Psychology History entry

576 CHAPTER 18 one exercises one’s personal freedom. No matter what a human’s circumstances are, however, he or she aspires to transcend them—that is, not to be victimized or controlled by them. Everyone seeks being-beyond-the-world.By “being-beyond- the-world,” Binswanger was not referring to a life after death, or anything else supernatural, but to the way in which people try to transform their circum- stances by exercising their free will. Image not available due to copyright restrictions The Importance of Meaning in One’sLife. People may be thrown into negative circumstances such as poverty, incest, rape, or war, but they need not be devastated by those experiences. Most existentialists accept Nietzsche’s proclamation: “What does not kill me, makes me stronger” (Nietzsche, 1889/1998). This strength comes from finding meaning even in a negative experience and growing from that meaning. In his famous book Man’s Search for Meaning (1946/1984), Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997) described of things and events; the Mitwelt (the “with his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp. One of world”), interactions with other humans; and the his major observations was that prisoners who, even Eigenwel (the “own world”), a person’s private, under those dire circumstances, found meaning in their inner, subjective experience. To understand a per- lives and something to live for continued to live: son fully, one must understand all three of his or her modes of existence. We who lived in concentration camps can One of Binswanger’s most important concepts remember the men who walked through was that of Weltanschauung, or world-design the huts comforting others, giving away (worldview). In general, world-design is how an their last piece of bread. They may have individual views and embraces the world. World- been few in number, but they offer suffi- designs can be open or closed, expansive or construc- cient proof that everything can be taken tive, positive or negative, or simple or complex, or it from a man but one thing: the last of the could have any number of other characteristics. In human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude any case, it is through the world-design that one lives in any given set of circumstances, to one’s life, and therefore the world-design touches choose one’s own way. (p. 86) everything that one does. If a world-design is ineffec- tive, in the sense that it results in too much anxiety, According to Frankl (1964/1984), “Suffering fear, or guilt, it is the therapist’s job to help the client ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a see that there are other ways of embracing the world, meaning” (p. 135). other people, and oneself. By choosing, we change the meanings and va- lues of what we experience. Although physical cir- Ground of Existence. Binswanger agreed with cumstances may be the same for different people, Heidegger that thrownness places limits on personal how those circumstances are embraced, interpreted, freedom. For Binswanger the circumstances into valued, symbolized, and responded to is a matter of which one is thrown determines one’s ground of personal choice. By exercising our freedom, we existence, defined as the conditions under which grow as human beings; and because exercising

HUM ANISTIC (THIRD -FORCE) PSYCHOLOGY 577 freedom is an unending process, the developmental process is never completed. Becoming characterizes the authentic life, which, in turn, is characterized by anxiety. Not becoming, or remaining stagnant, characterizes the inauthentic life—as does guilt— because the person does not attempt to fully mani- fest his or her human potential. Images Archives/Getty Rollo May Rollo May (1909–1994) introduced Heideggerian existentialism to U.S. psychology through books he edited, Existence: A New Dimension in Psychiatry and Psychology (with Angel and Ellenberger, 1958) and Gotfryd/Contributor/Hulton Existential Psychology (1961). Because Binswanger’s work has only recently been translated into English, May was primarily responsible for incorpo- rating European existential philosophy (mainly Bernard Heidegger’s) into U.S. psychology. © May was born on April 21 in Ada, Ohio. Rollo May Neither of his parents was well educated, and there was little intellectual stimulation in the home. When his older sister became psychotic, his father ceived the first PhD in clinical psychology ever blamed it on too much education. May was not awarded by Columbia University. In modified form, close to either of his parents, but he especially dis- this dissertation became his book The Meaning of liked his mother (Rabinowitz, Good, and Cozad, Anxiety (1950). May’s other books include The Art of 1989). May received his Bachelor of Arts degree Counseling: How to Give and Gain Mental Health (1939), from Oberlin College in 1930 and a Bachelor of The Springs of Creative Living: A Study of Human Nature Divinity degree from Union Theological and God (1940), Man’s Search for Himself (1953), Seminary in 1938. While at the Union Seminary, Psychology and the Human Dilemma (1967), Love and May met the existential philosopher Paul Tillich, Will (1969), Power and Innocence: A Search for the and the two became lifelong friends. In 1973 May Sources of Violence (1972), The Courage to Create wrote Paulus: Reminiscences of a Friendship as a trib- (1975), Freedom and Destiny (1981), The Discovery of ute to Tillich, who died in 1965. After receiving his Being: Writings in Existential Psychology (1983), and BD from Union Seminary, May served as a minister The Cry for Myth (1991). May died on October 22, for two years in Montclair, New Jersey. In the 1994, of multiple causes. 1940s, he studied psychoanalysis at the William Like many other existential thinkers, May was Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, strongly influenced by Kierkegaard, who had re- and Psychology, and he became a practicing psycho- jected Hegel’s belief that an individual’s life had analyst in 1946. May enrolled in the doctorate program meaning only insofar as it related to the totality of at Columbia University, but before he obtained his things, which Hegel called the Absolute. degree, he contracted tuberculosis and nearly died. Kierkegaard proposed that each person’s life is a During this depressing time, May studied separate entity with its own self-determined mean- Kierkegaard’s and Freud’s views on anxiety; upon re- ing. Again, for Kierkegaard, subjectivity is truth; turning to Columbia, he submitted “The Meaning of that is, a person’s beliefs define that person’s Anxiety” as his doctoral dissertation. In 1949 May re- reality.

578 CHAPTER 18 The Human Dilemma. May (1967) pointed out self. Self-alienation occurs whenever people ac- that humans are both objects and subjects of expe- cept, as their own, values dictated by society rather rience. We are objects in the sense that we exist than those personally attained. Self-alienation re- physically, and therefore things happen to us. As sults not only in guilt but also in apathy and despair. objects, we are not distinguished from the other The frightening aspects of human freedom and the physical objects that are studied by the natural many ways people attempt to escape from their sciences. It is as objects that humans are studied freedom are discussed in Erich Fromm’s classic by the traditional methods of science—the assump- book Escape from Freedom (1941). tion being that human behavior is caused in much According to Kierkegaard, May, and most the same way that the behavior of any physical ob- other existentialists, we can either exercise our ject is caused. Besides being objects, however, we free will and experience normal anxiety or not are also subjects. That is, we do not simply have exercise it and feel guilty. Obviously, it is not easy experience; we interpret, value, and make choices being human, for this conflict between anxiety and regarding our experience. We give our experience guilt is a constant theme in human existence: “The meaning. This dual aspect of human nature, which conflict is between every human being’s need to May called the human dilemma, makes humans struggle toward enlarged self-awareness, maturity, unique in the universe. By dilemma, May did not freedom and responsibility, and his tendency to re- mean an insoluble problem; rather, he meant a par- main a child and cling to the protection of parents adox of human existence. or parental substitutes” (May, 1953, p. 193). Normal and Neurotic Anxiety. May believed, along with the other existentialists, that the most The Importance of Myth. According to May, important fact about humans is that they are free. myths provide the major vehicle for providing As we have seen, however, freedom does not pro- meaning in life: “Myth is a way of making sense duce a tranquil life. Freedom carries with it respon- in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns sibility, uncertainty, and therefore anxiety. The that give significance to our existence” (1991, p. healthy (authentic) person exercises freedom to 15). After a long, illustrious career as a psychoana- embrace life fully and to approach his or her full lyst, May reached the following conclusion about potential. Exercising one’s freedom means going people seeking professional help: “As a practicing beyond what one previously was, ignoring the ex- psychoanalyst I find that contemporary therapy is pectations (roles) for one’s behavior that others almost entirely concerned, when all is surveyed, impose, and therefore often acting contrary to tra- with the problems of the individual’s search for ditions, mores, or conventions. All this causes myth” (1991, p. 9). In sympathy with May’s con- anxiety, but it is normal, healthy anxiety because clusion, McAdams and Pals (2006) say, “The pro- it is conducive to personal growth (becoming). cess of putting life experience into a meaningful Neurotic anxiety is not conducive to personal narrative form influences development, coping, and growth because it results from the fear of freedom. well-being” (p. 210). Because myth is a type of The person experiencing neurotic anxiety lives his narrative (story), May’s observation that effective or her life in such a way that reduces or eliminates living depends on effective myths is supported by personal freedom. Such a person conforms to tradi- recently developed “narrative therapy.” Narrative tion, religious dogma, the expectations of others, or therapy examines the stories by which people live anything else that reduces his or her need to make and understand their lives and the effectiveness of personal choices. Kierkegaard called the neurotic’s those stories (see, for example, Lieblich, McAdams, situation shut-upness. The neurotic is shut off and Josselson, 2004; McAdams, 2006; McLeod, from himself or herself as well as from other people; 1997; Pennebaker and Seagal, 1999; Singer, 2004; he or she has become alienated from his or her true White and Epston, 1990).

HUM ANISTIC (THIRD -FORCE) PSYCHOLOGY 579 In his analysis of myth, May (1991) shows close and provide a means of dealing with the mysteries argument with Jung: “Individual myths will gener- of creation. Most important, however, “hunger for ally be a variation on some central theme of classical myth is a hunger for community. … To be a mem- myths. … Myths are archetypal patterns in human ber of one’s community is to share in its myths” consciousness [and therefore] where there is con- (1991, p. 45). For May, then, the best myths are sciousness, there will be myth” (pp. 33, 37). those that encourage a sense of kinship among hu- Like Nietzsche, Freud, and Jung, May believed mans. The myth of the rugged individual, popular that positive and negative tendencies coexist in all for so long in the United States, encourages people humans and that the tension between them is the to live in isolation and leads to loneliness and vio- primary source of creativity. For May, it is the dai- lence. Survival itself depends on replacing myths monic that is responsible for great literature, that isolate people with those that bind them to- drama, and art, and it is the daimonic that is at gether. For example, the heart of many myths; for example, myths por- We awake after a sleep of many centuries traying conflicts between good and evil or to find ourselves in a new and irrefutable between God and Satan. May (1969) defined the sense in the myth of humankind. We find daimonic as ourselves in a new world community; we any natural function which has the power to take cannot destroy the parts without destroy- over the whole person. Sex and eros, anger ing the whole. In this bright loveliness we and rage, and the craving for power are know now that we are truly sisters and examples. The daimonic can be either brothers, at last in the same family. (May, creative or destructive and is normally 1991, p. 302) both. … The daimonic is the urge in every being to affirm itself, assert itself, perpetu- Human Science. Unlike many existential thin- ate and increase itself. The daimonic kers, May was not opposed to studying humans becomes evil when it usurps the total scientifically. He was opposed, however, to em- personality without regard to the integra- ploying the methods of the physical sciences to tion of that self, or to the unique forms and study humans. Such methods, he said, overlook at- desires of others and their need for inte- tributes that are uniquely human. Instead, May gration. It then appears as excessive ag- (1967) suggested the creation of a new science spe- gression, hostility, cruelty—the things cifically designed to study humans: about ourselves which horrify us most, and which we repress whenever we can, or The outlines of a science of man we more likely, project on others. But these suggest will deal with man as the symbol- are the reverse side of the same assertion maker, the reasoner, the historical which empowers our creativity. All life is a mammal, who can participate in his com- flux between these two aspects of the munity and who possesses the potentiality daimonic. (p. 123) of freedom and ethical action. The pursuit of this science will take no less rigorous May had little patience with those who portray thought and wholehearted discipline than humans as only good or bad. For him, we are po- the pursuit of experimental and natural tentially both, and therein lies the drama of human science at their best, but it will place the existence. scientific enterprise in a broader context. According to May, myths serve four primary Perhaps it will again be possible to study functions: They provide a sense of identity, provide man scientifically and still see him whole. a sense of community, support our moral values, (p. 199)

580 CHAPTER 18 Schneider (1998) elaborates the human science envisioned by May and discusses its relevance for contemporary psychology. Also, the emerging field of positive psychology (discussed later in this chap- ter) is moving in the direction suggested by May. George Kelly George Kelly (1905–1967) was born on April 28 on a farm near Perth, Kansas. An only child, his father was an ordained Presbyterian minister, and his mother was a former schoolteacher. By the time Kelly was born, his father had given up the University ministry and turned to farming. In 1909, when Kelly was 4 years old, his father converted a lumber Brandeis wagon into a covered wagon and with it moved his © family to Colorado, where he staked a claim to a George Kelly plot of land offered free to settlers. Unable to find an adequate amount of water on their claim, the family moved back to Kansas. There, Kelly’s edu- cation consisted of attending a one-room school the “R” was put there so the “S” would and being tutored by his parents. From the pioneer- have something to account for. I never did ing efforts of his family, Kelly developed a prag- find out what that arrow stood for—not to matic spirit that remained with him throughout this day—and I have pretty well given up his life: the major criterion he used to judge an trying to figure it out. (p. 47) idea or a device was whether it worked. When Kelly was 13, he was sent to Wichita, Next, Kelly went to the University of Kansas, where he attended four different high schools in where he earned his master’s degree in 1928 with a four years. Upon graduation from high school, he major in educational psychology and a minor in attended Friends University in Wichita for three labor relations. While at the University of Kansas, years and then Park College in Parkville, Kelly decided that it was time for him to become Missouri, where he earned his bachelor’s degree acquainted with Freud’s writings. Freud did not in 1926 with majors in physics and mathematics. impress him any more than S!R psychology did: Kelly was totally unimpressed by his first psychol- “I don’t remember which one of Freud’s books I ogy class. For several class meetings, he waited in was trying to read, but I do remember the mount- vain for something interesting to be said. Finally, ing feeling of incredulity that anyone could one day the instructor wrote “S!R” on the black- write such nonsense, much less publish it” (1969, board, and Kelly (1969) believed that finally he was p. 47). going to hear something interesting. He recalled his The next year was a busy one for Kelly; he disappointment: taught part-time in a labor college in Minneapolis Although I listened intently for several and gave speech classes for the American Bankers sessions, after that the most I could make Association and an Americanization class to immi- of it was that the “S” was what you had to grants wishing to become U.S. citizens. In the win- have in order to account for the “R” and ter of 1928, he moved to Sheldon, Iowa, where he

HUM ANISTIC (THIRD -FORCE) PSYCHOLOGY 581 taught at a junior college. Among his other duties, I began fabricating “insights.” I deliberately Kelly coached dramatics, and this experience may offered “preposterous interpretations” to have influenced his later theorizing. It was here that my clients. Some of them were about as Kelly met his future wife, Gladys Thompson, an un-Freudian as I could make them—first English teacher at the same school. After a year proposed somewhat cautiously, of course, and a half, Kelly returned to Minnesota, where he and then, as I began to see what was hap- taught for a brief time at the University of pening, more boldly. My only criteria Minnesota. He then returned to Wichita to work were that the explanation account for the for a while as an aeronautical engineer. In 1929 he crucial facts as the client saw them, and received an exchange scholarship, which allowed that it carry implications for approaching him to study for a year at the University of the future in a different way. (Kelly, 1969, Edinburgh in Scotland. It was while earning his p. 52) advanced degree in education at Edinburgh under the supervision of the illustrious statistician and psy- In this statement lies the cornerstone of Kelly’s chologist Sir Godfrey Thomson that Kelly became position: Whether or not a person has a psycholog- interested in psychology. His thesis was on predict- ical problem is mainly a matter of how that person ing teaching success. views things. In 1930, on his return from Scotland, Kelly At the beginning of World War II, Kelly enrolled in the graduate program in psychology at joined the Navy and was placed in charge of a local the State University of Iowa, where he obtained his civilian pilot-training program. After the war, he doctorate in 1931. His dissertation was on the com- taught at the University of Maryland for a year mon factors in speech and reading disabilities. Kelly and in 1946 moved to Ohio State University as began his academic career at Fort Hays Kansas State professor of psychology and director of clinical psy- College during the Great Depression. This was a chology. It was during his 19 years at Ohio State time when there were many troubled people; that Kelly refined his theory of personality and his Kelly desperately wanted to help them, but his approach to psychotherapy. In 1955, he published training in physiological psychology did not equip his most important work, The Psychology of Personal him to do so. He decided to become a psychother- Constructs, in two volumes. apist. His lack of training in clinical psychology, In 1960 Kelly and his wife received a grant along with his pragmatic attitude, gave Kelly great from the human ecology fund, allowing them to latitude in dealing with emotional problems, and travel around the world discussing the relationship his observations eventually resulted in his unique between Kelly’s theory and international problems. theory of personality. In 1965 Kelly accepted a position at Brandeis Soon after arriving at Fort Hays, Kelly devel- University, where for a short time he was a col- oped traveling clinics that serviced the public school league of Maslow. Kelly died on March 6, 1967, system. The clinics brought Kelly into contact with at the age of 62. His honors included presidencies a wide range of emotional problems that both stu- of both the clinical and counseling divisions of the dents and teachers experienced. Kelly soon made a APA. He also headed the American Board of remarkable observation. Because he was not trained Examiners in Professional Psychology, an organiza- in any particular therapeutic approach, he began to tion whose purpose was to upgrade the quality of experiment with a variety of approaches, and he professional psychology. discovered that anything that caused his clients to view themselves or their problems differently improved the situ- Constructive Alternativism. Kelly observed ation. Whether a proposed explanation was “logi- that the major goal of scientists is to reduce uncer- cal” or “correct” seemed to have little to do with its tainty; and because he believed that this is also the effectiveness: goal of all humans, he said all humans are like

