The Development of a Field

Even though a clear and generally agreed-upon definition of psychology has
not emerged, psychology today is a vigorous and broad scholarly field and
profession, extending from biological subdisciplines and animal research
laboratories to the study of humans in social, political, economic, industrial,
educational, clinical, and religious contexts. It is not surprising, therefore,
that psychologists have made contributions in a wide variety of areas.
Among the most notable are those having to do with cognitive and emotional
development, child rearing, formulating new ways to view and treat
psychological problems, devising ways to deal with the crises of life associated
with each stage of human experience from infancy to old age, consumer
research and marketing, group dynamics, and the development of
tests and educational procedures.
Psychology is one of the most popular majors in American colleges, and
the discipline has experienced dramatic growth since the 1940’s. There
were about 4,000 psychologists in the United States during the 1940’s; by the
early 1990’s, there were approximately 100,000. Since the mid-1970’s, the
number of women majoring in psychology has held steady, while the number
of men has decreased significantly; as a consequence, by the late 1980’s,
more women than men were earning Ph.D.’s in psychology.
One of the most challenging new areas of study is health psychology,
which emerged during the 1980’s in response to the health care crisis,
brought about by increasing costs associated with an aging population, expensive
high-technology medical techniques, the acquired immunodeficiency
syndrome (AIDS) epidemic, economic restructuring and stagnation,
and a variety of other factors. Pressures have also been emerging for people
to reexamine their values and roles and, in a sense, their personal and national
identities. These pressures derive from such powerful forces and dynamics
as the women’s and multicultural movements, the emergence of
nontraditional social and child-rearing arrangements, and the change from
a production to a service society. A mass identity crisis may, in fact, provide
the psychologists of the twenty-first century with their major challenge.
Sources for Further Study
Carr, Harvey A. Psychology: A Study of Mental Activity. New York: Longmans,
Green, 1925. Presents a clear picture of the functionalist view of psychology.
Carr was one of the American psychologists who formalized functionalism.

Gilgen, Albert R. American Psychology Since World War II: A Profile of the Discipline.
Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1982. Presents an overview of the
major developments and trends in American psychology during World
War II, which ended in 1945, and from the postwar period through the
1970’s.
__________. “The Psychological Level of Organization in Nature and Interdependencies
Among Major Psychological Concepts.” In Annals of Theoretical
Psychology. Vol. 5, edited by Arthur W. Staats and Leendert P. Mos.
New York: Plenum Press, 1987. Presents a detailed rationale for defining
psychology as the systematic study of the information available to each
person that allows each individual to move with direction and control.
Lapointe, Franois H. “Who Originated the Term‘Psychology’?” Journal of the
History of the Behavioral Sciences 8, no. 3 (1972): 328-335. A thorough analysis
of the origination of the term “psychology.” An essential reference for
anyone interested in the history of the concept.
Murray, David J. A History of Western Psychology. 2d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice-Hall, 1988. Includes clear discussions of the origins of the term
“psychology” and the meaning of the concept for the act psychologists,
the structuralists, the functionalists, and the behaviorists.
Porter, Roy. Madness: A Brief History. New York: Oxford University Press,
2002. A history of Western ideas about mental illness by one of the most
respected historians of medicine. Changing ideas about “madness” help
trace the evolution of the definition of psychology.
Titchener, Edward Bradford. A Primer of Psychology. 1899. Reprint. New York:
Macmillan, 1925. Presents a clear and detailed analysis of psychology
from the structuralist perspective and in the process identifies many of
the challenges involved in attempting to decipher the structure of mind
and consciousness.
Albert R. Gilgen
See also: Behaviorism; Cognitive Psychology; Psychoanalytic Psychology;
Psychology: Fields of Specialization; Structuralism and Functionalism. 667