APA Historical Database: Selected Entries

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On October 3:

1890 — Volume 2 of William James's Principles of Psychology was published.

1893 — Clara Thompson was born. Thompson was a progressive figure in American psychoanalysis in the 1940s. She founded a training institute in 1943 that later became the William Alanson White Institute, which she headed until her death in 1958. She investigated the psychology of women, arriving at views that contradicted Freudian orthodoxy.

1942 — Lenore Walker was born. Walker's studies of domestic violence as a public health hazard brought attention to the battered woman syndrome and the development of a scientific literature about its characteristics. She has promoted local and national intervention to respond to the problem of domestic violence. APA Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions, 1987.

1962 — Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer's article "Cognitive, Social, and Physiological Determinants of Emotional State" was published in Psychological Review. On January 1, 1979, this article became the first behavioral and social sciences article to be featured as a "citation classic" by the journal Current Contents.

1967 — Frederick Wiseman's film "Titicut Follies" was released. The film depicted outrageously poor conditions at Bridgewater (Massachusetts) State Hospital for the criminally insane. Critics said that Wiseman selectively shot and edited the film to exaggerate the impression of poor treatment and violated the privacy of patients. Lawsuits brought by the state delayed showing the film in Massachusetts for two years, until June 24, 1969.

1970 — Although they were not on the agenda, women psychologists presented the APA Council of Representatives with a set of proposals to recognize and expand the role of women in psychology and the APA. The Council formed a Task Force on the Status of Women in Psychology. Helen S. Astin chaired the task force. An assertive women's presence in the APA began with this event.

1971 — Entered in B. F. Skinner's notebook: "Systems will always need change but not necessarily in the style of rebellion. Rebels are defined by their aversive techniques, not by the fact that they try to change things."

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