582 CHAPTER 18 scientists. But whereas scientists create theories with nor a victim of the past; all are free to view things as which they attempt to predict future events, non- they wish: scientists create construct systems to predict fu- We take the stand that there are always ture events. If either a scientific theory or a personal some alternative constructions available to construct system is effective, it adequately predicts choose among in dealing with the world. the future and thereby reduces uncertainty. And No one needs to paint himself into a cor- both scientific theories and construct systems are ner; no one needs to be completely tested empirically. That is, they are checked against hemmed in by circumstances; no one reality and are revised until their ability to predict needs to be the victim of his biography. future events or experiences is satisfactory. For (Kelly, 1955, Vol. 1, p. 15) Kelly a construct was a verbal label. For example, According to Kelly, it is not common experi- On meeting a person for the first time, one ence that makes people similar; rather, it is how might construe that person with the con- they construe reality. If two people employ more struct “friendly.” If the person’s subsequent or less the same personal constructs in dealing with behavior is in accordance with the con- the world, then they are similar no matter how struct of friendly, then the construct will similar or dissimilar their physical experiences had be useful in anticipating that person’s be- been. Kelly also said that to truly understand an- havior. If the new acquaintance acts in an other person, we have to know how that person unfriendly manner, he or she will need to construes things. In other words, we have to be construed either with different con- know what that person’s expectations are, and structs or by using the other pole … of the then we can choose to act in accordance with those friendly-unfriendly construct. The major expectations. The deepest type of social interaction point is that constructs are used to antici- occurs when this process is mutual. pate the future, so they must fit reality. Arriving at a construct system that corre- Kelly and Vaihinger. Although Kelly’s thinking sponds fairly closely to reality is largely a was existential in nature, there is no evidence that matter of trial and error. (Hergenhahn and he was directly influenced by any existential philo- Olson, 2007, p. 409) sophers or psychologists. However, he was aware of Vaihinger’s philosophy of “as if.” Although there For Kelly, whether or not an experience is are important differences between Vaihinger’s phi- physically pleasant is relatively unimportant. Of losophy and Kelly’s theory (see Hermans, Kempen, greater importance is whether or not it validates and Van Loon, 1992), both emphasized proposi- the predictions generated by one’s construct system. tional thinking, or the experimentation with ideas Kelly (1970) said, “Confirmation and disconfirma- to see where they lead. About Vaihinger, Kelly tion of one’s predictions [have] greater psychologi- cal significance than rewards, punishments, or… (1964) said, drive reduction” (p. 11). Toward the end of the last century a With his concept of constructive alternati- German philosopher, Hans Vaihinger, be- vism, Kelly aligned himself squarely with the ex- gan to develop a system of philosophy he istentialists. Kelly maintained that people are free to called the “philosophy of ‘as if.’” In it he choose the constructs they use in interacting with offered a system of thought in which God the world. This means that people can view and and reality might best be represented as interpret events in an almost infinite number of [propositions]. This was not to say that ways because construing them is an individual mat- either God or reality was any less certain ter. No one needs to be a victim of circumstances than anything else in the realm of man’s

HUM ANISTIC (THIRD -FORCE) PSYCHOLOGY 583 awareness, but only that all matters con- what he just was or is what he is about to be. fronting man might best be regarded in (Kelly, 1964, p. 147) hypothetical ways. In some measure, I suppose, I am suggesting that Vaihinger’s In the role of supporting actor, the therapist position has particular value for psychol- helps the client deal with this threatening moment ogy. At least, let us pursue the topic— and then provides experiences that validate the cli- which is probably just the way Vaihinger ent’s new construct system. According to Kelly, would have proposed that we go at it. people with psychological problems have lost their (p. 139) ability to make-believe, an ability that the therapist must help the client regain. Kelly’s fixed-role ther- The following statement nicely summarizes apy can be seen as an early version of narrative Kelly’s belief in the importance of propositional therapy that was discussed earlier. thinking and exemplifies his kinship with existential In the 1960s, there was much talk about people philosophy: “Whatever nature may be, or however being “themselves”; Kelly’s advice was the the quest for truth will turn out in the end, the opposite: events we face today are subject to as great a variety of constructions as our wits will enable us to con- A good deal is said these days about being trive” (1970, p. 1). oneself. It is supposed to be healthy to be oneself. While it is a little hard for me to Fixed-Role Therapy. Kelly’s approach to ther- understand how one could be anything else, apy reflected his belief that psychological problems I suppose what is meant is that one should are perceptual problems and that the job of the thera- not strive to become anything other than pist is therefore to help the client view things differ- what he is. This strikes me as a very dull way ently. Kelly often began the therapeutic process by of living; in fact, I would be inclined to ar- having a client write a self-characterization, gue that all of us would be better off if we set which provided Kelly with information about out to be something other than what we are. how the client viewed himself or herself, the world, Well, I’m not so sure we would all be better and other people. Next, Kelly created a role for the off—perhaps it would be more accurate to client to play for about two weeks. The character in say life would be a lot more interesting. the role was markedly different from the client’s (Kelly, 1964, p. 147) self-characterization. The client became an actor, Kelly became a major force within clinical psy- and the therapist became a supporting actor. Kelly chology in the postwar years, but the popularity of called this approach to treating clients fixed-role his ideas in the United States diminished. In England, therapy. He hoped that this procedure would however, Kelly’s ideas became extremely popular— help the client discover other possible ways of even after his death—primarily because of the efforts viewing his or her life: of his disciple Donald Bannister. Exposure to Kelly’s What I am saying is that it is not so much theory remains a requirement in most clinical pro- what man is that counts as it is what he grams approved by the British Psychological ventures out to make himself. To make the Association (Jankowicz, 1987, p. 483). The popular- leap he must do more than disclose himself; ity of Kelly’s theory is again growing in the he must risk a certain amount of confusion. United States, especially in the area of industrial- Then, as soon as he does catch a glimpse of a organizational psychology (Jankowicz, 1987). Other different kind of life, he needs to find some areas to which Kelly’s theory is being applied in- way of overcoming the paralyzing moment clude friendship formation, developmental psychol- of threat, for this is the instant when he ogy, perception, political science, and environmental wonders what he really is—whether he is psychology (Adams-Webber, 1979; Mancuso and

584 CHAPTER 18 Adams-Webber, 1982); depression and suicide (Neimeyer, 1984; Parker, 1981); obsessive- compulsive disorders (Rigdon and Epting, 1983); drug and alcohol abuse (Dawes, 1985; Rivers and Landfield, 1985); childhood disorders (Agnew, 1985); fear of death and physical illness (Robinson Akron and Wood, 1984; Viney, 1983, 1984); couples in of conflict (Neimeyer and Hudson, 1984); and other University relationship disorders (Leitner, 1984; Neimeyer and Neimeyer, 1985). Neimeyer and Jackson (1997) provide a brief, Archives—The but informative, overview of Kelly’s life, the devel- opment of his ideas, and the relevance of his ideas in contemporary psychology. © Psychology Abraham Maslow HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY hostile figure, one so unloving as to nearly induce madness in her children. In all of Abraham Maslow Maslow’s references to his mother—some uttered publicly while she was still alive— Some argue that Alfred Adler should be considered there is not one that expresses any warmth the first humanistic psychologist because he defined or affection. (Hoffman, 1988, p. 7) a healthy lifestyle as one reflecting a considerable amount of social interest and his concept of the It is interesting that Maslow saw the motivation creative self stressed that what a person becomes is for his work in humanistic psychology in his hatred largely a matter of personal choice. Certainly, of his mother. Shortly before he died, Maslow en- Adler’s theory had much in common with those tered the following comment in his personal theories later called humanistic. Usually, however, journal: Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) is recognized as I’ve always wondered where my the one most responsible for making humanistic Utopianism, ethical stress, humanism, stress psychology a formal branch of psychology. on kindness, love, friendship, and all the Maslow was born on April 1 in Brooklyn, New rest came from. I knew certainly of the York. He was the oldest of seven children born to direct consequences of having no mother- parents who were Jewish immigrants from Russia. love. But the whole thrust of my life- Maslow recalled his father Samuel as loving whis- philosophy and all my research and theo- key, women, and fighting (Wilson, 1972, p. 131). rizing also has its roots in a hatred for and Maslow disliked his father but eventually made revulsion against everything she stood for. peace with him. Not so with his mother, however; (Lowry, 1979, p. 958) Maslow hated his mother all his life: [Maslow] grew to maturity with an unre- Not being close to his parents and being the lieved hatred for her and never achieved only Jewish boy in his neighborhood, Maslow the slightest reconciliation. He even re- was intensely lonely and shy and took refuge in fused to attend her funeral. He character- books and scholarly pursuits. He was an excellent ized Rose Maslow as a cruel, ignorant, and student at Boys High School in Brooklyn and went

HUM ANISTIC (THIRD -FORCE) PSYCHOLOGY 585 on to attend City College of New York. While enced his later theorizing. During this time, attending City College, he made an effort to satisfy Maslow also observed that sexual behavior within his father’s desire for him to become a lawyer by the colony was related to dominance and subservi- also attending law school. Unhappy with law ence, and he wondered whether the same was true school, however, he walked out of class one night, for human sexual activity, a possibility he would leaving his books behind. Being a mediocre stu- explore shortly. After receiving his doctorate, dent at City College, he transferred to Cornell Maslow taught at Wisconsin for a while before University, where he took introductory psychology moving to Columbia University, where he became from Edward Titchener. Titchener’s approach to Edward Thorndike’s research assistant. He also be- psychology did not impress Maslow, and after gan his research on human sexuality by interview- only one semester at Cornell he transferred back ing both male and female college students about to City College, partly to be near his first cousin their sexual behavior but soon abandoned males Bertha Goodman, whom he loved very much. He because they tended to lie too much about their and Bertha were married in 1928 when he was 20 sexual activities (Hoffman, 1988). Maslow made and she was 19, and they eventually had two chil- important contributions to our knowledge of hu- dren. Prior to their marriage, Maslow had enrolled man sexuality several years before Kinsey’s famous at the University of Wisconsin, and Bertha joined research. Furthermore, the interviewing skills he him there. By Maslow’s own account, his life did developed during this research served him well not really begin until he and Bertha moved to when he later studied the characteristics of psycho- Wisconsin. logically healthy individuals. As ironic as it now seems, Maslow was first After a year and a half at Columbia, Maslow infatuated with the behaviorism of John Watson, moved to Brooklyn College, where he stayed until in which he saw a way of solving human problems 1951. Living in New York in the 1930s and 1940s and changing the world for the better. His infatua- gave Maslow an opportunity to come into contact tion ended when he and Bertha had their first child: with many prominent European psychologists who came to the United States to escape the Nazi terror. Our first baby changed me as a psycholo- Among them were Erich Fromm, Max Wertheimer, gist. It made the behaviorism I had been so Karen Horney, and Alfred Adler. Adler began giving enthusiastic about look so foolish I could seminars in his home on Friday evenings, and not stomach it anymore. That was the Maslow attended frequently. Maslow also befriended thunderclap that settled things. … I was the famous anthropologist Ruth Benedict about this stunned by the mystery and by the sense of same time. Maslow became obsessed with trying to not really being in control. I felt small and understand Ruth Benedict and Max Wertheimer, weak and feeble before all this. I’d say whom he considered truly exceptional people, and anyone who had a baby couldn’t be a be- it was this obsession that evolved into Maslow’s ver- haviorist. (M. H. Hall, 1968, p. 55) sion of humanistic psychology. At the University of Wisconsin, Maslow earned In 1951 Maslow accepted the position of chair- his bachelor’s degree in 1930, his master’s degree in man of the psychology department at Brandeis 1931, and his doctorate in 1934. As a graduate University in Waltham, Massachusetts, and it was student at Wisconsin, Maslow became the first doc- here that Maslow became the leading figure in toral student of the famous experimental psycholo- third-force psychology. In 1968, because of in- gist Harry Harlow. Maslow’s dissertation was on the creased disenchantment with academic life and fail- establishment of dominance in a colony of mon- ing health, Maslow accepted a fellowship offered to keys. He observed that dominance has more to do him by the Saga Administrative Corporation. with a type of “inner confidence” than with physi- Hoffman (1988) described the offer that was made cal strength, an observation that may have influ- to Maslow:

586 CHAPTER 18 Laughlin [the president and chairman of human being. Such a description would in- the Saga Corporation] cheerfully informed clude the importance of language, the valuing Maslow, the fellowship was ready. He was process, the full range of human emotions, and prepared to offer Maslow a two- the ways humans seek and attain meaning in to-four-year commitment with the fol- their lives. lowing conditions: a handsome salary, a Charlotte R. Bühler (1893–1974) was a found- new car, and a personally decorated private ing member of the Association of Humanistic office with full secretarial services at Saga’s Psychologists and served as its president in 1965– attractive campuslike headquarters on 1966. Her influential position paper on humanistic Stanford University’s suburban outskirts. psychology (1971) elaborated several of the tenets What would Maslow have to do in return? listed above and showed their relevance to such Nothing. (p. 316) topics as creativity, education, and psychotherapy. Maslow accepted and, as advertised, was free to Humanistic psychology, which rejects the no- think and write as he pleased, and he enjoyed his tion that psychology should be entirely scientific, freedom very much. On June 8, 1970, however, sees humans as indivisible wholes. Any attempt to Maslow suffered a heart attack while jogging and reduce them to habits, cognitive structures, or S–R died at the age of 62. connections results in a distortion of human nature. Due primarily to Maslow’s efforts, the Journal of According to Maslow (1966), psychologists often use Humanistic Psychology was founded in 1961; also in scientific method to cut themselves off from the po- 1961, the American Association of Humanistic etic, romantic, and spiritual aspects of human nature: Psychologists was established, with James F. T. Briefly put, it appears to me that science Bugental as its first president; and a division of and everything scientific can be and often the American Psychological Association (APA), is used as a tool in the service of a distorted, Humanistic Psychology, was created in 1971. narrowed, humorless, de-eroticized, de- emotionalized, desacralized, and desancti- The Basic Tenets of Humanistic Psychology. The fied Weltanschauung [world-view]. This beliefs shared by psychologists working within the desacralization can be used as a defense humanistic paradigm include the following: against being flooded by emotion, espe- cially the emotions of humility, reverence, ■ Little of value can be learned about humans by mastery, wonder and awe. (p. 139) studying nonhuman animals. ■ Subjective reality is the primary guide for hu- Humanistic psychologists flatly reject the goal man behavior. of predicting and controlling human behavior, which so many scientifically inclined psychologists ■ Studying individuals is more informative than accept: studying what groups of individuals have in common. If humanistic science may be said to have any goals beyond sheer fascination with ■ A major effort should be made to discover the human mystery and enjoyment of it, those things that expand and enrich human these would be to release the person from experience. external controls and to make him less ■ Research should seek information that will predictable to the observer (to make him help solve human problems. freer, more creative, more inner deter- ■ The goal of psychology should be to formulate mined) even though perhaps more pre- a complete description of what it means to be a dictable to himself. (Maslow, 1966, p. 40)

HUM ANISTIC (THIRD -FORCE) PSYCHOLOGY 587 Humans, then, are much more than physical when the safety needs are reasonably satisfied, one is objects, and therefore the methods employed by free to deal with the belonging and love needs (the the physical sciences have no relevance to the study need to love and be loved, to share one’s life with a of humans. Similarly, psychoanalysis, by concen- relevant other); when the belonging and love needs trating on the study of psychologically disturbed are adequately satisfied, one is released to ponder individuals, has created a “crippled” psychology: the esteem needs (to make a recognizable contribu- “It becomes more and more clear that the study tion to the well-being of one’s fellow humans); if of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy spe- the esteem needs are met satisfactorily, one is in a cimens can yield only a crippled psychology and a position to become self-actualized. Maslow’s pro- crippled philosophy” (Maslow, 1954/1970, p. 180). posed hierarchy of needs can be diagrammed as For Maslow, there are exceptional people whose follows: lives cannot be understood simply as the absence Self-Actualization of mental disorders. To be understood, exceptional \" people must be studied directly: Esteem Needs Health is not simply the absence of disease \" or even the opposite of it. Any theory of Belonging and Love Needs motivation that is worthy of attention must deal with the highest capacities of the \" healthy and strong person as well as with Safety Needs the defensive maneuvers of crippled spirits. \" (Maslow, 1954/1987, p. 14) Physiological Needs Maslow’s point was not that psychology should Self-Actualization. By self-actualization,Mas- stop attempting to be scientific or stop studying and low meant reaching one’s full, human potential: attempting to help those with psychological pro- blems, but that such endeavors tell only part of So far as motivational status is concerned, the story. Beyond this, psychology needs to attempt healthy people have sufficiently gratified to understand humans who are in the process of their basic needs for safety, belongingness, reaching their full potential. We need to know love, respect, and self-esteem so that they how such people think and what motivates them. are motivated primarily by trends to self- Thus, Maslow invested most of his energies in try- actualization defined as ongoing actuali- ing to understand exceptional humans. zation of potentials, capacities and talents, as fulfillment of mission (or call, fate, des- The Hierarchy of Needs. According to Maslow, tiny, or vocation), as a fuller knowledge of, human needs are arranged in a hierarchy. The and acceptance of, the person’s own in- lower the needs in the hierarchy, the more basic trinsic nature, as an unceasing trend toward they are and the more similar they are to the needs unity, integration or synergy within the of other animals. The higher the needs in the hier- person. (Maslow, 1968, p. 25) archy, the more distinctly human they are. Musicians must make music, artists The needs are arranged so that as one satisfies a must paint, poets must write if they are to lower need, one can deal with the next higher be ultimately at peace with themselves. need. When one’s physiological needs (such as What humans can be, they must be. They hunger, thirst, and sex) are predictably satisfied, must be true to their own nature. This one can deal with the safety needs (protection need we may call self-actualization. from the elements, pain, and unexpected dangers); (Maslow, 1954/1987, p. 22)

