[7.2]

The Two Paradigms in Psychology. The psychology we know today has its beginnings in William James at the turn of the century: he dubbed it "the new psychology" and in his magnum opus in two volumes called Principles of Psychology (1890) James presents the substance and method of the new behavioral science in twentieth century America. It was a most influential text, still read and republished today (Dover Press paperback). In recognition of this influence, the American Psychological Association recently celebrated officially the seventy-fifth birthday of the publication of Principles (APA, 1969). James' topics are still current today as shown by a comparison of the Index in Principles with the index of the most common topics used in the psychological literature today (APA, Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms, 1974 Edition). Our estimate of this overlap given by actual count of more than half of the index, yields 43% for James, i.e. nearly half of the terms listed in James' Index also appear in the APA 1974 Index.

At the same time, the comparison shows that this overlap amounts to less than one percent of current terms; that is, while James in 1890 listed a total of approximately 450 psychological terms, the APA thesaurus amounts to approximately 10, 000 terms. This growth in specialization indicates that psychology as a professional field has successfully matched the technological expansion of knowledge in the older sciences. One can gain some impression of the nature of the topical shift from 1890 to 1974 by contrasting particular shifts in terminology involving internal morphology, e.g. the shift from Adaptation (James) to Adaptability as well as Adaptation (APA); in this case, the modern shift is not only more specialized--two terms where one was apparently sufficient--but the direction of shift is toward the study of individual differences inasmuch as Adaptability designates personality traits and coping behavior according to the APA Thesaurus. James' After-Images shifted to Afterimages no doubt reflecting regularization through frequency. The 1890 entry of Amputated Limbs switches to Amputation and Amputees; the latter addition reflects the direction of attitude change towards the physically handicapped in our society. Analogies in 1890 shifts to Analogue Computers, indicating the way in which the notion of analogies as the basis of intelligence (James) has a derivative relationship to current notions about programming and simulated forms of intelligent operations called "artificial intelligence" in the literature (see Carroll and Freedle, 1972; Bobrow and Collins, 1975). James has no indexical entry for Attitudes while the 1974 Index lists Attitudes, Attitude Change, Formation, Measurement, Measures, and Similarity. Of course James does use the notions involving attitude and changes or modifications of attitude within such topical areas as Choice, Will, Ideas, Habit, Interest, Intention, Knowing, and so on; as well, he no doubt uses the term 'attitude' without feeling the need to place it into the Index, it being a common rather than psychological term. The modern shift in the direction of experimental investigation of attitudes reflects actual community conditions that necessitated or occasioned the intensive focus on attitude formation and modification. The same can be said for the shift from Auditory Center in the Brain (1890) to Audiology , Audiometers, Audiotapes, Audiovisual Communication Media, Audiovisual Instruction, Auditory Feedback, etc. (a total of 18 entries vs. James' two: Auditory Center and Audiliary Type of Imagination).

Are there psychological terms important in 1890 but non-existent in 1974? The answer is, of course, yes since only half of the terms in the two indices overlap. Inspection of these differences reveal a number of changes in direction and emphases as reflected by the indexing habits during the two periods, i.e., what terms were felt to be important enough to be elevated to a topical area or title. We would like to discuss here one important topic domain for James --in terms of the proportion of pages devoted to it --but which has not survived the times. If we claim on the one hand that William James is a founder of the new and modern scientific psychology, then It is patently important to explain how on the other hand, topics which were considered basic, important, and real could have just disappeared from psychology. We are referring to James' entries for Will and Mind, neither of which appear in the 1974 APA Thesaurus of 10, 000 important words in psychology today. James devotes two regular chapters (out of the 28) to them (Chapters 26 and 6, respectively), equal or surpassing in size his chapters on Emotions, Sensation, Brain Activity, Hypnotism; only Associationism gets more space than the Mind.

Inspection of a modern general textbook of psychology such as James Deese’s General Psychology (1967) also reveals the absence of an entry for Mind in the Index, while the entry for Will refers one to a paragraph discussing the disappearance of Will as a topic in psychology. Deese's argument is that the will is a subjective belief rather than an objective notion and that theories of personality now handle the issues involving personality and beliefs about the self. This interpretation is congruent with the shift one notes under the entry for Self between 1890 and 1974;

James' sub-entries for Self are:

consciousness of Self

the empirical self

the material self

the social self

the spiritual self

the self of personal identity

Contrast this with the 1974 Index:

Self Reinforcement Self Stimulation Selfishness

Self actualization Self Analysis Form Self Concept Self Control Self Disclosure

Self Evaluation Self Esteem Self Inflicted Wounds Self Mutilation Self Perception

The direction of shift is in accord with Deese's interpretation of the reasons for the disappearance of Will as an adjunct topic to the Self viewed as a subjective entity rather than an objective collection of traits.

We need to examine carefully whether the re-interpretation of Will in terms of personality traits is a valid shift from the point of view of the new psychology that James synthesized and which laid the foundations of the psychology we know today. More particularly, does objectivity require cleaning up James, or has experimentalism modified the foundations of the newly laid scientific psychology? And if so, is this alteration in a valid direction, or not? We take up this question in some detail in Chapter 8, which deals with methodological issues in social psychology. Section [8. 11] contextualizes the issue within the domain of the current dominant camp of experimentalists, after which we offer an overview of the solution we are working with in ethnosemantics. As well, Section [8.2] details a current episode of the clash between the paradigms, as splashed on the pages of the 1977 issue of the austere and authorative Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. An application of our solution in the clinically relevant area of the social psychology of relationships, will be found in Section [8.3]. Finally, Section [8. 5] presents an application to psycholinguistics which details our current work on the Daily Round Archives.

[7.2.1]

Case History Report: Indexical Concordance Techniques in Topic Domain Methodology: Students of Psychology 661, Spring 1977 .

[7.2.2]

Case History Report: Diane Nahl on M. E. Bitterman: An Application of Topic Domain Methodology to a Vita Bibliography