July 21 in Psychology

APA Historical Database: Selected Entries

On July 21:

1872 — Walter B. Pillsbury, a general experimental psychologist and textbook author, was born. Pillsbury's The Essentials of Psychology (1911), The Fundamentals of Psychology (1916), and History of Psychology (1929) were well-known. APA President, 1910.

1915 — Clifford T. Morgan was born. Morgan's work focused on the physiological bases of behavior. His text Physiological Psychology (1943) was a standard for decades, and his introductory text was widely used. Morgan was a founder and the first president of the Psychonomic Society and founded and edited several of its journals.

1975 — The Wall Street Journal published an article critical of the comparative cultures component of the fifth-grade curriculum called "Man, A Course Of Study" (MACOS), devised by Jerome Bruner and funded by the National Science Foundation. The article was inserted in the Congressional Record by Senators Buckley and Beall and Representative Symms. The MACOS grant was eventually terminated.

1988 — A vote of the APA membership defeated (43% to 57%) a plan to reorganize the APA into three to five semiautonomous societies. Academic and experimental psychologists favored the plan and its defeat added strength to the dissident group that eventually became the American Psychological Society.

Copyright © 1995, American Psychological Association. Web version by permission. Source: Street, W. R. (1994). A Chronology of Noteworthy Events in American Psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. The American Psychological Association and Central Washington University have supported the development of the APA Historical Database.

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