588 CHAPTER 18 The concept of self-actualization goes back at More than any other kind of knowledge least as far as Aristotle, but what Aristotle meant by we fear knowledge of ourselves, knowl- self-actualization was the innate tendency to mani- edge that might transform our self-esteem fest the characteristics or the essence of one’s spe- and our self-image. … While human cies. For example, an acorn has an innate tendency beings love knowledge and seek it—they to become an oak tree and to exhibit the character- are curious—they also fear it. The closer to istics of oak treeness. Jung reintroduced the concept the personal it is, the more they fear it. of self-actualization into modern psychology, and (p. 16) what he meant by the term and what Maslow later meant by it was distinctly different from the Related to the fear of self-knowledge is the Aristotelian meaning. By self-actualization, Jung, Jonah complex, which Maslow (1971) defined as Maslow, and Rogers (whom we consider next) “fear of one’s own greatness, … evasion of one’s meant the realization of an individual’s potential, destiny, … running away from one’s best talents” not that of the species’ potential, as was Aristotle’s (p. 34). According to Maslow, humans often fear meaning. success as much as they do failure and this fear, Because it is impossible for any person to like the fear of self-knowledge, militates against completely reach his or her full potential, Maslow self-actualization. referred to those who have satisfied hierarchical needs as self-actualizing. (A list of characteristics of The Characteristics of Self-Actualizing People. As self-actualizing people is given shortly.) we have seen, Maslow believed that for too long As one climbs the hierarchy, the needs become psychology had emphasized the study of lower an- more fragile. That is, the physiological and safety imals and psychologically disturbed individuals. To needs have a long evolutionary history and are begin to remedy the situation, he studied a number therefore very powerful; the higher needs for love, esteem, and self-actualization are “newer” of people he thought were self-actualizing. Among them were Albert Einstein, Albert Schweitzer, and distinctly human and therefore do not have as Sigmund Freud, Jane Addams, William James, and firm a biological foundation. This means that their Abraham Lincoln. Maslow concluded that self- satisfaction is easily interfered with. The higher actualizing people have the following up the hierarchy one goes, the truer this is; and characteristics: therefore the satisfaction of the need for self- actualization—although the need is innate—is eas- ■ They perceive reality accurately and fully. ily interfered with. Of self-actualization, Maslow ■ They demonstrate a great acceptance of said, “This inner nature is not strong and overpow- themselves and of others. ering and unmistakable like the instincts of animals. It is weak and delicate and subtle and easily over- ■ They exhibit spontaneity and naturalness. come by habit, cultural pressure, and wrong atti- ■ They have a need for privacy. tudes toward it” (1968, p. 4). ■ They tend to be independent of their envi- Thus, although all humans have an innate drive ronment and culture. to be self-actualized (to reach their full potential as humans), self-actualized people are rare. Another ■ They demonstrate a continuous freshness of appreciation. major reason that self-actualization occurs so infre- quently is that it requires a great deal of honest ■ They tend to have periodic mystic or peak knowledge of oneself, and most humans are fearful experiences. Maslow (1954/1987) described of such knowledge: peak experiences as

HUM ANISTIC (THIRD -FORCE) PSYCHOLOGY 589 himself off from this friendship sharply and feelings of limitless horizons opening up to abruptly and without any observable pangs the vision, the feeling of being simulta- whatsoever. Another woman who was neously more powerful and also more married to someone she did not love, when helpless than one ever was before, the she decided on divorce, did it with a deci- feeling of great ecstasy and wonder and siveness that looked almost like ruthlessness. awe, the loss of placing in time and space Some of them recover so quickly from the with, finally, the conviction that some- death of people close to them as to seem thing extremely important and valuable heartless. (p. 146) had happened, so that the subject is to some extent transformed and strengthened Deficiency and Being Motivation and Perception. If even in his daily life by such experiences. a person is functioning at any level other than self- (p. 137) actualization, he or she is said to be deficiency- motivated. That is, the person is seeking specific ■ They are concerned with all humans instead of things to satisfy specific needs, and his or her per- with only their friends, relatives, and ceptions are need-directed. Jourard describes need- acquaintances. directed perception (also called deficiency or D- perception) as follows: “Need-directed perception ■ They tend to have only a few friends. is a highly focused searchlight darting here and ■ They have a strong ethical sense but do not there, seeking the objects which will satisfy needs, necessarily accept conventional ethics. ignoring everything irrelevant to the need” (1974, ■ They have a well-developed but not hostile p. 68). Deficiency motivation (D-motivation) sense of humor. leads to need-directed perception. Unlike most psychologists, Maslow was mainly ■ They are creative. interested in what happens to people after their basic Although Maslow (1954/1987) concluded that needs are satisfied. His answer was that people who his group of self-actualizing people was made up of satisfy their basic needs and become self-actualizing outstanding humans, he also indicated that they enter into a different mode of existence. Instead of were not without faults: being deficiency-motivated, they are being- motivated (B-motivated). Being motivation in- Our subjects show many of the lesser hu- volves embracing the higher values of life such as man failings. They too are equipped with beauty, truth, and justice. Being-motivated people silly, wasteful or thoughtless habits. They are also capable of B-love, which unlike D-love is can be boring, stubborn, irritating. They nonpossessive and insatiable. Unlike D-perception, are by no means free from a rather super- being perception (B-perception) does not involve ficial vanity, pride, partiality to their own seeking specific things in the environment. productions, family, friends, and children. Therefore, the person interacting with the world Temper outbursts are not rare. through B-perception is open to a wider range of Our subjects are occasionally capable of experience than the person who interacts through an extraordinary and unexpected ruthless- D-perception. ness. It must be remembered that they are very strong people. This makes it possible Transpersonal Psychology. Toward the end of for them to display a surgical coldness when his life, Maslow began to ponder a new kind of this is called for, beyond the power of the psychology that went beyond personal experience. average man. The man who found that a This transpersonal psychology would constitute long-trusted acquaintance was dishonest cut a fourth force and would focus on the mystical,

590 CHAPTER 18 ecstatic, or spiritual aspects of human nature. In the Maslow’s many honors include election to the preface of his book Toward a Psychology of Being presidency of the APA for the year 1967–1968. At (1968), Maslow described his vision of fourth- the time of his death in 1970, Maslow’s ideas were force psychology: influential not only within psychology but also in fields such as medicine, marketing, theology, edu- I … consider Humanistic, Third Force cation, and nursing. Although Maslow’s influence Psychology to be transitional, a preparation has diminished, it is not uncommon for his theory for a still “higher” Fourth Psychology, of motivation to be taught in psychology, educa- transpersonal, transhuman, centered in the tion, and business courses. Coon (2006) speculates cosmos rather than in human needs and as to the reasons for Maslow’s lasting appeal: interest, going beyond humanness, iden- tity, self-actualization, and the like. … Perhaps it is that his theory of motivation These new developments may very well embodies deeply felt democratic ideals offer a tangible, usable, effective satisfac- expressed in psychological terms. It is tion of the “frustrated idealism” of many hopeful and optimistic, even utopian in its quietly desperate people, especially young dream of an eventual Eupsychia [good people. These psychologies give promise mind country]. Given the right set of of developing into the life-philosophy, the psychological and social conditions, every religion-surrogate, the value-system, the person among us has the potential to life-program that these people have been become happy, fulfilled, creative, emo- missing. Without the transcendent and the tionally whole—in Maslow’s terms, self- transpersonal, we get sick, violent, and actualized. It is the American ethos of nihilistic, or else hopeless and apathetic. self-improvement taken to its ultimate We need something “bigger than we are” psychological conclusion, and it unabash- to be awed by and to commit ourselves to edly embraces our right to life, liberty, and in a new, naturalistic, empirical, non- the pursuit of happiness. (pp. 270–271) churchly sense. (pp. iii–iv) Maslow lived to see Anthony J. Sutich (1907– Carl Rogers 1976), who was also a founding editor of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, found the Journal of Carl Rogers (1902–1987) was born on January 8 Transpersonal Psychology in 1969. Maslow’s “The in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, and Farther Reaches of Human Nature” appeared as was the fourth of six children. He was closer to the lead article in the new journal. (This article his mother than to his father, who was a successful should not be confused with the book of readings civil engineer and was often away from home. In published posthumously [1971] with the same title.) the affluent suburb of Oak Park, Rogers attended Transpersonal psychology has much in common school with Ernest Hemingway and the children with non-Western psychologies, philosophies, and of the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. religions. For example, all recognize meditation as a Rogers described his family as closely knit and way of getting in touch with the higher states of highly religious. Friendships outside the family consciousness. Many interested in the occult and in were discouraged: parapsychology have been attracted to humanistic I think the attitudes toward persons outside psychology and especially to transpersonal psychol- our large family can be summed up sche- ogy. Perhaps because these topics are generally matically in this way: Other persons be- viewed as outside the realm of science, the APA have in dubious ways which we do not has thus far denied petitions to create a division of approve in our family. Many of them play transpersonal psychology.

HUM ANISTIC (THIRD -FORCE) PSYCHOLOGY 591 Wisconsin in 1919, he chose to study agriculture. In his early years in college, Rogers was very active in church activities, and in 1922 he was selected to attend the World Student Christian Federation Conference in Peking (Beijing), China. During this six-month trip, Rogers, for the first time, experi- enced people of different cultures with different religions. Rogers wrote to his parents declaring his independence from their conservative religion, and almost immediately he developed an ulcer that caused him to be hospitalized for several weeks. Upon returning to the University of Wisconsin, Rogers changed his major from agricul- ture to history. He received his bachelor’s degree in 1924. Shortly after graduation, he married his child- Ressmeyer/CORBIS hood sweetheart, Helen Elliott, with whom he eventually had two children. Soon after their mar- riage, Carl and Helen moved to New York, where © Roger he enrolled in the liberal Union Theological Seminary while also taking courses in psychol- ogy and education at neighboring Columbia Carl Rogers University. After two years at the seminary, cards, go to movies, smoke, drink, and Rogers’s doubts about whether the religious ap- engage in other activities—some unmen- proach was the most effective way of helping peo- tionable. So the best thing to do is to be ple caused him to transfer to Columbia University tolerant of them, since they may not know on a full-time basis; there he earned his master’s better, and to keep away from any close degree in clinical psychology in 1928 and his doc- communication with them and live your torate in 1931. His dissertation concerned the mea- life within the family. (Rogers, 1973, p. 3) surement of personality adjustment in children. After obtaining his doctorate, Rogers went to Not surprisingly, Rogers was a loner in school work for the Child Study Department of the and, like Maslow, took refuge in books, reading Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children everything that he could get his hands on, including in Rochester, New York, where he had served as a encyclopedias and dictionaries. When Rogers was fellow while working toward his doctorate. Rogers 12 years old, he and his family moved to a farm 25 had several experiences there that caused him to miles west of Chicago. The purpose of the move develop his own brand of psychotherapy. For ex- was to provide a more wholesome and religious ample, the society was dominated by therapists atmosphere for the family. Because his father in- trained in the psychoanalytic tradition, people sisted that the farm be run scientifically, Rogers who saw their job as gaining an “insight” into the developed an intense interest in science, reading cause of a problem and then sharing that insight everything he could about agricultural experiments. with the client. At first, Rogers followed this pro- Rogers maintained this interest in science through- cedure. In one case, he concluded that a mother’s out his career, although he worked in one of psy- rejection of her son was the cause of the son’s de- chology’s more subjective areas. When Rogers linquent behavior, but his attempts to share this graduated from high school, he intended to become insight with the mother failed completely. Rogers a farmer; and when he entered the University of (1961) described what happened next:

592 CHAPTER 18 Finally I gave up. I told her that it seemed as had been the case with the psychoanalysts; for we had both tried, but we had failed. … Rogers, people seeking help were “clients.” She agreed. So we concluded the inter- Gendlin (1988) said that Rogers’s proposed alterna- view, shook hands, and she walked to the tive to psychoanalysis was nothing less than a “war door of the office. Then she turned and against monolithic authority” (p. 127). asked, “Do you take adults for counseling As part of the war effort, in 1944 Rogers took a here?” When I replied in the affirmative, leave from Ohio State to become director of she said, “Well then, I would like some counseling services for the United Services help.” She came to the chair she had left, Organization in New York. After one year, and began to pour out her despair about Rogers moved to the University of Chicago as pro- her marriage, her troubled relationship fessor of psychology and director of counseling. It with her husband, her sense of failure and was during his 12-year stay at Chicago that Rogers confusion, all very different from the sterile wrote what many consider to be his most important “Case History” she had given before. Real work, Client-Centered Therapy: Its Current Practice, therapy began then. Implications, and Theory (1951). This book marked This incident was one of a number a change in Rogers’s approach to psychology. which helped me to experience that fact— Originally, his approach was called nondirective, only fully realized later—that it is the client believing that in a positive therapeutic atmosphere who knows what hurts, what directions to clients would solve their problems automatically. go, what problems are crucial, what ex- Therapy became client-centered when Rogers re- periences have been deeply buried. It be- alized that the therapist had to make an active at- gan to occur to me that unless I had a need tempt to understand and accept a client’s subjective to demonstrate my own cleverness and reality before progress could be made. It was also at learning, I would do better to rely upon Chicago that Rogers and his colleagues engaged in the client for the direction of movement in the first attempt to objectively measure the effec- the process. (pp. 11–12) tiveness of psychotherapy. To measure therapy’s effectiveness, Rogers It was while Rogers was employed by the used a method called the Q-technique (also called Child Study Department that he wrote his first the Q-sort technique) created by the British-trained book, The Clinical Treatment of the Problem Child researcher William Stephenson (1953). Rogers’s (1939), and its publication led to an offer of an version of the technique involved having clients academic position at Ohio State University. describe themselves as they were at the moment Rogers was reluctant to leave the clinical setting, (real self) and then as they would like to become but when Ohio State agreed to start him at the (ideal self). The two selves were measured in such a rank of full professor, he decided, at the age of way as to allow the correlation between them to be 38, to begin a new career in the academic world. determined. Typically, when therapy begins, the At Ohio, Rogers communicated his own ideas con- correlation between the two selves is very low, cerning the therapeutic process in his now famous but if therapy is effective it becomes higher. That Counseling and Psychotherapy: Newer Concepts in is, the real self becomes more similar to the ideal Practice (1942). It is widely believed that this book self. Using this technique, a therapist can determine described the first major alternative to psychoanaly- the effectiveness of his or her procedures at any sis. Rogers’s approach to psychotherapy was con- point during, or after, therapy (see, for example, sidered revolutionary because it eliminated the Rogers, 1954; Rogers and Dymond, 1955). needs for diagnosis, a search for the causes of dis- In 1957 Rogers returned to the University of turbances, and any type of labeling of disorders. He Wisconsin, where he held the dual position of pro- also refused to call disturbed individuals “patients,” fessor of psychology and professor of psychiatry, and

HUM ANISTIC (THIRD -FORCE) PSYCHOLOGY 593 he did much to resolve differences between the two Like Maslow, Rogers postulated an innate hu- disciplines. In 1963 Rogers joined the Western man drive toward self-actualization, and if people Behavioral Sciences Institute (WBSI) in La Jolla, use this actualizing tendency as a frame of reference in California. At WBSI Rogers became increasingly in- living their lives, there is a strong likelihood that terested in encounter groups and sensitivity training they will live fulfilling lives and ultimately reach and less interested in individual therapy. Toward the their full potential. Such people are said to be living end of his life, he also became interested in promot- according to the organismic valuing process. ing world peace. In 1968 Rogers and 75 of his col- Using this process, a person approaches and main- leagues resigned from WBSI and formed the Center tains experiences that are in accord with the actual- for the Studies of the Person, also in La Jolla. There, izing tendency but terminates and avoids those that Rogers continued to work with encounter groups, are not. Such a person is motivated by his or but he expanded his interests in education and inter- her own true feelings and is living what the exis- national politics. In 1985 he organized the Vienna tentialists call an authentic life—that is, a life moti- Peace Project, which brought leaders from 13 coun- vated by a person’s true inner feelings rather than tries together, and in 1986 he conducted peace mores, beliefs, traditions, values, or conventions im- workshops in Moscow. Rogers continued to work posed by others. Here we see Rogers restating the on these and other projects until his death on belief of the ancient Cynics and of Rousseau in the February 4, 1987, from cardiac arrest following sur- primacy of personal feelings as guides for action. In gery for a broken hip. the following quotation (Rogers, 1961), we see a Rogers received many honors. He served as strong similarity among ancient Cynicism, president of the APA in 1946–1947, and in 1956 Rousseau’s romantic philosophy, and Rogers’s hu- he was a corecipient, along with Kenneth Spence manistic psychology: and Wolfgang Köhler, of the first Distinguished One of the basic things which I was a long Scientific Contribution Award from the APA. time in realizing, and which I am still The latter award moved Rogers to tears because learning, is that when an activity feels as he believed that his fellow psychologists had viewed though it is valuable or worth doing, it is his work as unscientific: “My voice choked and the worth doing. Put another way, I have tears flowed when I was called forth … to receive learned that my total organismic sensing of [the award]” (Rogers, 1974, p. 117). In 1972 a situation is more trustworthy than my Rogers received the Distinguished Professional intellect. Contribution Award from the APA, making him All of my professional life I have been the first person in the history of the APA to receive going in directions which others thought both the Distinguished Scientific and Professional were foolish, and about which I have had Contribution Awards. many doubts myself. But I have never re- gretted moving in directions which “felt Rogers’sTheoryof Personality. At the urging right,” even though I have often felt lonely of others, Rogers developed a theory of personality or foolish at the time. … Experience is for to account for the phenomena he had observed me, the highest authority. … Neither the during the therapeutic process. The rudiments of Bible nor the prophets—neither Freud nor his theory were first presented in his APA presiden- research—neither the revelations of God tial address (Rogers, 1947) and then expanded in his nor man—can take precedence over my Client-Centered Therapy (1951). The most complete own experience. (pp. 22–24) statement of his theory was in a chapter titled “A Theory of Therapy, Personality, and Interpersonal Unfortunately, according to Rogers, most peo- Relationships, as Developed in the Client-Centered ple do not live according to their innermost feelings Framework” (Rogers, 1959). (the organismic valuing process). A problem arises

594 CHAPTER 18 because of our childhood need for positive re- psychologically adjusted, and would be fully gard. Positive regard involves receiving such things functioning. (Rogers, 1959, p. 224) as love, warmth, sympathy, and acceptance from the relevant people in a child’s life. If positive re- When conditions of worth replace the organis- gard is given freely to a child, no problem will arise, mic valuing process as a guide for living, the person but usually it is not freely given. Instead parents (or becomes incongruent. What Rogers called an in- other relevant people) give children positive regard congruent person is essentially the same as what only if they act or think in certain ways. This sets up the existentialists call an inauthentic person. In both conditions of worth. The children soon learn that cases, the person is no longer true to his or her own in order to receive love, they must act and think in feelings. Rogers viewed incongruency as the cause accordance with the values of the relevant people in of mental disorders, and he believed therefore that their lives. Gradually, as the children internalize the goal of psychotherapy is to help people over- those values, the values replace the organismic val- come conditions of worth and again live in accor- uing process as a guide for living life. As long as dance with their organismic valuing processes. people live their lives according to someone else’s Rogers (1959) described this goal as follows: values instead of their own true feelings, experience will be edited, and certain experiences that would This, as we see it, is the basic estrangement in have been in accord with the organismic valuing man. He has not been true to himself, to his process will be denied: own natural organismic valuing of experi- ence, but for the sake of preserving the pos- In order to hold the love of a parent, the itive regard of others has now come to falsify child introjects as his own values and per- some of the values he experiences and to ceptions which he does not actually ex- perceive them only in terms based upon their perience. He then denies to awareness the value to others. Yet this has not been a con- organismic experiencings that contradict scious choice, but a natural—and tragic— these introjections. Thus, his self-concept development in infancy. The path of devel- contains false elements that are not based opment toward psychological maturity, the on what he is, in his experiencing. path of therapy, is the undoing of this (Rogers, 1966, p. 192) estrangement in man’s functioning, the dis- solving of conditions of worth, the achieve- According to Rogers, there is only one way to ment of a self which is congruent with avoid imposing conditions of worth on people, and experience, and the restoration of a unified that is to give them unconditional positive regard. organismic valuing process as the regulator of With unconditional positive regard, people are behavior. (pp. 226–227) loved and respected for what they truly are; there- fore, there is no need for certain experiences to be When people are living in accordance with denied or distorted. Only someone who experi- their organismic valuing process, they are fully ences unconditional positive regard can become a functioning. The fully functioning person embraces fully functioning person: life in much the same way as Maslow’s self- If an individual should experience only un- actualizing person does. conditional positive regard, then no conditions Rogers fully appreciated the fact that human of worth would develop, self-regard would growth can be facilitated by relationships other be unconditional, the needs for positive re- than that between therapist and client. Rogers gard and self-regard would never be at vari- (1980) described the conditions that must charac- ance with organismic evaluation, and the in- terize any relationship if that relationship is going to dividual would continue to be facilitate personal growth:

