Women in Psychology: Mary Whiton Calkins
Women in Psychology: Mary Whiton Calkins
PSY310
August 20, 2013
Women in Psychology: Mary Whiton Calkins
Mary Whiton Calkins (1863-1930) is well-known in the field of psychology for her struggles as a woman looking further her education and to receive her doctorate from Harvard. She is also recognized for being elected the first woman president of the American Psychological Association (APA) and the American Philosophical Association. However, these events only make up a small portion of what she accomplished in her life. Calkins is also recognized for building an early psychology laboratory, inventing the paired-associate technique, and her contribution to the development of self psychology (Goodwin, 2008). Before retiring Calkins published four books and more than 100 papers in psychology and philosophy (Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology, 2001).
Calkins grew up in buffalo, New York with five siblings. Her father, a Congregationalist minister, believed in the educational value of travel and being multilingual. As an adult, she spoke four languages fluently: English, French, and Greek (Furumoto, 1979; Goodwin, 2008). When Calkins was seventeen, her family moved to the Boston area where she attended one of the new women’s colleges, Smith College, in western Massachusetts.
After graduating in 1885, she went to Europe for sixteen months where she learned to speak fluent Greek. After returning from Europe, Calkins began teaching Greek at Wellesley College. To keep up with trends in science, Wellesley’s leaders gave Calkins the opportunity to develop a course in laboratory psychology after she had expressed an interest in teaching philosophy and impressing her superiors with her performance thus far as a teacher. However, in order to teach the course, Calkins had to take a year off to learn about the field, which proved to be a frustrating endeavor due to limited advanced training opportunities (Goodwin, 2008).
When deliberating which school to
PSY310
August 20, 2013
Women in Psychology: Mary Whiton Calkins
Mary Whiton Calkins (1863-1930) is well-known in the field of psychology for her struggles as a woman looking further her education and to receive her doctorate from Harvard. She is also recognized for being elected the first woman president of the American Psychological Association (APA) and the American Philosophical Association. However, these events only make up a small portion of what she accomplished in her life. Calkins is also recognized for building an early psychology laboratory, inventing the paired-associate technique, and her contribution to the development of self psychology (Goodwin, 2008). Before retiring Calkins published four books and more than 100 papers in psychology and philosophy (Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology, 2001).
Calkins grew up in buffalo, New York with five siblings. Her father, a Congregationalist minister, believed in the educational value of travel and being multilingual. As an adult, she spoke four languages fluently: English, French, and Greek (Furumoto, 1979; Goodwin, 2008). When Calkins was seventeen, her family moved to the Boston area where she attended one of the new women’s colleges, Smith College, in western Massachusetts.
After graduating in 1885, she went to Europe for sixteen months where she learned to speak fluent Greek. After returning from Europe, Calkins began teaching Greek at Wellesley College. To keep up with trends in science, Wellesley’s leaders gave Calkins the opportunity to develop a course in laboratory psychology after she had expressed an interest in teaching philosophy and impressing her superiors with her performance thus far as a teacher. However, in order to teach the course, Calkins had to take a year off to learn about the field, which proved to be a frustrating endeavor due to limited advanced training opportunities (Goodwin, 2008).
When deliberating which school to
References: Calkins, M. W. (1894). Association I. Psychological Review, 1, 476-483. Calkins, M. W. (1896). Association II. Psychological Review, 3, 32-49. Calkins, M.W. (1906). A reconciliation between structural and functional psychology. Psychological Review, 13, 61-81. Calkins, M. W. (1930). Mary Whiton Calkins. In C. Murchison (Ed.), A history of psychology in autobiography, Vol. 1 (pp. 31-62). Worcester, MA: Clark University Press. Furumoto, L. (1979). Mary Whiton Calkins (1863 – 1930): Fourteenth president of the American Psychological Association. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 15, 346-356. Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology. (2001). Calkins, Mary Whiton. Retrieved from http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3406000109.html Goodwin, C. J. (2008). A history of modern psychology (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Strunk, O., Jr. (1972). The self-psychology of Mary Whiton Calkins. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 8, 196-203.