Tag Archives: genius

New Issue: History of Psychology

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The February 2012 issue of History of Psychology has just been released online and is chock full of new articles. Included in this issue are articles on the origins of the therapeutic theories of Aaron Beck (right) and Carl Rogers, respectively. Other articles address developments in historical methods, including one on transcending “Great Man” histories and another on the new neurohistory. Further articles recount how Wundt’s philosophical studies influenced his early theory of the unconscious and describe the development of anglophone psychology’s vocabulary. The issue ends with a short piece on the fate of John Dillingham Dodson, the co-creator of the Yerkes-Dodson law. Full titles, authors, and abstracts follow below.

“Aaron T. Beck’s drawings and the psychoanalytic origin story of cognitive therapy,” by Rachael I. Rosner. The abstract reads,

In this essay the author challenges the standard origin story of cognitive therapy, namely, that its founder Aaron T. Beck broke with psychoanalysis to pursue a more pragmatic, parsimonious, and experimentalist cognitive model. It is true that Beck broke with psychoanalysis in large measure as a result of his experimental disconfirmation of key psychoanalytic ideas. His new school of cognitive therapy brought the experimental ethos into every corner of psychological life, extending outward into the largest multisite randomized controlled studies of psychotherapy ever attempted and inward into the deepest recesses of our private worlds. But newly discovered hand-sketched drawings from 1964 of the schema, a conceptual centerpiece of cognitive therapy, as well as unpublished personal correspondence show that Beck continued to think psychoanalytically even after he broke with psychoanalysis. The drawings urge us to consider an origin story much more complex than the one of inherited tradition. This new, multifaceted origin story of cognitive therapy reaches beyond sectarian disagreements and speaks to a broader understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of cognitive therapy.

“The Roosevelt years: Crucial milieu for Carl Rogers’ innovation,” by Godfrey T. Barrett-Lennard. The abstract reads, Continue reading New Issue: History of Psychology →

Bibliography: Genius

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This post is written by Laura C. Ball, York University and is part of a special series of bibliographies on topics in the history of psychology.

This list represents, to me, some of the most integral works on the study of genius in psychology. Based on my readings for my MA thesis (and now my PhD dissertation), this collection characterizes the themes apparent in the research on genius, and its connection to the study of giftedness. I have also tried to present several different types of scholarship: historical, theoretical, empirical, case studies, and inter-disciplinary works. These works have had an impact on our understanding of intelligence, creativity, and to a lesser extent, madness. These works also feature some of the earliest attempts at historiometry. However, this list is by no means comprehensive, nor does it aim to be: the literature that could be included from historical and contemporary perspectives (within psychology and from without) is simply to vast. To get a better idea of this literature, I would refer the reader to Dean K. Simonton’s Genius 101 (see below).

Derrida, J. (2007). Geneses, genealogies, genres, and genius: The secrets of the archive (B. B. Brahic, Trans.). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

  • In this work, Derrida provides a linguistic deconstruction of the term genius. He relates the word to the work of his long-time friend, Hélène Cixous. While not a psychological piece, it is of extreme import to anyone wishing to study the topic from a critical perspective.

Eysenck, H. J. (1995). Genius: The natural history of creativity. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Continue reading Bibliography: Genius →

Update: Baby Einstein DVDs to be refunded

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Baby EinsteinBreaking News: Two years ago, in August 2007, AHP reported the finding that “infants don’t learn language well from instructional videos.”  This has since led to legal claims against Walt Disney Corporation and its Baby Einstein DVD product.

Now Disney is offering to refund all purchases made in US, going back five years.  This provides an opportunity to look back at our original coverage, which examined the issue from the perspective of parents’ hopes to help their children become as gifted as possible.  This also included a detailed bibliography of histories of giftedness.  What has happened since?

Most notably, in terms of linking this story to the typical interests of AHP readers, Kathleen Ann Scott (2007) completed a dissertation comparing print and video as educational media for teaching the development of historical thinking.  Although her efforts were not directed at infants, the resulting study can be conceived as setting some limits on how much the scepticism regarding the value of instructional videos can be generalized.  She concludes: “readers manifested more and deeper historical understandings in their responses than did their counterparts in the movie group.”  And she suggests this is as a result of the greater investment of attentional effort in reading as compared to watching television, which seems consistent with the criticisms of the instructional DVDs.

Several other studies have also been published in the past two years, Continue reading Update: Baby Einstein DVDs to be refunded →