HUM ANISTIC (THIRD -FORCE) PSYCHOLOGY 595 There are three conditions that must be simply as humanistic psychology. The following is present in order for a climate to be growth a list of beliefs shared by existential and humanistic promoting. These conditions apply psychology: whether we are speaking of the relation- ■ Humans have a free will and are therefore re- ship between therapist and client, parent sponsible for their actions. and child, leader and group, teacher and student, or administrator and staff. The ■ The most appropriate method by which to conditions apply, in fact, in any situation in study humans is phenomenology, the study of which the development of the person is a intact subjective experience. goal. … The first element could be called ■ To be understood, the human must be studied genuineness, realness, or congruence. … as a whole. Elementism of any type gives a The second attitude of importance in distorted view of human nature. creating a climate for change is acceptance, ■ Humans are unique, and therefore anything or caring, or prizing—what I have called learned about other animals is irrelevant to the “unconditional positive regard.”… The third understanding of humans. facilitative aspect of the relationship is em- pathic understanding. … This kind of sensi- ■ Each human is unique, therefore, anything tive, active listening is exceedingly rare in learned about one human is irrelevant to the our lives. We think we listen, but very understanding of others. rarely do we listen with real understanding, ■ Hedonism is not a major motive in human true empathy. Yet listening, of this very behavior. Instead of seeking pleasure and special kind, is one of the most potent avoiding pain, humans seek meaningful lives forces for change that I know. [italics characterized by personal growth. added] (pp. 115–116) ■ Living an authentic life is better than living an Rogers’s person-centered psychology has been inauthentic one. applied to such diverse areas as religion, medicine, ■ Because they possess unique attributes such as law enforcement, ethnic and cultural relations, pol- free will, humans cannot be effectively studied itics, and international conflict, as well as organiza- using traditional scientific methodology. tional development (Levant and Schlien, 1984); Perhaps humans can be studied objectively, but education (Rogers, 1969, 1983); marriage to do so would require the creation of a new, (Rogers, 1972); personal power (Rogers, 1977); uniquely human science. and the future (Rogers, 1980). The major difference between existential and We will have more to say about Rogers’s con- humanistic psychology lies in their assumptions tributions to professional psychology in Chapter 21. about human nature. The humanists assume that humans are basically good, and therefore, if placed in a healthy environment, they will naturally live a COMPARISON O F life in harmony with other humans. For humanists the major motivation in life is the actualizing ten- EXISTENTIAL AND dency, which is innate and which continually drives HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY a person toward those activities and events condu- cive to self-actualization. The existentialists, on the Existential and humanistic psychology have enough other hand, view human nature as essentially neu- in common to cause them often to be lumped to- tral. For them, the only thing we are born with is gether as “existential-humanistic psychology” or the freedom to choose the nature of our existence.

596 CHAPTER 18 This is what Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) meant does not dwell as much on the meaning of death in by his famous statement “Existence precedes human existence. For additional discussion of the essence.” For Sartre and most existential philoso- differences between existential philosophy and hu- phers, there is no human essence at birth. We are manistic psychology, see DeCarvalho (1990). free to choose our own essence as a unique human In Chapter 21 we will note the similarities be- being. We become our choices: “Man is nothing tween third-force psychology and contemporary else but what he makes of himself. Such is the first postmodernism. principle of existentialism” (Sartre, 1957, p. 15). We can exercise our freedom to create any type of life we wish, either good or bad. The major Evaluation motive in life, according to the existentialist, is to Modern humanistic psychology began as a protest create meaning by effectively making choices. Many movement against behaviorism and psychoanalysis. existential thinkers have reached the conclusion Behaviorism saw too much similarity between that without meaning, life is not worth living, but humans and other animals. The protesters con- that with meaning, humans can tolerate almost any tended that behaviorism concentrated on trivial conditions. Frankl quoted Nietzsche as saying, “He types of behavior and ignored or minimized the who has a why to live can bear with almost any mental and emotional processes that make humans how” (1946/1984, p. 12). Frankl maintained that unique. Psychoanalysis focused on abnormal indivi- there is only one motivational force for humans, duals and emphasized unconscious or sexual moti- and that is what he called the “will to meaning” vation while ignoring healthy individuals whose (1946/1984, p. 121). primary motives included personal growth and the Generally, the view of human nature the hu- improvement of society. Humanistic psychologists manists hold causes them to be optimistic about criticized scientific psychology in general because it humans and their future. If societies could be modeled itself after the physical sciences by assum- made compatible with our nature, they say, humans ing determinism and seeking lawfulness among clas- could live together in peace and harmony. The ex- ses of events. Scientific psychology also viewed in- istentialists are more pessimistic. For them, humans dividual uniqueness, something that was very have no built-in guidance system but only the free- important to humanistic psychology, as a nuisance; dom to choose. Because we are free, we cannot only general laws were of interest. Also, because blame God, our parents, genetics, or circumstances science and reliable measurement went hand in for our misfortune—only ourselves. This responsi- hand, scientific psychology excluded many impor- bility often makes freedom more of a curse than a tant human attributes from study simply because of blessing, and people often choose not to exercise the difficulty of measuring them. Processes such as their freedom by conforming to values that others willing, valuing, and seeking meaning are examples have formulated. In his famous book Escape from of such attributes, as are such emotions as love, Freedom (1941), Erich Fromm (1900–1980) said guilt, despair, happiness, and hope. that often the first thing people do when they rec- ognize their freedom is attempt to escape from it by affiliating themselves with someone or something Criticisms that will reduce or eliminate their choices. It should come as no surprise that humanistic psy- Another important difference between existen- chology itself has been criticized. Each of the fol- tial and humanistic psychologists is that for the lowing has been offered as one of its weaknesses: existentialist, the realization that one’s death is in- evitable is extremely important. Before a rich, full ■ Humanistic psychology equates behaviorism life is possible, one must come to grips with the fact with the work of Watson and Skinner. Both that one’s life is finite. The humanistic psychologist men stressed environmental events as the causes

HUM ANISTIC (THIRD -FORCE) PSYCHOLOGY 597 of human behavior and denied the importance theory in studying human behavior is, at best, of mental events. Other behaviorists, however, regressive. stress both mental events and purpose in their ■ Many of the terms and concepts that human- analysis of behavior—for example, McDougall istic psychologists use are so nebulous that they and Tolman. defy clear definition and verification. There is ■ Humanistic psychology overlooks the cumu- even confusion over the definition of human- lative nature of science by insisting that scien- istic psychology. After searching for a definition tific psychology does not care about the loftier of humanistic psychology in the Journal of human attributes. The problem is that we are Humanistic Psychology, in various books on hu- not yet prepared to study such attributes. One manistic psychology, and in the programs of must first learn a language before one can the Division of Humanistic Psychology of the compose poetry. The type of scientific psy- APA, Michael Wertheimer (1978) reached the chology that humanistic psychologists criticize following conclusion: provides the basis for the future study of more complex human characteristics. It is hard to quarrel with such goals as au- ■ The description of humans that humanistic thenticity, actualizing the potential inher- psychologists offer is like the more favorable ent in every human being, creating truly ones found through the centuries in poetry, meaningful human relationships, being literature, or religion. It represents a type of fully in touch with our innermost feelings, wishful thinking that is not supported by the and expanding our awareness. But what, facts that more objective psychology has accu- really, is humanistic psychology? To para- mulated. We should not ignore facts just be- phrase an old Jewish joke, if you ask two cause they are not to our liking. humanists what humanistic psychology is, you are likely to get at least three mutually ■ Humanistic psychology criticizes behaviorism, incompatible definitions.… It is highly psychoanalysis, and scientific psychology in unlikely that an explicit definition of [hu- general, but all three have made significant manistic psychology] could be written that contributions to the betterment of the human would satisfy even a small fraction of the condition. In other words, all three have done people who call themselves “humanistic the very thing that humanistic psychology sets psychologists.” (pp. 739, 743) as one of its major goals. ■ If humanistic psychology rejects traditional scientific methodology as a means of evaluating Contributions propositions about humans, what is to be used To be fair to humanistic psychologists, it must be in its place? If intuition or reasoning alone is to pointed out that they usually do not complain that be used, this enterprise should not be referred behaviorism, psychoanalysis, and scientific psychol- to as psychology but would be more accurately ogy have made no contributions to the understand- labeled philosophy or even religion. The hu- ing of humans. Rather, their claim has been that manistic approach to studying humans is often behaviorism and psychoanalysis tell only part of characterized as a throwback to psychology’s the story and that perhaps some important human prescientific past. attributes cannot be studied using the traditional ■ By rejecting animal research, humanistic psy- methods and assumptions of science. As William chologists are turning their backs on an ex- James said, if existing methods are ineffective for tremely valuable source of knowledge about studying certain aspects of human nature, it is not humans. Not to use the insights of evolutionary those aspects of human nature that are to be

598 CHAPTER 18 discarded but the methods. Humanistic psycholo- Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) describe gists do not want to discard scientific inquiry; they what positive psychology has in common with tra- want to expand our conception of science so that ditional humanistic psychology and what makes it scientific inquiry can be used to study the higher different: human attributes. [The purpose of positive psychology] is to The expansion of psychology’s domain is hu- remind our field that psychology is not just manistic psychology’s major contribution to the the study of pathology, weakness, and discipline. In psychology, there is now an increased damage; it is also the study of strength and tendency to study the whole person. We are con- virtue. Treatment is not just fixing what is cerned with not only how people learn, think, and broken; it is nurturing what is best. mature biologically and intellectually but also how Psychology is not just a branch of medi- people formulate plans to attain future goals and cine concerned with illness or health; it is why people laugh, cry, and create meaning in their much larger. It is about work, education, lives. In the opinion of many, the humanistic para- insight, love, growth, and play. And in this digm has breathed new life into psychology. quest for what is best, positive psychology Recently, a field called positive psychology has does not rely on wishful thinking, faith, developed that, like traditional humanistic psychol- self-deception, fads, or hand waving; it ogy, explores positive human attributes. However, tries to adapt what is best in the scientific according to Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000), method to the unique problems that hu- although the aspirations of humanistic psychology man behavior presents to those who wish were admirable, its accomplishments typically were to understand it in all its complexity. (p. 7) not: Unfortunately, humanistic psychology did Both positive psychologists and the earlier hu- not attract much of a cumulative empirical manistic psychologists agree that mental health is base, and it spawned myriad therapeutic more than the absence of mental illness. Currently, self-help movements. In some of its in- the term flourishing is used to describe people who carnations, it emphasized the self and en- are not only free from mental illness but, more im- couraged a self-centeredness that played portantly, are filled with vitality and are functioning down concerns for collective well-being. optimally in their personal and social lives. Keyes Future debate will determine whether this (2007, p. 95) estimates that only one fifth of the came about because Maslow and Rogers U.S. adult population is flourishing. A major goal were ahead of their times, because these of positive psychology is to increase that number, flaws were inherent in their original vision, and the earlier humanistic psychologists would no or because of overly enthusiastic followers. doubt support that goal. In fact, the characteristics However, one legacy of the humanism of of flourishing individuals are essentially the same as the 1960s is prominently displayed in any those thought by Maslow to characterize self- large bookstore: The “psychology” section actualizing individuals or those thought by Rogers contains at least 10 shelves on crystal to characterize fully functioning individuals. healing, aromatherapy, and reaching the For additional information on positive psychol- inner child for every shelf of books that ogy, see Aspinwall and Staudinger, 2003; Firestone, tries to uphold some scholarly standard. Firestone, and Catlett, 2003; Fowers, 2005; Keyes, (p. 7) 2007; Keyes and Haidt, 2003; Lopez and Snyder, 2003; Seligman, Steen, Park, and Peterson, 2005.

HUM ANISTIC (THIRD -FORCE) PSYCHOLOGY 599 SUMMARY The 1960s were troubled times in the United or unattractive, and so on. It is up to each person States, and a group of psychologists emerged who to make the most of his or her life no matter what believed that behaviorism and psychoanalysis, the the circumstances. Positive growth occurs when a two major forces in psychology at the time, were person explores possibilities for living through his or neglecting important aspects of human existence. her choices. Choosing, however, requires entering What was needed was a third force that emphasized the unknown, and this causes anxiety. For the positive, creative, and emotional side of hu- Heidegger then, exercising one’s freedom requires mans. This third-force psychology is a combination courage, but only by exercising one’s freedom can of existential philosophy and romantic notions of one live an authentic life—a life that the person humans; the combination is called humanistic psy- chooses and therefore a life for which the person chology, as well as third-force psychology. is completely responsible. If a person lives his or her Humanistic psychologists are phenomenologists. life in accordance with other people’s values, he or In modern times, Brentano and Husserl developed she is living an inauthentic life. For Heidegger the phenomenology, which is the study of intact, con- first step toward living an authentic life is to come scious experiences as they occur and without any to grips with the inevitability of death (nonbeing). preconceived notions about the nature of those ex- Once a person comprehends and deals with fini- periences. According to Brentano, all conscious acts tude, he or she can proceed to live a rich, full, intend (refer to) something outside themselves. An authentic life. example is the statement “I see that girl.” Husserl Binswanger applied Heidegger’s philosophical thought that a careful, objective study of mental ideas to psychiatry and psychology. Binswanger called phenomena could provide a bridge between philos- his approach to psychotherapy Daseinanalysis, or the ophy and science. Besides the type of phenomenol- study of a person’s approach to being-in-the-world. ogy that focuses on intentionality, Husserl proposed Binswanger divided Dasein into the Umwelt (the a second type, a pure phenomenology that studies physical world), the Mitwelt (the social world), and the essence of subjective experience. Thus, for the Eigenwelt (the person’s self-perceptions). Husserl, phenomenology could study the mind According to Binswanger, each person embraces life’s turned outward or turned inward. experiences through a Weltanschauung, or world- As used by existentialists, phenomenology be- design, which is a general orientation toward life. came a study of the totality of human existence. Binswanger attempted to understand his patients’ Such a study focuses on the full range of human world-designs; if a patient’s world-design was proving cognitive and emotional experience, including anx- to be ineffective, he would suggest alternative, poten- iety, dread, fear, joy, guilt, and anguish. Husserl’s tially more effective ones. Like Heidegger, student Heidegger expanded phenomenology into Binswanger believed that the circumstances into existential inquiry. Heidegger studied Dasein, or which one was thrown place limits on personal free- being-in-the-world. Dasein means “to be there”; dom. Thrownness creates what Binswanger called the but for humans “to be there” means “to exist ground of existence from which one has to begin the there,” and existence is a complex process involving process of becoming by exercising one’s freedom. the interpretation and the evaluation of one’s ex- According to Binswanger, each person attempts to periences and making choices regarding those rise above his or her ground of existence and to attain experiences. Heidegger believed that although hu- being-beyond-the-world—that is,toriseabove cur- mans have a free will, they are thrown by events rent circumstances by transforming them through free beyond their control into their life circumstances. choice. Thrownness determines such things as whether a May was primarily responsible for bringing ex- person is male or female, rich or poor, attractive istential psychology to the United States. Like the

600 CHAPTER 18 other existential psychologists, May believed that would create a role for his client to play that was normal, healthy living involves the experience of distinctly different from the client’s personality. By anxiety because living an authentic life necessitates offering the client support and help in playing his or venturing into the unknown. If a person cannot her role, Kelly became a supporting actor and helped cope with normal anxiety, he or she will develop the client to view himself or herself differently. Once neurotic anxiety and will be driven from an au- the client saw that there were alternative ways of thentic life to a life of conformity or to a life that viewing one’s self, one’s life, and one’s problems, im- is overly restrictive. Furthermore, because the per- provement often resulted. According to Kelly, neu- son with neurotic anxiety is not exercising his or rotics have lost their ability to “make-believe,” and it her human capacity to choose, he or she experi- is the therapist’s task to restore it. Kelley’s fixed-role ences guilt. Thus, an authentic life is characterized therapy can be seen as an early version of narrative by normal anxiety and guilt and an inauthentic life therapy. by neurotic anxiety and guilt. May believed that According to Maslow, usually considered the healthy people embrace myths that provide a sense founder of third-force psychology, human needs of identity and community, support moral values, are arranged in a hierarchy. If one satisfactorily and provide a way of dealing with the mysteries of meets the physiological, safety, belonging and life. People without such myths feel isolated and love, and esteem needs, then one is in position to fearful and often seek professional help. By analyz- become self-actualized. Leading a life characterized ing the effectiveness of the stories by which people by fullness, spontaneity, and creativity, the self- live, narrative therapy reflects May’s belief in the actualizing person is being-motivated rather than pragmatic value of myths. According to May, myths deficiency-motivated. That is, because this person often reflect the daimonic, which is the potential of has met the basic needs, he or she does not need any human attribute or function to become nega- to seek specific things in the environment. Rather, tive if it is expressed excessively. May believed the he or she can embrace the world fully and openly most unique aspects of humans elude traditional and ponder the higher values of life. Toward the scientific methodology and, therefore, if humans end of his life, Maslow proposed fourth-force or are to be studied scientifically, a new human science transpersonal psychology, which explores a person’s will need to be created. relationship to the universe and emphasized the Kelly, who was not trained as a clinical psy- mystical and spiritual aspects of human nature. chologist, tried a number of approaches to helping Rogers concluded that the only way to under- emotionally disturbed individuals. He found that stand a person is to determine how that person anything that caused his clients to view themselves views things—that is, to determine that person’s and their problems differently resulted in improve- subjective reality. This view resulted in Rogers’s ment. Because of this observation, Kelly concluded famous client-centered therapy, which was the first that mental problems are really perceptual pro- major therapeutic alternative to psychoanalysis. blems, and he maintained that humans are free to Rogers was also the first clinician to attempt to construe themselves and the world in any way they quantify the effectiveness of therapy. He did this choose. They do this by creating a construct system by employing the Q-technique (or Q-sort tech- that is, or should be, tested empirically. Any num- nique), which allows the comparison between a ber of constructs can be used to construe any situa- person’s real self and his or her ideal self at various tion. That is, one can always view the world in a points during the therapeutic process. Like Maslow, variety of ways, so how one views it is a matter of Rogers postulated an innate actualizing tendency. personal choice. Like Vaihinger, Kelly encouraged For this actualizing tendency to be realized, one propositional thinking—experimentation with ideas has to use the organismic valuing process as a frame to see where they lead. In fixed-role therapy, Kelly of reference in living one’s life; that is, one has to had his clients write a self-characterization; then, he use one’s own inner feelings in determining the

