05 May in the History of Psychology

On May 5:

1818 — Karl Marx was born. Marx's social philosophy centered on the economic nature of social behavior and the orderly progression of economic and social change.

1908 — Psychologist Raymond Dodge was awarded U.S. patent number 886772 for his "apparatus for testing eyes," an early device for measuring visual acuity and astigmatism. The device was first publicly demonstrated on May 14, 1907 before the Middletown (Massachusetts) Scientific Association. Much of Dodge's experimental work dealt with visual perception and eye movements.

1912 — Paul M. Fitts was born. Fitts was a pioneer in human engineering psychology, aviation equipment design, and the application of information theory to visual stimuli.

1924 — Harold A. Goolishian was born. Goolishian played a central role in the 1950s team that developed "multiple impact therapy," one of the first federally funded projects in family therapy. His interest in meanings communicated by language led to the "collaborative language systems approach" to psychotherapy.

1926 — The Behavior Research Fund was established at Chicago's Institute for Juvenile Research (IJR). The IJR was founded by psychiatrist William Healy and Mrs. W. F. Dummer in 1909, when it was called the Juvenile Psychopathic Institute. The Cook County Juvenile Court took over the institute in 1914. Healy, Grace Fernald, and Augusta Bronner pioneered delinquency research at the IJR.

1930 — The First International Congress on Mental Hygiene was held in Washington, DC. William Alanson White presided over the meeting, and 41 countries were represented by the 3,042 participants in attendance. Clifford W. Beers, the founding figure of the mental hygiene movement, served as secretary-general of the meeting.

1950 — The West Virginia Psychological Association was founded at Bethany College in Bethany, West Virginia. The first president was Quin F. Curtis, who also chaired the psychology department at West Virginia University from 1948 to 1968.

1950 — Walter Freemen, who introduced and promoted the use of the prefrontal lobotomy in the United States, announced at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association that he would perform no more lobotomies or topectomies because of their harmful aftereffects, such as seizures.

1971 — The first national meeting of the Black Students Psychological Association was held in Atlanta. Ernestine Thomas was the first national administrator of the organization.

1972 — In Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the state court assured educational access to retarded children. Commonly called the "PARC decision," this action fundamentally altered school procedures and the roles of special educators in the schools.

1972 — Peter Lindsay and Donald Norman's book Human Information Processing: An Introduction to Psychology was published.

1986 — In Lockhart v. McCree, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that "death qualified" juries do not violate the Sixth Amendment's provision for an impartial jury. In an amicus curiae brief, the APA had submitted research evidence showing that juries selected because they are willing to impose the death penalty are also more likely to convict a defendant.

1990 — The organizing meeting of the International Federation for Psychoanalytic Education was held in Washington, DC. The meeting was sponsored by APA Division 29 (Psychoanalysis). Murray Meisels promoted the idea of the federation, which was to provide an organizational home for local psychoanalytic institutes and other psychoanalytic training facilities.