Dissertation Research: The Science of Mind: Exploring the Influence of the Academic Environment on the Development of Research Psychology

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This Science and Technology Studies Dissertation Improvement Grant provides the doctoral student with funds to collect needed data with the intent of bringing the student closer to completion of the dissertation. This award will support archival research for two key chapters of the student's dissertation on the institutional shaping of psychology at a crucial moment in its formation. The student will complete archival research at a number of state universities, including the Universities of Michigan, Nebraska, Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri, as well as at a selection of normal schools and teachers' colleges. The primary goal of the dissertation is to examine the relationship between the growth of experimental or research psychology in the United States and the transformation of the American higher educational system. The decades from approximately 1880 and 1910 saw a profound and multifaceted restructuring of the American higher educational system: a shift from the ideals of the liberal arts college to those of the scientific research university, the emergence of women's colleges as an important site for new disciplines, the expansion of access to higher education through the effects of the Morrill Act and the general growth of public universities, and the incorporation of new instructional philosophies and strategies in the normal schools and teachers' colleges. It was in the context of this transformation that experimental psychology came in to being. The intellectual merit of this dissertation lies in the focus on the influence of educational settings and structures on the early development of American psychology, which allows for a fresh and original understanding of how the scope and nature of psychological research was shaped by the social and cultural demands of the academic environment. This project will be of interest to historians of science, STS scholars, and educational historians. In terms of its broader impact, it also promises much of interest to contemporary psychologists and to a wider public audience concerned with the presuppositions and power of psychology today.