HUM ANISTIC (THIRD -FORCE) PSYCHOLOGY 601 value of various experiences. If one lives according Watson and Skinner and thereby ignoring the to one’s organismic valuing process, one is a fully work of other behaviorists who stressed the impor- functioning person and is living an authentic life. tance of mental events and goal-directed behavior, Unfortunately, because humans have a need for for failing to understand that psychology’s scientific positive regard, they often allow the relevant peo- efforts must first concentrate on the simpler aspects ple in their lives to place conditions of worth on of humans before it can study the more complex them. When conditions of worth replace the or- aspects, for offering a description of humans more ganismic valuing process as a frame of reference positive than the facts warrant, for minimizing or for living one’s life, the person becomes incongru- ignoring the positive contributions of behaviorism ent and lives an inauthentic life. According to and psychoanalysis, for suggesting methods of in- Rogers, the only way to prevent incongruency is quiry that go back to psychology’s prescientific his- for the person to receive unconditional positive re- tory, for having more in common with philosophy gard from the relevant people in his or her life. and religion than with psychology, for overlooking Existential and humanistic psychology share the a valuable source of information by rejecting the following beliefs: humans possess a free will and are validity of animal research, and for using terms therefore responsible for their actions; phenome- and concepts so nebulous as to defy clear definition nology is the most appropriate method for studying or verification. Humanistic psychology’s major humans; humans must be studied as whole beings contribution has been to expand psychology’s do- and not divided up in any way; because humans are main by urging that all aspects of humans be inves- unique as a species, animal research is irrelevant to tigated and that psychology’s conception of science an understanding of humans; no two humans are be changed to allow objective study of uniquely alike; the search for meaning is the most important human attributes. Recently the field of positive human motive; all humans should aspire to live au- psychology has emerged, studying positive human thentic lives; and, because humans are unique, tra- attributes but doing so in a manner more scientifi- ditional scientific methodology cannot be used ef- cally rigorous and less self-centered than was often fectively to study them. The major difference the case with traditional humanistic psychology. between existential and humanistic psychology is However, both traditional humanistic psychology that the former views human nature as neutral and positive psychology insist that mental health is whereas the latter views it as basically good. more than the absence of mental illness. Both de- According to existential psychologists, because we scribe the truly healthy person as living an exciting, do not have an innate nature or guidance system, meaningful life. Whereas positive psychologists re- we must choose our existence. Existential psychol- fer to such a person as flourishing, traditional hu- ogists see freedom as a curse as well as a blessing and manistic psychologists had referred to him or her as something from which most humans attempt to self-actualizing (Maslow) or as fully functioning escape. (Rogers). Humanistic psychology has been criticized for equating behaviorism with the formulations of DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. What is third-force psychology? What did the 2. Describe Brentano’s phenomenology. What third-force psychologists see as the limitations did he mean by intentionality? What did Husserl of the other two forces? mean by pure phenomenology?

602 CHAPTER 18 3. How did Heidegger expand phenomenology? 13. What are the main tenets of humanistic Discuss the following terms and concepts from psychology? Heidegger’s theory: Dasein, authenticity, becom- 14. Summarize Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. ing, responsibility, and thrownness. 15. Why, according to Maslow, are self-actualizing 4. Describe Binswanger’s method of people so rare? Daseinanalysis. Discuss the following terms and 16. List what Maslow found to be the characteris- concepts from Binswanger’s theory: Umwelt, tics of self-actualizing people. Mitwelt, Eigenwelt, world-design, ground of exis- tence, and being-beyond-the-world. 17. What is the difference between deficiency motivation and being motivation? Give an 5. In May’s theory, what is the relationship be- example of each. tween anxiety and guilt? What is the difference between normal anxiety and neurotic anxiety? 18. Describe what Maslow meant by transpersonal or fourth-force psychology. 6. What, according to May, is the human dilemma? 19. How did Rogers attempt to measure the ef- fectiveness of psychotherapy? 7. For May, what functions do myths provide in human existence? What determines the con- 20. For Rogers, what constitutes an incongruent tent of classical myths? Are some myths better person? In your answer, include a discussion of than others? the organismic valuing process, the need for positive regard, and conditions of worth. 8. Describe the relationship between May’s belief in the importance of myth in living one’s life 21. According to Rogers, what is the only way to and contemporary narrative therapy. avoid incongruency? 9. Describe the kind of science that May believed 22. According to Rogers, what are the three major needs to be created in order to effectively study components of any relationship that facilitate humans. personal growth? 10. Why did Kelly maintain that all humans are 23. What are the similarities and differences be- like scientists? tween humanistic and existential psychology? 11. Describe Kelly’s concepts of constructive al- 24. Summarize the criticisms and contributions of ternativism and prepositional thinking. humanistic psychology. 12. Describe Kelly’s approach to psychotherapy. 25. Compare the contemporary field of positive What did Kelly mean when he said that psy- psychology with traditional humanistic chological problems are perceptual problems? psychology. What techniques did Kelly use to help his cli- ents regain their ability to make-believe? SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING Coon, D. J. (2006). Abraham H. Maslow: Hoffman, E. (1988). The right to be human: A biography of Reconnaissance for Eupsychia. In D. A. Dewsbury, Abraham Maslow. Los Angeles: Tarcher. L. T. Benjamin Jr., & M. Wertheimer (Eds.), Inwood, M. (2000). Heidegger: A very short introduction. Portraits of pioneers in psychology (Vol. 6, pp. 255– New York: Oxford University Press. 271). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

HUM ANISTIC (THIRD -FORCE) PSYCHOLOGY 603 Jankowicz, A. D. (1987). Whatever happened to George May, R. (1991). The cry for myth. New York: Norton. Kelly? Applications and implications. American Rogers, C. R. (1980). A way of being. Boston: Houghton Psychologist, 42, 481–487. Mifflin. Kelly, G. A. (1964). The language of hypotheses: Man’s Royce, J. R., & Mos, L. P. (Eds.). (1981). Humanistic psychological instrument. Journal of Individual psychology: Concepts and criticisms. New York: Psychology, 20, 137–152. Plenum. Kirschenbaum, H. (1979). On becoming Carl Rogers. New Schneider, K. J. (1998). Toward a science of the heart: York: Dell. Romanticism and the revival of psychology. Maslow, A. H. (1968). Toward a psychology of being (2nd American Psychologist, 53, 277–289. ed.). New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. Seligman, M. E. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Maslow, A. H. (1971). The farther reaches of human nature. Positive psychology: An introduction. American New York: Penguin Books. Psychologist, 55, 5–14. Maslow, A. H. (1987). Motivation and personality (3rd ed.). New York: Harper & Row. (Original work pub- lished 1954) GLOSSAR Y Anxiety The feeling that results when one confronts emotionally disturbed person is to determine how that the unknown, as when one contemplates death or when person views himself or herself and the world. (See also one’s choices carry one into new life circumstances. Daseinanalysis and World-design.) According to existentialists, one cannot live an authentic Conditions of worth According to Rogers, the con- life without experiencing anxiety. ditions that the relevant people in our lives place on us Authentic life According to existentialists, the type of and that we must meet before these people will give us life that is freely chosen and not dictated by the values of positive regard. others. In such a life, one’s own feelings, values, and Construct systems According to Kelly, the collection interpretations act as a guide for conduct. of personal constructs with which people make predic- Becoming A characteristic of the authentic life because tions about future events. the authentic person is always becoming something other Constructive alternativism Kelly’s notion that it is than what he or she was. Becoming is the normal, always possible to view ourselves and the world in a healthy psychological growth of a human being. variety of ways. Being motivation For Maslow, the type of motivation Courage According to existentialists, that attribute that characterizes the self-actualizing person. Because necessary for living an authentic life because such a life is being motivation is not need-directed, it embraces the characterized by uncertainty. higher values of human existence, such as beauty, truth, Daimonic According to May, any human attribute or and justice. (Also called B-motivation.) function that in moderation is positive but in excess is Being perception Perception that embraces fully “what negative. is there” because it is not an attempt to locate specific items Dasein Heidegger’s term for “being-in-the-world.” that will satisfy needs. (Also called B-perception.) The world does not exist without humans, and humans Being-beyond-the-world Binswanger’s term for be- do not exist without the world. Because humans exist in coming. The healthy individual always attempts to tran- the world, it is there that they must exercise their free scend what he or she is. will. Being-in-the-world means existing in the world, Binswanger, Ludwig (1881–1966) Applied and existing means interpreting and valuing one’s ex- Heidegger’s existential philosophy to psychiatry and periences and making choices regarding those psychology. For Binswanger a prerequisite for helping an experiences.

604 CHAPTER 18 Daseinanalysis Binswanger’s method of psychother- assumes that humans are basically good. That is, if neg- apy that requires that the therapist understand the client’s ative environmental factors do not stifle human devel- worldview. Daseinanalysis examines a person’s mode of opment, humans will live humane lives. Humanistic being-in-the-world. psychology is concerned with examining the more pos- Deficiency motivation According to Maslow, moti- itive aspects of human nature that behaviorism and psy- vation that is directed toward the satisfaction of some choanalysis had neglected. (Also called third-force specific need. (Also called D-motivation.) psychology.) Eigenwelt Binswanger’s term for a person’s private, Inauthentic life A life lived in accordance with values inner experiences. other than those freely and personally chosen. Such a life is characterized by guilt. Existential psychology The brand of contemporary psychology that was influenced by existential philosophy. Incongruent person Rogers’s term for the person The key concepts in existential psychology include whose organismic valuing process is replaced by condi- freedom, individuality, responsibility, anxiety, guilt, tions of worth as a guide for living. thrownness, and authenticity. Intentionality Brentano’s contention that every mental Fixed-role therapy Kelly’s brand of therapy whereby act refers to something external to the act. he would assign a role for his clients to play that was Jonah complex According to Maslow, the fear of one’s distinctly different from the client’s self-characterization. own potential greatness. With this type of therapy, the therapist acts much like a Kelly, George (1905–1967) Emphasized that it is al- supporting actor. (See also Self-characterization.) ways possible to construe one’s self and the world in a Flourishing According to positive psychologists, the variety of ways. For Kelly, psychological problems are state of being free from mental illness and also living an essentially perceptual problems. enthusiastic, meaningful, and effective life. Maslow, Abraham (1908–1970) A humanistic psy- Ground of existence Binswanger’s term for the cir- chologist who emphasized the innate human tendency cumstances into which a person is thrown and according toward self-actualization. Maslow contended that be- to which he or she must make choices. (Also called haviorism and psychoanalysis provided only a partial facticity.) (See also Thrownness.) understanding of human existence and that humanistic, or third-force, psychology needed to be added to com- Guilt The feeling that results most intensely from living plete our understanding. an inauthentic life. May, Rollo (1909–1994) Psychologist who was in- Heidegger, Martin (1889–1976) Expanded Husserl’s strumental in bringing European existential philosophy phenomenology to include an examination of the total- and psychology to the United States. ity of human existence. Mitwelt Binswanger’s term for the realm of social Hierarchy of needs Maslow’s contention that human interactions. needs are arranged in a hierarchy and that lower needs in the hierarchy must be adequately satisfied before atten- Narrative therapy Examines the stories by which tion can be focused on higher needs. The most basic and people live and understand their lives and, where nec- powerful needs in the hierarchy are physiological needs, essary, encourages the replacement of ineffective stories and then come safety needs, needs for belonging and with effective ones. love, and the need for self-esteem. When all lower needs Need for positive regard According to Rogers, the in the hierarchy are adequately satisfied, a person be- need for positive responses from the relevant people in comes self-actualizing. one’s life. Human dilemma According to May, the paradox that Need-directed perception Perception whose purpose results from the dual nature of humans as objects to is to locate things in the environment that will satisfy a which things happen and as subjects who assign meaning need. (Also called deficiency perception or to their experiences. D-perception.) Humanistic psychology The branch of psychology Neurotic anxiety The abnormal fear of freedom that that is closely aligned with existential psychology. Unlike results in a person living a life that minimizes personal existential psychology, however, humanistic psychology choice.

HUM ANISTIC (THIRD -FORCE) PSYCHOLOGY 605 Normal anxiety Results from living an authentic life. valuing process, Self-actualization, and (See also Authentic life.) Unconditional positive regard.) Ontology The study of the nature of existence. Self-actualization According to Rogers and Maslow, Organismic valuing process According to Rogers, the innate human tendency toward wholeness. The self- the innate, internal guidance system that a person can use actualizing person is open to experience and embraces to “stay on the track” toward self-actualization. the higher values of human existence. Phenomenology The introspective study of intact, Self-alienation According to existentialists, the condi- mental experiences. tion that results when people accept values other than Positive psychology Field in contemporary psychol- those that they attained freely and personally as guides for ogy that explores the positive attributes of humans but living. does so in a more scientifically rigorous and less self- Self-characterization The self-description that Kelly centered way than was often the case with traditional required of many of his clients before beginning their humanistic psychology. therapeutic program. Propositional thinking According to Kelly, the ex- Shut-upness Kierkegaard’s term for the type of life perimentation with ideas to see where they lead. lived by a defensive, inauthentic person. Pure phenomenology The methodology proposed by Subjective reality A person’s consciousness. Husserl to discover the essence of those mental acts and Third-force psychology See Humanistic processes by which we gain all knowledge. psychology. Responsibility A necessary by-product of freedom. If Thrownness According to Heidegger and Binswanger, we are free to choose our own existence, then we are the circumstances that characterize a person’s existence completely responsible for that existence. that are beyond the person’s control. (See also Ground Rogers, Carl (1902–1987) A humanist psychologist of existence.) whose nondirective and then client-centered psycho- Transpersonal psychology Maslow’s proposed fourth therapy was seen by many as the first viable alternative to force in psychology that stresses the relationship between psychoanalysis as a method for treating troubled indivi- the individual and the cosmos (universe) and in so doing duals. Like Maslow’s, Rogers’s theory of personality focuses on the mystical and spiritual aspects of human emphasized the innate tendency toward self- nature. actualization. According to Rogers, a person continues Umwelt Binswanger’s term for the physical world. toward self-actualization unless his or her organismic valuing process is displaced by conditions of worth as a Unconditional positive regard According to Rogers, guide for living. The only way to avoid creating condi- the giving of positive regard without any preconditions. tions of worth is to give a person unconditional positive World-design (Weltanschauung) Binswanger’s term for a regard. (See also Conditions of worth, Organismic person’s basic orientation toward the world and life.

