22 August in the History of Psychology

On August 22:

1890 — Floyd H. Allport was born. Allport was an early social psychologist who coined the term social facilitation. His work in social facilitation and conformity represented some of the first experiments in social behavior. APA Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, 1965; American Psychological Foundation Gold Medal, 1968.

1903 — Starke R. Hathaway was born. Hathaway and J. Charnley McKinley developed the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. His interests extended to medical psychology, longitudinal studies of adolescents and crime, effects of mild aversive shock, hypnosis, lie detection, and modeling. APA Award for Distinguished Contribution for Applications in Psychology, 1977.

1911 — Ernest J. McCormick was born. McCormick was an industrial and organizational psychologist whose work dominated the areas of job analysis and human factors. He devised the widely used Position Analysis Questionnaire (1969) and wrote Human Engineering (1957), a landmark text.

1926 — Gerald S. Lesser was born. In dual roles as professor of developmental psychology at Harvard University and chairman of the board of the Children's Television Workshop, Lesser combined excellent pedagogy and the medium of television in the award-winning Sesame Street and The Electric Company. APA Distinguished Contribution for Applications in Psychology Award, 1974.

1935 — Wolfgang Köhler resigned from the directorship of the Psychological Institute of the University of Berlin. Nazi anti-intellectual demands had made teaching and research secondary to ideological purity.

1954 — The Thayer Conference on functions, qualifications, and training of school psychologists began at the Hotel Thayer in West Point, New York. Norma Cutts's report of the conference, titled School Psychologists at Mid-Century, became the first hardcover book related to education and training to be published by the APA.

1963 — The journal Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, and Practice was first published by Psychologists Interested in the Advancement of Psychotherapy (PIAP). In 1967, PIAP became Division 29 (Psychotherapy) of the APA. Eugene T. Gendlin was the editor. In 1984, the name of the journal became Psychotherapy and Donald K. Freedheim assumed the editorship from Arthur Kovacs.

1966 — Jerome S. Bruner's book Studies in Cognitive Growth was published. Eleven coauthors collaborated on this publication project of Harvard University's Center for Cognitive Studies.

1985 — The first national convention of the Asian American Psychological Association was held in Los Angeles. At the meeting, Robert Chin was awarded the association's first Distinguished Contribution Award.

1986 — Journalist Carl Rowan gave the invited address to the APA convention in Washington, DC. Rowan's address was titled "Empowerment, Minorities, Politics."