Leta Hollingworth: A Pioneer Study In Gender Psychology

Leta Hollingworth was an early American pioneer researcher in gender psychology. She is often overlooked and underrepresented in the field of psychology. Leta Hollingworth was born on May 25th, 1886 to Margaret Elinor Danley and John G. Stetter near Chadron, Nebraska. She was the eldest of three daughters, followed by Ruth and Margaret in close sequence. Leta’s mother died after the birth of the youngest daughter and shortly after the death of Leta’s mother, her father John left his three daughters behind to be raised by his late wife’s parents, Margaret and Samuel Danley. Leta now had no mother and was still separated from her father. Growing up in her grandparent’s log cabin was not an entirely negative experience because she felt as though she benefited from it in the future. However, life may have gotten worse for Leta when her father returned to reclaim the custody of his children he earlier left behind. When Leta was 12 years old, she and her two sisters were taken to Valentine, Nebraska to live with their step-mother who was verbally abusive and their father that they barely knew. “Their father, John Stetter had remarried to Fanny Berling, a woman who was verbally abusive towards her step-children and completely authoritarian (Klein, 2000).” Leta dreaded those four years
L. Thorndike, who was in favor of the variability theory. The variability theory examined that men display more prominent variety than women on both physical and mental qualities. Hollingworth set out to indicate that these extremes were connected to the culture and not based on the superiority of a male. At the Clearinghouse for Mental Defectives she noticed that despite the fact that a sex difference existed in males and females, the ratio of male to female attributions began to decrease as an element of age. Hollingworth accepted that common parts represented the distinctions, not the fundamental