19 ✵ Psychobiology sychobiology attempts to explain psychological phenomena in terms of P their biological foundations. The search for the biological foundations of mental events has been a recurring theme in the history of psychology and has been represented by such individuals as Hippocrates, Aristotle, Galen, Hartley, Bain, Weber, Fechner, Helmholtz, Pavlov, and Freud. Because radical behavior- ism discouraged a search for any internal causes of behavior, as its influence di- minished there arose a resurgence of interest not only in cognitive psychology (see Chapter 20) but in psychobiology as well. Our small sample of psychobio- logical research includes the pioneering work of Karl Lashley and two illustrious psychobiologists he influenced—Donald Hebb and Roger Sperry. KARL S. LASHLEY Karl Spencer Lashley (1890–1958) was born on June 7 in Davis, West Virginia, an only child. His father was a businessman and politician, his mother a schoolteacher. Lashley received his undergraduate education at the University of West Virginia and his graduate education first at the University of Pittsburgh and then at Johns Hopkins University, from which he received his PhD in 1914. While at Johns Hopkins, Lashley came under the influence of J. B. Watson, and much of Lashley’s early work reflected Watson’s influence. As we saw in Chapter 12, it was Lashley with whom Watson did his pioneering ethological research. In 1916 Lashley’s collaboration with Watson ended because Lashley was interested in seeking the neurophysiological bases of conditioned reflexes and Watson was not. Although the two went their separate ways professionally, they remained close friends. In 1917 Lashley went to the University of Minnesota and then, in 1926, to the University of Chicago. In 1935 Lashley moved to Harvard, and in 1942 he became director of the Yerkes Laboratories 606

PSYCHOBIOLOGY 607 destruction of parts of the cortex is related more to the amount of destruction than to the location of destruction. This finding, called mass action, indi- cated that the cortex works as a unified whole, as the Gestaltists had maintained. It is important to note, however, that Lashley found the principle of mass action to be true only for the ablation of cor- tical tissue following complex learning (such as Akron maze learning). Presumably, localized cortical le- of sions following such learning has little effect on University task retention because it involves many different sensory cues and because motor responses are in- Archives—The volved, corresponding to many different cortical areas. For a simpler learning task, such as a bright- © Psychology ness discrimination, lesions in the posterior cortex disrupt retention. The second observation was that any part of a functional area of the brain can perform the func- Karl S. Lashley tion associated with that area. For example, within the visual area of the cortex, any of the cells within of Primate Biology in Orange Park, Florida (be- that area allow vision to occur. To destroy a brain cause Yerkes Laboratories was supervised by function, then, the entire brain area associated with Harvard, Lashley remained affiliated with that uni- that function would need to be destroyed. If any versity). Although Lashley retired as director of part of the area were spared, the function would Yerkes Laboratories in 1955, he remained on the still be maintained. Lashley called this second obser- board of directors until his sudden death on vation equipotentiality, and it too supported the August 7, 1958, while vacationing in France. contention that the brain acted as an integrated As mentioned, Lashley was initially a supporter whole and not as a mechanistic switchboard. The of Watsonian behaviorism, and he sought to sup- research from which the principles of mass action port the associationism on which it was based with and equipotentiality were derived, and much of neurophysiological evidence. But time after time, Lashley’s additional creative research, was summa- Lashley was frustrated in his efforts to show that rized by Beach, Hebb, Morgan, and Nissen (1960). the brain worked like a complex switchboard link- ing sensory impulses to motor reactions. Contrary to his original intention, Lashley gradually showed In Search of the Engram that brain activity was more like the Gestaltists’ de- The engram is the neurophysiological locus of scription than like the behaviorists’. He found no memory and learning. Lashley spent decades evidence that stimulation of specific areas of the searching for the engram and in the end expressed brain is associated with the elicitation of specific his frustration as follows: responses. This series of experiments has yielded a good bit of information about what and Mass Action and Equipotentiality where the memory trace is not. It has dis- Lashley made two major observations that were covered nothing directly of the real nature contrary to the switchboard conception of the of the engram. I sometimes feel, in re- brain. One was that loss of ability following viewing the evidence on the localization of

608 CHAPTER 19 the memory trace, that the necessary con- brain—and Lashley’s work showed that this type clusion is that learning is just not possible. of localization does not exist either. (1950, pp. 477–478) In 1929 Lashley, then president of the APA, gave an address to the International Congress of This frustration was not new. Compare Lashley’s Psychology meeting in New Haven describing his conclusion with that of Cicero (106–43 B.C.): research on brain functioning. Also in 1929, Lashley But for my part I wonder at memory in a published his influential book Brain Mechanisms and still greater degree. For what is it that en- Intelligence. Because of Lashley’s prestige and because ables us to remember, what character has his findings were generally supportive of Gestalt the- it, or what is its origin? … Do we think ory, his address did much to promote the acceptance there is … a sort of roominess into which of Gestalt psychology—despite the fact that Lashley the things we remember can be poured as could not find evidence for the electrical fields of if into a kind of vessel? … Or do we think brain activity so important to Gestalt theory that … memory consists of the traces of (Lashley, Chow, and Semmes, 1951). things registered in the mind? What can be the traces of words, of actual objects, what further could be the enormous space ade- DONALD O. HEBB quate to the representation of such a mass of material? (King, 1927, p. 80) Donald Olding Hebb (1904–1985) was born on July 22 in Chester, Nova Scotia. Both of his parents Has the search for the engram been more suc- were medical doctors. He received his BA from cessful since Lashley’s efforts? Not according to Dalhousie University with the lowest grade average Finger (1994): a person could have and still graduate. After teach- In spite of the best efforts of some of the ing for a while, he entered McGill University as a brightest scientists, the nature and locus of graduate student in psychology in spite of his poor the engram have remained as elusive and undergraduate performance (presumably because mysterious to twentieth-century investi- the chair of the psychology department at McGill gators as they were to Cicero and other was a friend of Hebb’s mother). Hebb studied philosophers and naturalists who pondered Pavlovian psychology at McGill and was convinced the characteristics of the memory trace of its value. After receiving his master’s degree from long ago. (p. 346) McGill in 1932, he continued his education at the University of Chicago, where he worked with Concerning Lashley’s place in the history of Lashley and took a seminar from Köhler. Hebb’s psychology, D. N. Robinson says, “If we were to initial concurrence with Pavlovian psychology was summarize [Lashley’s] role in twentieth-century de- converted into outright opposition: “I had all the velopments in physiological psychology, we might fervor of the reformed drunk at a temperance meet- say that he bore the same relationship to the ing; having been a fully convinced Pavlovian, I was Pavlovians that Flourens bore to the phrenologists” now a fully convinced Gestalter-cum-Lashleyan” (1986, p. 421). In Chapter 8, we saw that Flourens’s (Hebb, 1959, p. 625). In 1935 Lashley accepted a research demonstrated that the cortex is not char- professorship at Harvard and invited Hebb to go acterized by localization of function, as the phre- with him. In 1936 Hebb obtained his PhD from nologists had assumed, but functions as a unit. Harvard and remained there for an additional year The Pavlovians (and Watson) assumed a different as a teacher and research assistant. type of localization—an association between certain In 1937 Hebb went to the Montreal sensory centers and certain motor centers in the Neurological Institute to work with the illustrious

PSYCHOBIOLOGY 609 Psychological Association (1952), the presidency of the APA (1959), and recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the APA (1961). “Donald Cell Assemblies and Phase Sequences PR0000387-Portrait. According to Hebb, the neural interconnections in a newborn’s brain are essentially random. It is ex- Collection. perience that causes this network of neurons to be- come organized and provide a means of effectively interacting with the environment. Hebb speculated Photographic Psychology”. that every environmental object we experience fires a complex package of neurons, called a cell assem- Archives. of bly. When we look at a pencil, for example, our attention shifts from the point, to the shaft, to the University Professor eraser. Each shift of attention causes different neu- rons to fire, and, at first, these neurons fire indepen- McGill Hebb, O. dently of the others. Eventually, however, because the neurons stimulated by the presence of a pencil fire either simultaneously or in close succession, Donald O. Hebb they become a neurological package corresponding brain surgeon Wilder Penfield. Hebb’s job was to to the experience of a pencil. According to Hebb, it evaluate Penfield’s patients after brain surgery. is reverberating neural activity that allows neurons that Hebb consistently found little or no loss of intelli- were temporarily separated to become associated. gence, even after substantial loss of tissue from the For example, the neurons activated by observing a frontal lobes of the brain. After five years of such pencil’s point become associated with the neurons observations (1937–1942), Hebb reached a conclu- activated by observing a pencil’s eraser, although sion about intelligence that was to guide much of the observations do not occur at exactly the same his later work: “Experience in childhood normally time. Hebb believed that neural activity caused by develops concepts, modes of thought, and ways of stimulation continued for a short time after the perceiving that constitute intelligence. Injury to the stimulation ceases (reverberating neural activity), infant brain interferes with that process, but the same thus allowing the development of successive neural injury at maturity does not reverse it” (1980, p. 292). associations. Once a cell assembly exists, it can be In 1942, when Lashley accepted an appoint- fired by internal or external stimulation or by a ment as director of the Yerkes Laboratories, Hebb combination of the two. When a cell assembly fires, joined him there and remained for five years. In we experience the thought of the environmental 1948 Hebb accepted an appointment as professor object or event to which the assembly corresponds. of psychology at McGill University, where he re- For Hebb the cell assembly was the neurological mained until his retirement. After retiring, Hebb basis of a thought or an idea. In this way, Hebb moved back to a small farm near Chester, Nova explained why environmental objects do not need Scotia, where he was born. He remained physically to be present for us to think about them. and psychologically active until he died on August Just as the various neurons stimulated by an 20, 1985, following what was thought to be routine object become neurologically interrelated to form hip surgery (Beach, 1987, p. 187). a cell assembly, so do cell assemblies become neu- Among Hebb’s many honors were eight honor- rologically interrelated to form phase sequences. ary doctorates, the presidency of the Canadian Hebb (1959) defined a phase sequence as “a

610 CHAPTER 19 temporally integrated series of assembly activities; it most influential form of artificial intelligence (AI), amounts to one current in the stream of thought” new connectionism. (p. 629). Like a cell assembly, a phase sequence can Space permits mention of only a few of Hebb’s be fired by internal or external stimulation or by a other pioneering efforts in psychobiology. In 1946 combination of the two; when one or more assem- he published an article summarizing his research on blies in a phase sequence fire, the entire phase the nature of fear. In 1949 he described the results sequence tends to fire. When the entire phase se- of a study in which animals were reared in either an quence fires, a stream of thought—a series of ideas enriched or an impoverished sensory environment. arranged in some logical order—is experienced. He found that animals reared in an enriched sensory Hebb (1972) gave the following example: environment were relatively better learners as adults. In a series of experiments run under his su- Cell-assemblies that are active at the same pervision, the effects of sensory deprivation on cog- time become interconnected. Common nitive processes were examined (for example, see events in the child’s environment establish Heron, 1957). In 1955 Hebb reported research assemblies, and then when these events showing the relationship between level of activity occur together the assemblies become in the small brain structure, called the reticular acti- connected (because they are active to- vating system (RAS), and cognitive and behavioral gether). When the baby hears footsteps, let performance. The examination of this relationship us say, an assembly is excited; while this is was called arousal theory. It was while they were still active he sees a face and feels hands doing research on arousal theory in Hebb’s labora- picking him up, which excites other as- tory that James Olds and Peter Milner discovered semblies—so the “footsteps assembly” be- comes connected with the “face assembly” reinforcement centers in the brain (Olds and Milner, 1954). Henry Buchtel (1982) provides an and the “being-picked-up assembly.” After excellent sample of Hebb’s influential articles on this has happened, when the baby hears topics in psychobiology, and a complete list of footsteps only, all three assemblies are ex- Hebb’s more than 80 publications is provided in cited; the baby then has something like a the appendix of Buchtel’s book. perception of the mother’s face and the contact of her hands before she has come in sight—but since the sensory stimulations have not yet taken place, this is ideation or ROGER W. SPERRY imagery, not perception. (p. 67) Roger Wolcott Sperry (1913–1994) was born on According to Hebb, childhood learning in- August 20, in Hartford, Connecticut. He received volves the slow buildup of cell assemblies and phase his BA in English from Oberlin College in 1935 sequences, and this kind of learning can be ex- and his PhD in zoology from the University of plained using associationistic terminology. Adult Chicago in 1941, where he learned neurosurgical learning, however, is characterized by insight and techniques from the eminent neuroembryologist creativity and involves the rearrangement of already Paul Weiss. After receiving his doctorate, Sperry existing cell assemblies and phase sequences. studied with Lashley at the Yerkes Laboratories in Although childhood learning can be explained in Florida (1942–1946). In 1946 he returned to the terms of associationistic principles, adult learning is University of Chicago first as an assistant professor better explained in terms of Gestalt principles. As of anatomy and then, in 1952, as assistant professor we will see in the next chapter, Hebb’s contention of psychology. In 1954 Sperry moved to the that neurons that are active together become asso- California Institute of Technology in Pasadena ciated came to be called Hebb’s rule and was in- (Caltech) as the prestigious Hixon Professor of strumental in the development of the newest and Psychobiology.

PSYCHOBIOLOGY 611 both the corpus callosum and the optic chiasm be- fore training eliminated interhemispheric transfer. Thus, ablating the corpus callosum and the optic chiasm had in essence created two separate brains with no exchange of information between them. For example, when an animal’s brain was split in the manner just described and it was taught to make a visual discrimination with a patch over one eye, it Archives had no recollection of that learning when tested Caltech with the other eye (Sperry, 1961, 1964). A brain that has had its corpus callosum and its optic chiasm Myer/Courtesy ablated is referred to as a split-brain preparation. Sperry and his colleagues, Joseph Bogen and Ron Philip Vogel, discovered that humans suffering from severe drug-resistant, intractable epilepsy by could benefit from having their brains split in the © Photo manner described above. Presumably, with split- brain preparation, a seizure begun in one hemi- Roger W. Sperry sphere would not have a mechanism available to spread its influence to the other hemisphere and thus increase its intensity. In many cases, patients treated in this way improved enough to leave the The Split-Brain Preparation hospital. In everyday living, these “split-brain” pa- At Caltech, Sperry pursued his interest in the routes tients showed almost no abnormality in spite of by which information is transferred from one side their radical surgery. However, Sperry and his col- of the cerebral cortex to the other. In a now- leagues developed a number of tests that made it famous series of experiments, Sperry and his possible to study the function of each cerebral colleagues discovered two possible routes for such hemisphere independently of the other. Although interhemispheric transfer—the corpus callosum (a Paul Broca and others had provided information large mass of fibers that connects the two halves indicating hemispheric specificity as early as 1831 of the cortex) and the optic chiasm. The optic chi- (see Chapter 8) and speculation concerning hemi- asm is the point in the optic nerve where informa- spheric specificity was quite popular toward the end tion coming from one eye is projected to the side of of the 19th century (see, for example, Brown- the cortex opposite to that eye. Sperry taught cats Séquard, 1874a, 1874b, 1890), information con- and monkeys to learn a visual discrimination with a cerning hemispheric specificity remained extremely patch over one eye. He then tested for transfer by limited. The additional knowledge provided by switching the patch to the other eye and found Sperry and his colleagues was dramatic. They found complete interocular transfer. Sperry then began that each hemisphere had its own characteristic his search for the mechanism by which information range of cognition, memory, emotion, and con- is transferred from one side of the cortex to the sciousness (see, for example, Gazzaniga, 1970). other. He found that ablating either the corpus cal- Under Sperry’s leadership, research on the “left losum or the optic chiasm alone or together after brain” and the “right brain” became very popular training did not interfere with transfer. He also (for a sample of such research see, for example, found that ablating either the corpus callosum or Springer and Deutsch, 1985). The fact that such the optic chiasm before training did not interfere research remains popular in contemporary psychol- with transfer. However, he found that ablating ogy is demonstrated by the statement with which

612 CHAPTER 19 Dahlia Zaidel (a one-time colleague of Sperry) be- [I]t remains to mention briefly that one of gins the edited book Neuropsychology (1994): the more important indirect results of the “Hemispheric specialization is at the heart of neu- split-brain work is a revised concept of the ropsychology, and every topic discussed in this vol- nature of consciousness and its fundamen- ume assumes its presence in the brain” (p. xviii). tal relation to brain processing. … The key Unfortunately, some speculations concerning development is a switch from prior non- hemispheric specificity began to exceed the facts. causal, parallelist views to a new causal, or For example, it was speculated that some people are “interactionist” interpretation that ascribes right-brain dominated and others left-brain domi- to inner experience an integral causal nated and that tests could be devised that reveal this control role in brain function and behav- domination. It was also speculated that educational ior. In effect, and without resorting to practices could be employed to specifically enhance dualism, the mental forces of the conscious either right- or left-brain functions. The belief that mind are restored to the brain of objective the two cortical hemisphere can be educated inde- science from which they had long been pendently goes back at least as far as Brown- excluded on materialist-behaviorist princi- Séquard (1874a, 1874b) and in one form or ples. (p. 1226) another, has been entertained ever since. Jerre Levy, another one-time colleague of Sperry, at- In his lifetime, Sperry published almost 300 ar- tempted to set the record straight in her article ticles in the most prestigious journals, and many of “Right Brain, Left Brain: Fact and Fiction” those articles were translated into several languages (1985). In this article, Levy emphasizes the point (Puente, 1995, p. 941). Among the many honors that in people with normal brains, the contributions received by Sperry were the Karl Lashley Award of of the two hemispheres to thought and behavior are the American Philosophical Society (1976); the inseparable. Levy concludes, “The popular myths Wolf Prize in Medicine (1979); the Ralph Gerard are misinterpretations and wishes, not the observa- Award from the Society of Neuroscience (1979); tions of scientists. Normal people have not half a the Nobel Prize in medicine/physiology (shared brain nor two brains but one gloriously differenti- with Harvard neuroscientists David H. Hubel and ated brain, with each hemisphere contributing its Torsten N. Wiesel) (1981); and the Lifetime specialized abilities. ...We have a single brain Achievement Award from the APA (1993). that generates a single mental life” (1985, p. 44). Sperry died on April 17, 1994, in Pasadena, Sperry had a lifelong interest in the mind-body California, at the age of 80 from a degenerative (brain) problem and how that problem relates to neuromuscular disorder (Puente, 1995). human values, and many of his publications, espe- cially his later ones, reflected those interests (see, for example, Sperry, 1970, 1972, 1980, 1982, 1988, BEHAVIOR AL GENETICS 1991, 1992, 1993). Sperry believed that conscious- ness emerges from brain processes and, once Behavioral genetics is a branch of psychobiology emerged, has a causal relationship to behavior. that studies the genetic influence on cognition and Thus, Sperry was an interactionist concerning the behavior. Within the ancient nativism-empiricism mind-body relationship. He believed (some say, as controversy, behavioral geneticists tend toward na- we will see in Chapter 20, incorrectly) that by cor- tivism because they believe that at least some relating mental events directly to brain processes, he thought processes or behavior patterns are strongly avoided dualism. In his Nobel address, Sperry influenced by heredity. Following is only a small (1982) said, sample of the research on behavioral genetics.

