Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences最新文献

This paper deals with the anthropological conception of the first modern Italian anthropologist, Paolo Mantegazza (1831–1910). We will begin by contextualizing the status of anthropology in Italy during the second half of the 19th century. Subsequently, we will delve into some of the inspirations that led the Italians to have such a multifaceted conception of the discipline. Next, we will outline the content of this approach and clarify the meaning of “omnicomprehensive science.” From there, we will come to understand the reason for the variety of interests of the anthropologist, who aimed to study the human being in all aspects of life. We will then mention the moral objective present in his professional journey: through an understanding of the complexity of human life, the anthropologist wanted to contribute to the progress and well-being of society; in other words, to “living well.”

Member news

John G. Benjafield, now retired from Brock University, has a new article: “Exploring relationships among eminent psychologists using co-occurrence analysis,” Scientometrics, 2024, https://rdcu.be/dwQM7.

Michael Pettit, York University, has a new book, published by Oxford University Press, called Governed by Affect: Hot Cognition and the End of Cold War Psychology (2024). https://global.oup.com/academic/product/governed-by-affect-9780197621851?cc=gb&lang=en&.

Michael C. Carhart, Old Dominion University, has several projects underway on the search for prehistoric national origins in early modern Europe. He presented a paper on “Comparative Linguistics and National Origins: Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro” at a regional conference of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies at William & Mary in October. This winter he has been working with a nineteenth-century manuscript book from the archeological site at Hallstatt in the Austrian Alps, which he is calling “Finding the Kingdom of the Elves in the Library of Congress.” He serves as chair of the Faculty Senate of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, and also works closely with the Journal of the History of Ideas.

There is a recent festchrift for William McKinley “Mac” Runyan, Prof. Emeritus School of Social Welfare & Affiliate Prof. Psychology Department, UC-Berkeley, published in Clio's Psyche, Fall 2023, Vol. 30, No. 1. The collection includes a biographical introduction by James William Anderson called “Psychologist and Psychobiographer William McKinley Runyan: Rebel with A Cause,” followed by 17 articles by people who have known or worked with Mac from graduate school in 1969–1975 to the present. Among them are articles by Ray Fancher, Mike Sokal, Nicole Barenbaum, Dan McAdams, or Dean Simonton. Mac adds: “Not to get too excited, but the fields of psychobiography and the study of individual lives are being rethought. How are different areas of personality, social, clinical, and biological psychology, as well as one's personal experience, related to the understanding of individual lives?”

Registration for the 56th Annual Meeting of Cheiron is now open. The meeting will be held at the Drs. Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Center for the History of Psychology (CCHP) at the University of Akron (Akron, OH) from Thursday, June 13, 2024 through Sunday, June 16, 2024.

For detailed information concerning the venue, registration fees, travel, reservations for housing both on and off campus, travel stipends, campus amenities, dining options, the “Young Scholar Award,” and reservations to conduct research at the Archives of the History of American Psychology please visit Cheiron's web page—https://cheironsoc.org—and “2024 Cheiron Conference: Detailed Information.”

Cheiron is pleased to announce that this year's Elizabeth Scarborough Lecture will be presented at Cheiron's summer conference by Dr. And

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Gertrude Buck and collaborators developed a sociologically and pragmatist-informed approach to language that has been neglected in later scholarship. Buck approached the study of language from the standpoint of pragmatist functional psychology, which is indebted to John Dewey's pragmatism at the University of Michigan, and which views language as a normal, dynamic action of human organisms engaged in necessary cooperative relations with one another. Her approach overcomes the small-minded pragmatism that would criticize figurative or poetic language as impractical, and instead shows how figuration is essential to the particular ways in which language is action that conveys meaning to others and serves broader social functions. Buck's forgotten work helps overcome criticisms of the application of pragmatic action theory to language and literature, sketching how language structure may be explained on the basis of language as a natural social-communicative act, how figurative language is inherent in the normal act of communicating situated bodily experiences to others, and how rhetorical speech and writing contributes to participation in democratic social processes. This paper also indicates how Buck's work has been partially rediscovered in Composition Studies, as well as prefigures later reader-response esthetics and feminist analyses of language.

Economist Nobelist Thomas C. Schelling (1921–2016) is known for his contribution to the analysis of international conflict and many see him as the Cold Warrior par excellence. At a time of great uncertainties and dangers, Schelling combined a deep understanding of strategic analysis, a detailed knowledge of US commitments around the world and an inimitable talent for dissecting everyday behavior, which made him a think tank all on his own. When he turned to the analysis of bargaining in the mid-1950s, one question dominated policy discussions: “How to demonstrate the US commitment to the ‘free world’”? Schelling answered unequivocally: By restricting one's choices so as to shift others' expectations and thereby influence their behavior in the desired direction. By the mid-1970s, after he had broken with the US administration and joined the Committee on Substance Abuse and Habitual Behavior, Schelling transposed the tactics deployed in international conflict to the analysis of individuals trying to achieve self-control. In the process, he reproduced the logic of military conflict at the level of the self. The view of a conflicted self itself comprised of two selves made restricted choice the daily routine of individuals who wish to avoid the negative consequences of their present behavior in the future while it promised those who enjoy unbounded freedom of choice an unsettling future.