and Experience: A Transdisciplinary Approach to the Psychosocial (2017), Doing Q Methodological
Research: Theory, Method and Interpretation (2012, with S. Watts) and Psychology without Foundations: History,
Philosophy and Psychosocial Theory (2009, with S. Brown).

Putting Psychology
in Its Place
Critical Historical Perspectives
FOURTH EDITION
Graham Richards and Paul Stenner
Cover image: © Nicholas Wade
Fourth edition published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Graham Richards and Paul Stenner
The right of Graham Richards and Paul Stenner to be identified as authors
of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Routledge 1996
Third edition published by Routledge 2009
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Richards, Graham, 1941- author. | Stenner, Paul, author.
Title: Putting psychology in its place : critical historical perspectives / Graham
Richards and Paul Stenner.
Description: Fourth Edition. | New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. | Revised
edition of Putting psychology in its place, 2009. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022000627 (print) | LCCN 2022000628 (ebook) | ISBN
9780367555177 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367546342 (paperback) | ISBN
9781003093848 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Psychology--History--19th century. |
Psychology--History--20th century.
Classification: LCC BF95 .R55 2022 (print) | LCC BF95 (ebook) | DDC
150/.9--dc23/eng/20220106
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022000627
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/202200062
ISBN: 9780367555177 (hbk)
ISBN: 9780367546342 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003093848 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003093848
Typeset in Times NR MT Pro
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
In memory of Roland and Annette Hunter-Evans. Recently lost dear friends of
Graham and Maura.
Graham Richards
Dedicated to Monica for her support and patience and to the late and much-loved
Marcia Worrell.
Paul Stenner
… every human being is making history all the time.
We live in history as we live in air and we cannot
escape it.
C.V. Wedgwood
And if the world were black and white entirely
And all the charts were plain
Instead of a mad weir of tigerish waters,
A prism of delight and pain,
We might be surer where we wished to go
Or again we might be merely
Bored but in brute reality there is no
Road that is right entirely.
Louis MacNeice1
He who replies to words of Doubt
Doth put the light of knowledge out.
William Blake2
1 From ‘Entirely’, Louise MacNeice Collected Poems with
permissions of Faber and Faber.
2 Auguries of Innocence ll.95–96.
Contents
List of Figures ix Part II Some Topics 85
List of Tables xi
Preface: Fourth Edition xiii 8 Psychology and the
Preface: Third Edition xv
Brain 87
Preface: Second Edition xvii
Preface xix
9 Looking at Perception 97

Part I Origins and Theories 1
10 Memory: Some Points to
1 Introduction: Psychology
Remember 111

and History 3

11 Emotion: The Problem or
2 Psychology
the Whole Point 123

1600–1850: Continuity
and Discontinuity 13

12 Personality: Psychology
and Who You Are 143

3 Founding Psychology:
Evolution,
13 Social Psychology 157

Experimentation and
Being Scientific 27

14 Applied Psychology 171

4 William James and
the Origins of Modern
Psychology 41 Part III Psychology’s

Subjects 183
5 Behaviourism 55
15 Psychology, Madness
and the Meanings
6 Gestalt Psychology 67 of Psychological
Distress 185

7 Cognitive Psychology 75

vii
viii • CONTENTs
16 Psychological Uses of 22 Psychology Meets
Animals 201 Religion 281

17 Psychology and the 23 Psychology and
Child 211 ‘Race’ 295

18 Psychology and 24 Psychology and
Gender 221 War 309

Part IV Two General Part VI Conclusion 317
Issues 235
25 Closure – Or Not? 319

19 Psychometrics and
the Problem of
Appendix
Measurement 237
The Elephants Outside
the Room 331
20 Psychology and
Language 253

Index 337
Part V Four Cultural
Entanglements 269
21 Funding and Institutional
Factors 271
Figures
3.1 Promoting Psychology as a high-tech ter in the face according to the Swiss
experimental science: an illustra- physiognomist J.C. Lavater’s Essays
tion from the fourth (1893) edition on Physiognomy (1797). 144
of Wilhelm Wundt’s Grundzüge der 14.1 From Walter Dill Scott (1912) show-
physiologischen Psychologie. 33 ing a reflexive use of Psychology in
4.1 The professional introspector: a self- advertising and that the slimming
portrait by William James (c. 1866). 43 market is nothing new! 177
5.1 ‘Little Albert’, the famous subject of 14.2 Early British Industrial Psychology:
J.B. Watson and R. Rayner’s experi- selection testing at Rowntree’s Cocoa
ment in which he was conditioned to Works, early 1920s. 178
fear a rabbit. 58 16.1 Comparing the child and the chimpanzee. 205
7.1 Speculatrix, one of W. Grey Walter’s 17.1 Scientifically studying a baby in
cybernetic ‘tortoise’ robots-built c. 1950. 78 ‘Gesell’s dome’ in the late 1920s, an
8.1 Using technology to conceptualise image reminiscent of an early science
the brain: a quaint fusion of film, fiction film still (A. Gesell, 1937). 214
telephone switchboard and contem- 18.1 ‘Russian women criminals’. A
porary office organisation from A.H. typical plate from C. Lombroso
Bowley et al. (c. 1946). 90 and W. Ferrero (1895) The Female
9.1 Games Psychologists of perception Offender. If, to us, these faces speak
play: a stunningly effective version of of tragic abuse, hardship and brutali-
the spiral illusion by Nicholas Wade sation, Lombroso saw only anomalies
(1982) (these are in fact, concentric and asymmetry in cranial morphol-
circles). 102 ogy: the ‘stigmata’ of degeneration. 225
10.1 Experimenting on memory in 23.1 W.H.R. Rivers demonstrating the
Germany early in the 20th century. colour wheel to Tom, Mabuiag,
Many similar methods of presenting Torres Strait, 1898. 298
word-stimuli were devised at this time. 115 24.1 Military Psychology in the Cold War:
11.1 Title page of one of the earliest English unidentified USAF subject in a late
language works on the ‘Passions’. 125 1940s’ study of the effects of
12.1 Nearly Psychology, but not quite. gravitational stress on visual functions. 310
Examples of the reflection of charac-
ix