PSYCHOBIOLOGY 613 Ethology important than anyone had previously imagined. (Wallace, 1979, p. 2) Under the influence of radical behaviorism, refer- ence to all internal events as explanations of behavior The ethologists effectively battled the beha- was actively discouraged. This positivistic philosophy viorists, and their success had much to do with discouraged the study not only of cognitive and the decline in the popularity of radical behaviorism. physiological processes but also of instinctive behav- Ethology remains an active field of study, but ior. As with cognitive and physiological explanations its main influence on contemporary psychology has of behavior, however, instinctive explanations were come through sociobiology. Edward Wilson, the discouraged but not eliminated. Even during beha- founder of sociobiology, took a course from viorism’s heyday, a group of ethologists were study- Lorenz while Wilson was a student at Harvard in ing instinctive animal behavior. Ethology (ethos = 1953, and the influence of ethology on sociobiol- habit, custom, character; ology = the study of) is a ogy is considerable. A major difference is that ethol- branch of zoology developed primarily by Karl von ogists tend to concentrate on rather stereotyped, Frisch (1886–1982) and Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989) automatic responses that characterize various animal in Germany and Niko Tinbergen (1907–1988) in species, and sociobiologists tend to concentrate on England. For their efforts, Tinbergen, Frisch, and the social behavior that results from the complex Lorenz shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in physiology interactions between an organism’s biology and its and medicine. (For details concerning Tinbergen’s environment. Rather than studying stereotyped be- colorful life and his accomplishments, see havior, sociobiologists employ terms such as strategy Dewsbury, 2006.) and cost-benefit analysis, indicating that organisms Ethologists typically study a specific category of weigh various alternatives before deciding on a behavior (such as aggression, migration, communi- course of action. Sociobiologists believe that an or- cation, territoriality) in an animal’s natural environ- ganism will choose that course of action that will ment and attempt to explain that behavior in terms increase the probability that copies of its genes will of evolutionary theory. Of major importance to the be perpetuated into future generations. ethologists is species-specific behavior, or how members of various species typically behave under certain environmental conditions. The nativistic Sociobiology position of the ethologists placed them in direct Although in Chapter 10 we briefly reviewed so- conflict with the behaviorists, especially the radical ciobiology as an example of neo-Darwinism, we behaviorists: expand that coverage here because sociobiology In those early days, the 1950s, the argu- nicely exemplifies the field of behavioral genetics ment was basically European vs. American, in contemporary psychology. According to David biologists vs. psychologist, instinct theorists Barash (1979, p. 10), humans possess a biogram- vs. learning theorists, birdwatchers vs. ra- mar that structures our social behavior, just as the trunners. The lines were clearly drawn. innate rules of grammar structure our verbal behav- The Europeans, calling themselves etholo- ior. We learn a language, create culture, protect our gists, rallied behind the flamboyant Lorenz, territory, and learn some things (such as phobias, who dismissed the Americans as “ratrun- societal rules and regulations, language) more read- ners, unprepared to ask important ily than others because we are genetically disposed questions.” The ethologists stated flatly to do so. Similarly, the male strategy for perpetuat- that the most important question was: ing copies of his genes is promiscuity, and the fe- How much is behavior due to instinct male strategy is the careful selection of an adequate (genetics) and how much to learning? mate. This sex difference in strategy, according to They suspected that instinct was far more the sociobiologists, is because the male investment

614 CHAPTER 19 in reproduction is minimal and the female invest- them it is always both. Barash (1979) says, “For too ment is substantial. Wallace (1979) wryly describes long social science and biological science have pur- copulation from the male perspective: “A male can sued ‘nothing but’ approaches. Sociobiology may make up the energy expended in a sexual episode just help redress that imbalance” (p. 45). by eating a grape. His cost is low, and—who The interactive approach just described is knows?—perhaps it will result in a child for him” nicely illustrated by Wilson’s leash principle. (p. 74). However, if pregnancy results from copula- According to Wilson, humans have a biological tion, the cost to the female is much greater. As (genetic) predisposition to create culture because Barash (1979) explains, to do so facilitates survival. Therefore, there is, or should be, a close relationship between culture and Eggs are fertilized by sperm, not vice versa. the satisfaction of biological needs. If culture strays And women become pregnant, not men. too far from biology, the leash holding the two It is the woman who must produce a pla- together would become too taut and “personalities centa and nourish her unborn child; who would quickly dissolve, relationships disintegrate, must undergo the metabolic and hormonal and reproduction cease” (Wilson, 1978, p. 22). stresses of pregnancy; who must carry Obviously, if this continued, the culture would be- around an embryo that grows in bulk and come extinct. Before this happens, however, cul- weight, making her more and more un- tures usually adjust in the direction of biology. gainly as her pregnancy advances; and According to sociobiology, then, our biogram- who, when the child is born, must nurse it. mar furnishes us with tendencies to engage in certain (p. 47) social activities. For the title of his book The As a result, females are genetically predisposed Whisperings Within (1979), Barash chose the term to seek males with good (fitness enhancing) genes whisperings because a whisper is a whisper; it is not (those that will produce an offspring with survival a shout or a yell. We may be biologically predis- and reproductive potential), good resources (for ex- posed to act in certain ways, but we are not “hard ample, food, territory, shelter, and protection), and wired” to do so. Barash (1986) makes this point: good behavior (a willingness to invest some of their Fortunately, there is some good news. resources in the female and her offspring). Human beings, intelligent primates that Some have accused the sociobiologists of being we are, can exercise choice. We can rigid biological determinists, but this is not an accu- overcome our primitive limitations and rate assessment. For example, in the case of mate short-sightedness. We can learn all sorts of selection just described, the sociobiologists describe difficult things, once we become con- only general genetic dispositions. They say that vinced that they are important, or un- males have a genetic predisposition to be promiscu- avoidable. We can even learn to do ous, but they say more. In cultures where polygyny things that go against our nature. A pri- is practiced (where males are allowed to mate with mate that can be toilet trained could more than one female), males have no need to in- possibly even be planet trained someday. hibit their tendency toward promiscuity. In mo- (p. 254) nogamous cultures, however, such promiscuity is considered adulterous and is discouraged. The social Sociobiology versus Evolutionary Psychol- behavior of any individual, then, always results from ogy. We have been using the terms sociobiology the combined influences of biology and culture. In and evolutionary psychology interchangeably, but not explaining human behavior, the sociobiologists everyone agrees that they are the same. Edward avoid “nothing-butism”—that is, claiming that be- Wilson says, “Evolutionary psychology is best re- havior is caused only by biological factors or that it is garded as identical to human sociobiology” (1998, caused only by environmental (cultural) factors. For p. 150). David Buss, a prominent evolutionary

PSYCHOBIOLOGY 615 psychologist, disagrees. He notes that, according to There appears to be little in this definition with the sociobiologists, the primary goal in life is to which sociobiologists would disagree. In fact, perpetuate copies of our genes into the next gener- Workman and Reader conclude, “There are some ation (see Chapter 10). Those activities of our differences between sociobiology and what is now ancestors that were conducive to that goal were known as evolutionary psychology, although selected and eventually became part of human na- whether these differences are so great as to warrant ture. Buss refers to the contention that we live to a name change is up for question” (2004, p. 17). pass copies of our genes into the next generation, For our general purpose, we will continue to use the sociobiological fallacy (1995, p. 10). According to the two terms interchangeably. In any case, evolu- Buss, behaviors were selected in our evolutionary tionary psychology has become one of the most past because they solved problems, not because they popular topics in contemporary psychology (see, perpetuated genes. for example, Buss, 2004; Workman and Reader, 2004). However, evolutionary psychology is not Humans are collections of mechanisms, without its critics. It has been criticized, for exam- each one was forged over evolutionary ple, for accepting adaptationism. According to the time by the process of selection. The pro- adaptationists, if a bodily structure or a behavioral ducts of this process tend to be problem tendency now exists, it must have contributed to specific—keep warm, avoid predators, get the survival of the ancestors of a species. Gould food, find a mate, have sex, socialize chil- and Lewontin (1979) found three faults with adap- dren, help kin in need, and so on. The tationism: (1) factors other than adaptation cause product of the evolutionary process is not, evolutionary change (genetic drift and genetic mu- and cannot be, the goal of maximal gene tations are two examples); (2) a trait is not necessar- propagation. (Buss, 1999, p. 22) ily adaptive in a present environment because it was adaptive in the past environments; and (3) a trait Workman and Reader (2004) define evolu- may have evolved for a specific purpose in the tionary psychology as follows: past but may function in totally different ways in Evolutionary psychology is a relatively the present. Buss, Haselton, Shackeford, Bleske, new discipline that applies the principles of and Wakefield (1998) and Gould (1991) elaborate Darwinian natural selection to the study of the last point made by Gould and Lewontin (1979). the human mind. A central claim is that That is, the way a characteristic is presently used by the brain (and therefore the mind) evolved a species does not necessarily mean it evolved for to solve problems encountered by our that purpose. For example, a bird’s feathers evolved hunter-gatherer ancestors during the upper as a mechanism for regulating body temperature Pleistocene period over 10,000 years ago, a and were later co-opted for flying. Therefore, to time know as the Environment of say feathers evolved because they allowed birds to Evolutionary Adaptation (EEA). The fly is incorrect. The co-option of an original adap- mind, therefore, is seen as equipped with tation for a useful but unrelated function is called an species-specific “instincts” that enabled our exaptation. Also, an original adaptation may have ancestors to survive and reproduce and several unforeseen side effects. For example, the which give rise to a universal human na- increased capacity of the human brain provided ture. This idea is in sharp contrast to that our ancestors with many adaptive benefits such as adhered to by many other social scientists improved problem-solving skills, superior tool who see the mind as originally a “blank making, and increased memory for the location of slate” that is moulded into shape by a food, water, and predators. However, the side ef- process of learning and socialization. (p. 1) fects of a larger brain may have included the

616 CHAPTER 19 development of language, music, and a variety of complex societal rules and regulations. Unforeseen side effects of original adaptations are called span- drels. To view spandrels as adaptations that in- creased the fitness of our ancestors is incorrect. It should be noted that because sociobiology explains human social behavior in terms of innate influences, it was met with the same opposition as was seen in the Burt scandal and in the publication of The Bell Curve in 1994 (see Chapter 10). In his autobiography, Wilson (1995) describes a number of negative reactions to the publication of his book Sociobiology: A New Synthesis (1975). Clearly, many of these reactions were motivated more by political MITNewsOffice or moral than by scientific concerns. Noam Chomsky’s Influence It is often suggested that Noam Chomsky’s re- Noam Chomsky view of Skinner’s 1957 book Verbal Behavior was a crucial event in diminishing the influence of radical The Misbehavior of Organisms behaviorism. In his review, Chomsky (1959) force- Another blow to the behaviorist’s antinativistic po- fully argues that language is too complex to be ex- sition came from the work of Keller and Marian plained by operant principles, maintaining that the Breland (later Marian Breland Bailey), two of human brain is genetically programmed to generate Skinner’s former associates. The Brelands started a language. Each child, says Chomsky, is born with business called Animal Behavior Enterprises, which brain structures that make it relatively easy for the involved using operant principles to teach a variety child to learn the rules of language. Chomsky ar- of animals to do a variety of tricks. The trained gues that children cannot learn these rules if they animals were then put on display at fairs, conven- have to rely solely on principles of association (such tions, and amusement parks and on television. At as frequency or contiguity) and on reinforcement. first, the Brelands found their animals to be highly This successful nativistic attack on empirically based conditionable, but as time passed, instinctive behav- behaviorism did much to weaken its influence. ior began to interfere with or replace learned be- Although Chomsky is a linguist and not a psychol- havior. For example, pigs that had learned to place ogist, his views on language acquisition soon dis- large wooden coins into a “piggy bank” began to placed the view based on operant principles. perform more slowly, and eventually they would Leahey describes Chomsky’s impact on contempo- root the coin instead of placing it in the bank, rary psychology: “Chomsky’s assault on radical be- even when doing so delayed or prevented rein- haviorism began with his lengthy review of Verbal forcement. The interference with or displacement Review in 1959, perhaps the single most influential of learned behavior by instinctive behavior was psychological paper published since Watson’s called instinctual drift. The Brelands summarized ’Behaviorist Manifesto of 1913’” (2000, p. 497). their findings: “It seems obvious that these animals (For more on Chomsky’s life and accomplishments, are trapped by strong instinctive behaviors, and see Barsky, 1997.) clearly we have here a demonstration of the prepo-

PSYCHOBIOLOGY 617 tency of such behavior patterns over those which learn can be found in Hergenhahn and Olson, have been conditioned” (1961, p. 684). 2005; Seligman and Hager, 1972.) The Brelands believed that their observations contradicted three assumptions the behaviorists made: (1) An animal comes to the learning situation Genetic Influences on Intelligence as a tabula rasa—that is, with no genetic predisposi- and Personality tions; (2) differences among various species of animals are unimportant; and (3) any response an At least partially because of the work of the animal can make can be conditioned to any stimu- ethologists Wilson, Chomsky, the Brelands, and lus the animal can detect. All these behavioristic Seligman, nativistic explanations of behavior are assumptions either deny or minimize the impor- again respectable in contemporary psychology. tance of instinctive behavior. Although beginning This is exemplified by the current popularity of their careers as Skinnerian behaviorists, the Brelands evolutionary psychology. As a final example, (1961) reached the following conclusion: we will briefly review the work of Thomas Bouchard and his colleagues. As we saw in After 14 years of continuous conditioning Chapter 10, it was Francis Galton who defined the and observation of thousands of animals, it nature-nurture problem and was the first to use is our reluctant conclusion that the be- twins in studying that problem. Galton (1875) havior of any species cannot be adequately reached the following conclusions about the rela- understood, predicted, or controlled tive contributions of nature and nurture from his without knowledge of its instinctive pat- study of twins: terns, evolutionary history, and ecological niche. (p. 684) There is no escape from the conclusion that nature prevails enormously over nur- In addition to calling attention to the innate ture when the differences of nurture do aspects of behavior, the Brelands work at Animal not exceed what is commonly found Behavior Enterprises did much to call public atten- among persons of the same rank of society tion to operant conditioning procedures (Bailey and and in the same country. My only fear is Gillaspy, 2005). that my evidence seems to prove too much Since the Brelands’ article on the misbehavior and may be discredited on that account, as of organisms, many other researchers have found it seems contrary to all experience that support for their conclusions. For example, nurture should go for so little. (p. 576) Seligman (1970) has found that within any given species of animal, some associations are easier to Recent research by Bouchard and others sug- establish than others and that one species may be gests that Galton was correct on both accounts: able to form associations with ease, whereas for an- nurture counts very little when compared to na- other species this may be extremely difficult or im- ture, and people will find that fact difficult to be- possible. According to Seligman, the reason for this lieve. Bouchard studied the influence of genetics on discrepancy is that within a species, animals are bi- physical characteristics, intelligence, and personal- ologically (genetically) prepared to form certain as- ity characteristics using four primary comparison sociations and contraprepared to form others, and groups: the same thing is true among various species. Where an association falls on the preparedness ■ Dizygotic, or fraternal, twins reared together (DZT) continuum determines how easily an animal will learn it. (Many examples of how an organism’s ge- ■ Dizygotic, or fraternal, twins reared apart netic makeup influences what and how easily it can (DZA)

618 CHAPTER 19 on a trait or attribute is attributable to genetics. In one study, Bouchard (1984) reported correlations between IQ scores for DZTs of .14, for MZTs of .78, and MZAs of .71, yielding a heritability mea- sure for intelligence of about .70; that is, genetics contributes about 70% to IQ scores. It should be noted that, although heritability is typically a com- plex measure derived from correlation coefficients, in the case of MZA twins, correlations are a direct estimate of heritability. This is because MZA twins Bouchard are genetically identical but share essentially no en- Thomas vironmental influences. Thus, the correlation of .71 on measures of intelligence for MZA twins indicates of that the heritability of intelligence is about 70%. Courtesy Next, Bouchard turned to personality charac- teristics, about which he said, “The domain of per- Thomas Bouchard sonality is the one in which most psychologists believe that common family environmental factors ■ Monozygotic, or identical, twins reared together and social learning are of great importance in the (MZT) determination of individual differences” (1984, p. 170). It was here that Bouchard obtained perhaps ■ Monozygotic, or identical, twins reared apart his most surprising result: Shared family environ- (MZA) ment has practically no impact on personality. Dizygotic twins are genetically the same as That is, people have similar personality traits to brothers and sisters who are not twins, and mono- the extent that they are genetically related, not zygotic twins have all their genes in common. If to the extent that they have shared experiences. It experience (nurture) determines intelligence and was found that parents show practically no similar- personality, then both DZTs and MZTs would ity to their adoptive children, nor do adoptive chil- tend to correlate highly on these traits, but not dren show similarity to siblings with whom they are DZAs and MZAs. If intelligence and personality not biologically related. Parents show some similar- are largely determined by genetics (nature), then ity to their biological children, as do biologically DZTs and DZAs should show modest correlations related siblings. Dizygotic twins show about the on these traits, and MZTs and MZAs should show same degree of similarity as biological siblings, and high correlations on these traits. Because all mono- monozygotic twins show the greatest amount of zygotic twins in Bouchard’s study were separated at similarity, whether they are reared together or birth, any similarities between them must be due to apart. Bouchard asked, “Can it be true that com- genetic influences. mon family environment has at best only a minor Bouchard (1984) first confirmed the long- effect on personality?” (1984, p. 172) and his an- known fact that monozygotic twins are almost iden- swer was yes. Bouchard went on to say, “The cor- tical on a wide variety of physical characteristics, relations [of personality characteristics] between such as fingerprints and height. Bouchard then genetically unrelated individuals reflect only envi- turned his attention to the matter of intelligence ronmental influences and suggest a common family and concluded, “There is compelling evidence environmental effect of about 5 percent” (1984, that the heritability of IQ is well above zero and p. 173). probably between .50 and .80” (1984, p. 170). Tellegen, Lykken, Bouchard, Wilcox, Segal, Heritability indicates the extent to which variation and Rich (1988) used the Multidimensional

PSYCHOBIOLOGY 619 Personality Questionnaire to measure the heritabil- shared family experiences (about 5%), and idiosyn- ity of 11 personality traits, such as well-being, social cratic (nonshared) environmental experiences, such potency, achievement, aggression, and traditional- as accidental occurrences and experiences with peer ism. They found that the heritability of the person- groups (about 45%). Thus, according to the re- ality traits studied was between .50 and .60, making search cited here, genetics is a major contributor genetics the greatest single contributor to those to intelligence and personality, but it is not the only traits. Perhaps even more surprising is that the re- contributor. searchers found that religious interests, attitudes, We saw in Chapter 10 that studies showing and values are also strongly influenced by genetics. intelligence to be highly heritable have been and Waller, Kojetin, Bouchard, Lykken, and Tellegen are very controversial. Studies like Bouchard’s, (1990) found the heritability of religiosity to be which show that personality traits are highly herita- about the same as for personality traits (about .50). ble, are equally controversial, if not more so. The Again, as with personality traits, shared family use of identical twins reared apart from birth, how- experience had little impact on religious interests, ever, is a powerful method for studying the relative attitudes, and values. Waller and his co-authors con- contributions of nature and nurture, and it is cur- cluded, “Social scientists will have to discard the a rently receiving considerable attention. priori assumption that individual differences in reli- Thus, we see that despite the attempt of radical gious and other social attitudes are solely influenced behaviorism to solve the nature-nurture contro- by environmental factors” (1990, p. 141). versy in favor of nurture, the ancient controversy One should not conclude that environmental is still alive and well in contemporary psychology. influences on personality are unimportant. Most (For additional examples of research on behavioral genetic studies of personality suggest that genetic genetics in contemporary psychology, see, for ex- factors account for about 50% of the variance on ample, Buss, 1988, 1999, 2004; Geary, 2005; personality inventories, and the other 50% is ac- Plomin, 1990; Plomin, DeFries, Craig, and counted for by environmental factors, such as McGuffin, 2003; and Zuckerman, 1991.) SUMMARY Psychobiology explores the biological bases of psy- its function. Lashley called this equipotentiality. chological phenomena, and such exploration goes Lashley sought the neurophysiological locus of back at least to Hippocrates. Karl Lashley was a memory and learning in vain, as have subsequent modern pioneer in psychobiology. Lashley was an researchers. Lashley’s conclusions about brain func- early supporter of Watsonian behaviorism but was tioning were more in accordance with Gestalt the- unable to find neurophysiological support for ory than with the switchboard conception of the Watson’s (and Pavlov’s) switchboard conception brain, but not all of Lashley’s observations sup- of the brain. Instead, he found that memory for a ported Gestalt theory. complex learning task (like maze learning) is distrib- One of the many illustrious psychologists influ- uted throughout the entire cortex. If brain tissue is enced by Lashley was Donald Hebb. Hebb was destroyed following such learning, disruption of willing to speculate about psychobiology even performance is related more to the amount of tissue when radical behaviorism was most influential. destroyed than to its location. Lashley called this According to Hebb, neurons in the brain that are observation mass action. Lashley also found that consistently active together or in close succession within a functional area of the brain, any of the become a cell assembly. Cell assemblies that are tissues within that area are capable of performing consistently active together or in close succession

