26 June in the History of Psychology

On June 26:

1878 — G. Stanley Hall earned his PhD in psychology from Harvard University. His was the first PhD in psychology granted by an American institution.

1878 — Aaron Joshua Rosanoff was born. Rosanoff was a psychiatrist who studied genetic and physiological factors in psychosis. The Kent-Rosanoff list of free association word response frequencies (1901) was compiled with Grace Kent and has been used in learning studies and in psychological assessment.

1919 — Kenneth MacCorquodale was born. As a graduate student, MacCorquodale was influenced by B. F. Skinner. MacCorquodale's research interests were in learning theory, especially the analysis of verbal behavior. He was executive editor of the respected Century Psychology Series.

1919 — M. Brewster Smith was born. Smith's interests were in social issues such as race relations, cross-cultural education, opinions about Russia, the avoidance of nuclear war, and personnel selection for the Peace Corps. He was president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility. APA President, 1978; APA Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest Award, 1988.

1922 — Carolyn Wood Sherif was born. Sherif worked extensively in social psychology, developing a social judgment-involvement approach to the study of attitudes. Her work frequently focused on social problems such as gender issues and social power. American Psychological Foundation Distinguished Contribution to Education in Psychology Award, 1982.

1931 — Winthrop and Luella Kellogg began their classic study comparing human and chimpanzee development. Their subjects were their infant son Donald and a newborn chimpanzee named Gua, both raised in their home under similar conditions.

1935 — Leo Kanner's book Child Psychiatry was published. This was the first English-language text on the topic. Kanner later identified the syndrome called infantile autism and gave it its name (1944).

1937 — The Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation Conference on Aging was held in Falmouth, Massachusetts. The meeting brought together twenty authors who contributed chapters to Edmund V. Cowdry's Problems of Ageing (1939), and was a landmark event in the scientific study of aging.

1939 — Sigmund Freud appeared on the cover of Time magazine for the second time. Time reviewed Freud's book Moses and Monotheism in this issue, 3 months before Freud's death.

1975 — In O'Connor v. Donaldson, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a nondangerous mentally ill person capable of living outside of an a institution cannot be institutionalized without being provided treatment. In this case, O'Connor had been held for almost 15 years for "care, maintenance, and treatment" in a Florida state hospital.

1979 — The Supreme Court ruled that U.S. Senator William Proxmire was not immune from prosecution in a defamation suit brought by psychologist Ronald Hutchinson. On April 18, 1975, Hutchinson received one of Proxmire's "Golden Fleece" awards for studying causes of aggression in monkeys. Proxmire's speech mocked and defamed Hutchinson, who sued Proxmire on April 16, 1976.

1986 — In Ford v. Wainwright, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that convicts who become insane while awaiting execution for a capital crime cannot be executed because it would violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

1996 — The First Interamerican and Iberoamerican Meeting of Behavior Analysis began in Veracruz, Mexico.