Contemporary Psychology

Contemporary psychology is ambiguous. It is diverse, with old tensions and new currents
Diversity:
 Psychology is broad tent of theories and approaches.
 State of the APA: American Psychological Association (APA) is the national organization of
psychology. Founded in 1892 with a handful of charter members.
 Today there are 85,000 members who can be registered in 54 divisions representing diverse
areas of interests and specialties.

Old Tensions:
 The old tensions between scientific psychologists and those who are nonscientific or applied
remains. (Science versus Application in psychology)
 The focus on science vs. practice may be naturally conflicting in psychology due to
personality and conceptual issues
 History of Clinical Psychology in the APA. There has been a long tension between applied
and scientifically oriented psychologists in the APA.

The tension between pure, scientific and applied psychology

 The goals of science vs. application are opposed to each other

 Applied psychologists focus on practicing psychology in order to heal or help people while
scientists are focused on testing ideas in order to prove them right or wrong.

 The tensions between practitioners and sciences are old! From its beginning, there was
always a tension those wanting psychology to be a pure science (Wundt, Titchener) and
those wanting psychological applied to practical matters (such as Hall, Cattell, and
Münsterberg).

 The founding of the APA did not decrease this tension. Titchener refused to participate in
any of APA’s activities. He created his own organization, The Experimentalists.

 Temperament differences between practitioners and scientific psychologists. James (1907)

divided philosophers into:
1. Tender-minded (Principled, Intellectualistic, Idealistic, Optimistic, Religious, Free-will,
Dogmatic) temperament, characterizes members of the humanities
2. Tough-minded (Fact-based, Sensationalistic, Materialistic, Pessimistic, Irreligious,
Fatalistic, Skeptical) temperament, characterizes scientists

 Because of the differences, communication between the two groups is challenging. Kimble
(1984) found that experimental psychologists tend to be tough-minded and humanistic
psychologists and psychotherapists tend to be tender-minded.
  Dawes, Faust, & Meehl (1989) identified different ways clinicians and scientists make
judgments and decisions. Consider how you would prefer to be evaluated for a grade in the
course: Subjective judgments of the professor or Objective evaluation of course performance
(tests, etc.)

 Dawes et al., (1989) characterized the difference in terms of the methods each prefers to
make judgments and decisions.
Clinical judgments are performed in one’s head often using “intuitive knowledge”, “clinical
impressions”, or “subjective reactions”
Actuarial or Statistical judgments rest solely on empirical relations between data and the
condition or event. No intuitions, impressions or reactions; just using data to make judgments.

Why are clinical judgments worse than actuarial ones?

1. Actuarial procedures, unlike clinical ones, always lead to the same conclusion for a given
data set. Factors as fatigue, recent experience, or seemingly minor changes in the ordering of
information or in the conceptualization of the case or task can produce fluctuations in
judgment.
2. Actuarial methods ensure that variables contribute to conclusions based on their actual
predictive power and relation to the criterion of interest.
3. Clinicians often obtain little or no information about the accuracy of judgments.
4. Clinicians often cannot find out whether they are “right” and outcomes are easily distorted
5. Clinicians are over-confident about their clinical judgment. Research shows that clinical
judgments are made with more confident than their accuracy warrants

History of Clinical Psychology

 In 18th C America, mental illness was seen as an acute illness, curable if therapy was early.
The first mental asylum in the US was open in 1750s in Philadelphia. Practiced moral
therapy which involved individually tailored activities. Research to promote therapy and
diagnosis in asylums began in the late 1880s.

 20th C marks the beginning of clinical psychology. Clinical Psychology coined in 1907 by
Witner. Mental testing, specifically intelligence testing, by psychologists becomes
widespread during WWI. Freud and Jung visited Clark University in 1909 and gave lectures
about Psychoanalysis

 Clinical Psychology became a part of the American Psychology Association (APA) in 1919

 APA Founded in 1892 as a society to promote the science of psychology. Clinicians were
not welcomed and later withdrew for a period of time, creating their own association. To
merge with clinicians, APA changed its stated purpose to include psychology as a profession
and a means of promoting human welfare.
  APA addressed its new responsibility for training clinical psychologists. David Shakow
chaired an APA committee to create the curriculum. The committee completed a report in
1947 which contained a set of undergraduate and graduate curriculum recommendations for
clinical psychologists.

 A 1949 meeting was held in Boulder Colorado to implement the new curriculum. Shakow
and 73 others representing universities and other disciplines hammered out a set of specific
proposals for the training and practice of clinical psychology. The resulting view of
psychological practice was the Boulder (or Scientist-Practitioner) Model.

 The agreed upon Boulder Model was designed to insure that clinical psychologists

1. use scientific methodology in their practice

2. work with clients using scientifically valid methods tools and techniques
3. inform their clients of scientifically-based findings and approaches to their problems
4. Conduct practice-based research.

 The students interested in psychology is left to decide between two types of programs; The
different programs designate the scientist role (Ph.D.) from the practitioner role (Psy.D.).

 Acceptance rate for students are higher in Psy.D. (40%) than Ph.D. (13%) programs as
Psy.D. offers less financial assistance than Ph.D. programs and students graduate with more
debt and Students in Ph.D. programs graduate later than students in Psy.D. programs.

New Currents: New movements extend ideas but increase diversity and tension in the field.
Psychology’s status as a science; Post modernism. New currents was sources of new Ideas.
New ideas come into psychology a variety of places which include…

1. Technological innovations: These technologies provide measurement accuracy and even

metaphoric applications.
2. New funding priorities: New research open new investigations and theories.
3. New intellectual traditions: These can be from outside or inside psychology.

Technological Innovations
 Technological changes include computer technologies and biomedical equipment.
 Supercomputing alternative to the serial computer. Parallel Distributive Processing
models of cognition and reasoning became popular in the 1990s, which provide
analogues of neural networks
 Brain scanning and gene sequencing technologies provided new ways of examining
biological basis of behavior. MRI and FMRI allow real time brain scanning of various
activities to better understand mind body relations. Gene sequencing allows for better
understanding heritability
Funding Changes
 New funding focus on Positive Psychology. Positive Psychology is the scientific study of
the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive.
 Research on happiness and other positive emotions, resilience, living the good and
meaningful life. It began in1998 when Martin Seligman, the father of the modern positive
psychology movement, chose it as the theme for his term as APA president and found
financial support to promote research.

Intellectual Currents
 Postmodernism is a movement from the Social Sciences and Humanities
 Postmodernism, or social constructionism, holds that “reality” is created by individuals
and groups within various personal, historical and cultural contexts.
 “Truth” is always relative to cultural, group, and personal perspectives.
 The socio-cultural contextual view in psychology is largely based on postmodernism.