620 CHAPTER 19 become phase sequences. In this way, consistently herit a biogrammar that predisposes them to engage occurring environmental events gain neurological in a wide variety of cultural activities. However, representation. Thereafter, when a cell assembly culture is created because it enhances survival, and or phase sequence is stimulated, individuals have if it does not do so, the culture will deteriorate and thoughts, or streams of thoughts, of the environ- perhaps become extinct. Thus, biology is said to mental objects or events that caused their develop- hold culture on a leash. Although humans inherit ment. Hebb’s other innovative research topics behavioral dispositions, behavior must always be included fear, enriched environments, sensory dep- explained in terms of both biology and culture. rivation, and arousal theory. Biological tendencies can be, and often are, inhib- Another illustrious psychologist influenced by ited by cultural influences. Lashley was Roger Sperry. Sperry and his collea- What was originally called sociobiology is now gues created split brains in animals by ablating their generally referred to as evolutionary psychology. corpus callosums and optic chiasms. With such a However, there is controversy as to whether the preparation, the two hemispheres of the brain learn two fields are different enough to justify giving independently. It was discovered that splitting the them separate names. Evolutionary psychologists brains of humans suffering from severe epilepsy of- have been criticized for assuming that because a ten dramatically improved their condition. Humans characteristic is presently adaptative for a species it with split brains made it possible to study the func- must have been so for its distant ancestors. Noam tion of the left and right hemispheres of the cortex Chomsky offered a highly influential nativistic ex- in ways never before possible. Sperry and his planation of language in opposition to Skinner’s colleagues discovered considerable hemispheric empirical explanation based on operant principles. specificity concerning a number of cognitive and The works of Marian and Keller Breland showed emotional phenomena. The study of hemispheric that learned behavior often drifts toward instinctive specificity remains popular within contemporary behavior, and this instinctual drift violates several psychobiology. assumptions made by the radical behaviorists. Behavioral genetics is a branch of psychobiol- Similarly, Seligman has found that where an associ- ogy that studies genetic influences on cognition or ation falls on the genetically determined prepared- behavior. Even during behaviorism’s heyday, a ness continuum determines the ease with which it group of ethologists were explaining a variety of will be learned. Finally, Thomas Bouchard and his species-specific behaviors in terms of evolutionary colleagues, using twin studies that included identi- theory. The success of this research program con- cal twins reared apart, have demonstrated a strong tributed to the decline in the popularity of behav- genetic influence on both intelligence and person- iorism. The sociobiologists extended ethology to ality traits. the study of complex social behavior. Humans in- DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. Provide evidence that psychobiology has been of brain functioning? How did they support a persistent theme throughout psychology’s the Gestalt view of brain functioning? history. 3. What is the engram? Was Lashley’s search for it 2. Discuss Lashley’s principles of mass action and successful? Was that of subsequent researchers? equipotentiality. In what way(s) did these 4. According to Hebb, what are cell assemblies principles conflict with the behavioristic view and phase sequences, and how do they

PSYCHOBIOLOGY 621 develop? Give an example of how Hebb em- Include in your answer the definitions of ex- ployed the concepts of cell assembly and phase aptations and spandrels. sequence in explaining cognitive experience. 9. What was the significance of Chomsky’s re- 5. Describe Sperry’s split-brain preparation. What view of Skinner’s book Verbal Behavior for the discoveries about the learning process did development of contemporary cognitive Sperry make using this preparation? Why was psychology? the preparation used on humans? What was 10. In what ways did the Brelands’ observation of learned about hemispheric specificity by instinctual drift contradict assumptions made by studying humans with split brains? the behaviorists? How did Seligman’s pre- 6. Explain how the ethologists were instrumental paredness continuum also contradict those in reducing the influence of radical assumptions? behaviorism. 11. What was Bouchard’s rationale for using iden- 7. Within sociobiology, what is the meaning of tical twins reared apart from birth in his study the term biogrammar? Nothing-butism? What is of the relative contributions of nature and the leash principle? nurture to intelligence and personality? What 8. Why have evolutionary psychologists been conclusions were supported by his research? criticized for emphasizing adaptationism? SU GGE STIONS FOR FURTHER READING Bruce, D. (1991). Integrations of Lashley. In G. A. McCarthy, R. A., & Warrington, E. K. (1990). Cognitive Kimble, M. Wertheimer, & C. L. White (Eds.), neuropsychology: A clinical introduction. San Diego, Portraits of pioneers of psychology (pp. 307–323). CA: Academic Press. Washington, DC: American Psychological Plomin, R., DeFries, J. C., Craig, I. W., & McGuffin, P. Association. (Eds.). (2003). Behavioral genetics in the postgenomic era. Buss, D. M. (2004). Evolutionary psychology: The new sci- Washington, DC: American Psychological ence of the mind (2nd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Association. Churchland, P. S. (1986). Neurophilosophy: Toward a Puente, A. E. (2000). Roger W. Sperry: Nobel laureate, unified science of the mind-brain. Cambridge, MA: neuroscientist, and psychologist. In G. A. Kimble, & MIT Press. M. Wertheimer (Eds.), Portraits of pioneers in psy- Crawford, C., & Krebs, D. L. (Eds.). (1998). Handbook of chology (Vol. 4, pp. 321–336). Washington, DC: evolutionary psychology: Ideas, issues, and applications. American Psychological Association. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Wilson, E. O. (1978). On human nature. Cambridge, Finger, S. (1994). Origins of neuroscience: A history of ex- MA: Harvard University Press. plorations into brain functions. New York: Oxford Workman, L., & Reader, W. (2004). Evolutionary psy- University Press. chology: An introduction. New York: Cambridge Hardcastle, V. G. (Eds.). (1999). Where biology meets psy- University Press. chology: Philosophical essays. Cambridge, MA: MIT Zaidel, D. W. (Ed.). (1994). Neuropsychology. San Diego, Press. CA: Academic Press. Kalat, J. W. (1998). Biological psychology (6th ed.). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.

622 CHAPTER 19 GLOSSARY Behavioral genetics A branch of psychobiology that which behaviorism was based. (See also Equipotentiality studies the genetic influence on cognition or behavior. and Mass action.) Biogrammar According to the sociobiologists, the in- Leash principle Wilson’s contention that humans cre- herited structure that predisposes organisms toward cer- ate culture because doing so enhances survival. tain kinds of social activities. Therefore, there is, or should be, a close relationship Bouchard, Thomas (b. 1937) Headed a research between culture and the satisfaction of biological needs. program that featured the study of identical and fraternal In this sense, it can be said that biology holds culture on a twins reared together and apart. Results indicated that leash. intelligence and several personality traits are highly Mass action Lashley’s observation that if cortical tissue heritable. is destroyed following the learning of a complex task, Cell assembly According to Hebb, a system of inter- deterioration of performance on the task is determined related neurons that reflects recurring environmental more by the amount of tissue destroyed than by its events. When stimulated, cell assemblies cause ideas of location. those events. Phase sequences According to Hebb, systems of in- Chomsky, Noam (b. 1928) A linguist whose nativistic terrelated cell assemblies that form because of the si- explanation of language was instrumental in diminishing multaneous or sequential activation of cell assemblies. the influence of radical behaviorism. When a phase sequence is activated, it causes a stream of Engram The supposed neurophysiological locus of interrelated ideas. memory and learning. Lashley sought the engram in Preparedness continuum Seligman’s observation that vain, as have subsequent researchers. degree of biological preparedness determines how easily Equipotentiality Lashley’s observation that within a an association can be learned. functional area of the brain, any tissue within that area Psychobiology The attempt to explain psychological can perform its associated function. Therefore, to destroy phenomena in terms of their biological foundations. a function, all the tissue within a functional area must be Sociobiology The discipline founded by Edward destroyed. Wilson that attempts to explain complex social behavior Ethology The study of species-specific behavior in an in terms of evolutionary theory. (Also called evolutionary animal’s natural habitat. The ethologist typically attempts psychology.) to explain such behavior in terms of evolutionary theory. Species-specific behavior Behavior that is typically (See also Species-specific behavior.) engaged in by all members of a species under certain Hebb, Donald Olding (1904–1985) Under the in- environmental circumstances. Very close to what others fluence of Lashley, did pioneering research in psychobi- call instinctive behavior. ology. (See also Cell assembly and Phase sequence.) Sperry, Roger W. (1913–1994) The psychobiologist Heritability A measure of how much of the variation who used the split-brain preparation to study hemispheric in a trait or attribute is determined by genetics. specificity in humans and nonhuman animals. Using this Instinctual drift The tendency for learned behavior to technique, Sperry and his colleagues discovered that a be interfered with or displaced by instinctive behavior. number of cognitive and emotional phenomena are spe- Lashley, Karl Spencer (1890–1958) An early sup- cific to either the right or left hemispheres of the cortex. porter of Watsonian behaviorism who eventually left the (See also Split-brain preparation.) behavioristic camp when his neurological research failed Split-brain preparation A brain that has had its corpus to support the switchboard conception of the brain upon callosum and optic chiasm ablated.

20 ✵ Cognitive Psychology ognitive psychology includes such topics as memory, concept formation, C attention, reasoning, problem solving, mental imagery, judgment, and lan- guage. Clearly, cognitive psychology is very popular within contemporary psy- chology. However, in psychology’s long history, some form of cognition has almost always been emphasized. The few exceptions included the materialistic philosophies or psychologies of Democritus, Hobbes, Gassendi, La Mettrie, Watson, and Skinner, which denied the existence of mental events. The philo- sophers who most influenced the development of psychology as a science (for example, John Stuart Mill) all sought to explain human cognition (Wilson, 1990, p. 295). Clearly, the schools of voluntarism and structuralism concentrated on the experimental study of cognition, and the school of functionalism studied both cognition and behavior. It was the supposed sterility of the research on cognition performed by members of these schools that prompted Watson to cre- ate the school of behaviorism. Thus, to say, as is common, that psychology is becoming more cognitively oriented is inaccurate because with only a few excep- tions psychology has always been cognitively oriented. But there was a period from about 1930 to about 1950 when radical behaviorism was highly influential and it was widely believed that cognitive events either did not exist or, if they did, were simply by-products (epiphenomena) of brain activity and could be ig- nored. As long as these beliefs were dominant, the study of cognitive processes was inhibited. Space permits only a partial listing of the people and events that helped loosen the grip of radical behaviorism, thus allowing cognitive psychology to gain its current popularity. (For a more complete list of these antecedents see, for example, Mahoney, 1991, pp. 69–75.) 623

624 CHAPTER 20 DEVELOPMENTS BEFORE that determine what kinds of interactions with the 1950 environment are possible. Piaget’s theory followed the rationalistic rather than the empiricistic tradi- tion. More particularly, because it stressed the im- Throughout most of psychology’s history, human portance of schemata for determining a person’s attributes were studied philosophically. It was J. S. reality, it followed the Kantian tradition. Piaget Mill (1843/1988) who set the stage for psychol- wrote books about the child’s conceptions of cau- ogy as an experimental science and who encour- sality, reality, time, morality, and space, all showing aged the development of such a science. Fechner the influence of Kant’s proposed categories of (1860/1966) took Mill’s lead and studied cogni- thought. (For a discussion of how Piaget’s influen- tive events (sensations) experimentally. Ebbinghaus tial methods for studying the cognitive abilities of (1885/1964), under the influence of Fechner, children developed over time, see Mayer, 2005.) studied learning and memory experimentally. It is interesting to note that Piaget was an even William James’s book The Principles of Psychology more prolific writer than Wundt was. In Chapter 9 (1890/1950) cited considerable research on cogni- we noted that Wundt published 53,735 pages in his tion and suggested many additional research possi- lifetime, or 2.2 pages a day (Boring, 1950); Zusne bilities. Sir Frederic Charles Bartlett (1886–1969), and Blakely (1985) report that Piaget published in his book Remembering: A Study in Experimental 62,935 pages in his lifetime, or 2.46 pages a day. and Social Psychology (1932), demonstrated how In Chapter 13 we noted that when 1,725 members memory is influenced more by personal, cognitive of the American Psychological Society were asked themes or schema than by the mechanical laws of to rank the most eminent psychologists of the 20th association. In other words, he found that informa- century, Skinner was ranked first, Piaget second, tion is always encoded, stored, and recalled in terms and Freud third (Dittman, 2002). of an individual’s preconceptions and attitudes. As As we have seen, Gestalt psychology and radi- cognitive psychology developed, it was common to cal behaviorism were created about the same time acknowledge a debt to some aspect of Bartlett’s (1912 and 1913, respectively), and the cognitively earlier work (Johnston, 2001). oriented Gestaltists were a constant thorn in the side As early as 1926, Jean Piaget (1896–1980) be- of the behaviorists. Also, during the 1930s and gan publishing research on intellectual develop- 1940s, methodological behaviorists such as Hull ment. During his long life, Piaget published more and Tolman were willing to postulate events that than 50 books and monographs on genetic episte- intervened between stimuli (S) and responses (R). mology, or developmental intelligence. In general, For Hull these intervening variables were mainly Piaget demonstrated that a child’s interactions with physiological, but for Tolman they were mainly the environment become more complex and adap- cognitive. tive as its cognitive structure becomes more articu- In 1942 Carl Rogers (1902–1987) published lated through maturation and experience. Counseling and Psychotherapy: Newer Concepts in According to Piaget, the cognitive structure com- Practice that challenged both radical behaviorism prises schemata that determine the quality of one’s and psychoanalysis by emphasizing the importance interactions with the environment. For the young of conscious experience in the therapeutic situation. child, these schemata are sensory motor reflexes that In 1943 Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) first pro- allow only the most rudimentary interactions with posed his theory of human motivation based on the environment. With maturation and experience, the hierarchy of needs. In spite of the efforts of however, the schemata become more cognitive and individuals such as Rogers and the popularity of allow increasingly complex (intelligent) interactions behaviorism during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, with the environment. For Piaget it is always the psychoanalysis remained very influential, especially schemata contained within the cognitive structure among clinical psychologists and psychiatrists.

COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 625 Donald Hebb (1904–1985) was an early critic of DEVELOPMENTS DU RING THE radical behaviorism and did much to reduce its in- 1950S fluence. In his book The Organization of Behavior (1949), Hebb not only sought biological explana- According to Bernard Baars (1986), “There is little tions of behavior but also urged the study of cogni- doubt that George A. Miller … has been the sin- tive processes. As we saw in Chapter 19, Hebb gle most effective leader in the emergence of cog- continued to encourage the development of both nitive psychology” (p. 198). Miller remembers that physiological and cognitive psychology in the 1950s during the 1950s, “‘cognition’ was a dirty word and 1960s. In 1949 Harry Harlow (1905–1981) published “The Formation of Learning Sets,” because cognitive psychologists were seen as fuzzy, hand-waving, imprecise people who really never which provided evidence that monkeys employ did anything that was testable” (p. 254). Miller ar- mental strategies in their solving of discrimination gues that modern cognitive psychology began dur- problems. This finding was clearly in conflict with ing a symposium on information theory sponsored the behavioristic psychology of the time. by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on In 1948 Norbert Wiener (1894–1964) defined September 10–12, 1956. During the symposium, cybernetics as the study of the structure and function Allen Newell (1927–1992) and Herbert Simon of information-processing systems. Of particular in- (1916–2001) presented papers on computer logic; terest to Wiener was how mechanical or biological Noam Chomsky presented his views on language systems can achieve a goal or maintain a balance by as an inherited, rule-governed system; and Miller automatically utilizing feedback from their activi- described his research demonstrating that people ties. The automatic pilots on airplanes and thermo- can discriminate only seven different aspects of stats are examples of such systems. Soon it was something—for example, hues of color or pitches realized that purposive human behavior could also of sound. Also, people can only retain about seven be explained in such mechanistic terms, thus over- meaningful units of experience (chunks) such as coming the argument that the study of purposive numbers, words, or short sentences. Miller summa- (goal-directed) behavior must necessarily be subjec- rized his research in his influential article “The tive. In 1949 Claude E. Shannon, working for the Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Bell Telephone Laboratories, and Warren Weaver, Some Limits on our Capacity for Processing working for the Rockefeller Foundation, were Information” (1956). Participants in the MIT sym- seeking ways of improving the purity of messages posium did much to bring the terminology and between the time they are sent to the time they concepts of information theory and cybernetics are received. The work of Shannon and Weaver into psychology. At about the same time, the began what came to be called information theory. English psychologist Donald Broadbent (1957, Information theory notes the various transforma- 1958) was doing the same thing. Crowther-Heyck tions that information undergoes as it enters a com- (1999) discusses the importance of Miller’s work in munication system, as it operates within the system, the early development of cognitive psychology. and as it leaves the system. As we will see later in In 1951 Karl Lashley (1890–1958) argued that this chapter, information-processing psychology, the explanation of serial or chained behavior, of- like information theory, attempts to understand fered by the behaviorists, that stressed the impor- those structures, processes, and mechanisms that de- tance of external stimulation was insufficient. termine what happens to information from the time Rather, he said, such organized behavior could em- it is received to the time it is acted on. (For a dis- anate only from within the organism. In an influ- cussion of the influential role the concept of “infor- ential publication, “Drives and the C.N.S. mation” has played in psychology’s history, see (Conceptual Nervous System)” (1955), Hebb con- Collins, 2007.) tinued to show his willingness to “physiologize”