James McKeen Cattell

James McKeen Cattell ( born May 25, 1860 in Easton, Pennsylvania, USA, † January 20, 1944 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA ) was an American personality psychologist. He was the first professor of psychology in the United States.

Life

Cattell grew up as the oldest child of a wealthy and prominent family. His father William Cassady Cattell, a Presbyterian clergyman, was born shortly after James President of Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. His mother, Elizabeth " Lizzie " McKeen brought into the marriage in 1859, a significant heritage. His uncle Alexander Gilmore Cattell represented New Jersey in the U.S. Senate. James Cattell occurred in 1876 in the Lafayette College and received after four years there, a brilliant conclusion. He went to Germany and studied the philosopher Rudolf Hermann Lotze at the University of Göttingen and at the psychologist Wilhelm Wundt at Leipzig University. Back in the U.S. he spent 1882/83 to study philosophy at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. In a further stay in Leipzig he became the first assistant Wilhelm Wundt and his doctorate there in 1886. From there he went to London to the laboratory Francis Galton. In 1887 he became a lecturer at Bryn Mawr College, 1888 he became the first professor of psychology in the USA at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. There he established a psychological laboratory and developed a series of tests. 1891-1917 he was professor of psychology, anthropology and philosophy at Columbia University, where he worked for many years with his student Edward Lee Thorndike. He was a founding member and 1895 president of the American Psychological Association ( APA). His stance against American involvement in World War I led to his dismissal from Columbia. In 1921 he founded together with some prominent colleagues ' Psychological Corporation ', the researches in various fields such as aptitude tests or advertisement for the business and provides services. Among his students next Thorndike F.L. Wells, Robert S. Woodworth, S.I. Franz, e.K. Strong and Margaret Washburn.

Research

During his time as an assistant with Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig, his focus was on the individual differences in experimental responses (as in reaction time), while Wundt was more interested in the general conclusions. Therefore, he sat also continued his studies with Francis Galton, who worked on the very methodical assessment of individual ability differences. Thus, Cattell was one of the founders of the Differential and Personality Psychology. With its publication ' Mental tests and measurement ' (1890) he introduced the psychological test and presented his experimental results of the previous years ago. Also, this was the beginning of psychometrics in the form of intelligence test research and the aptitude test for college students. Among many other skills Cattell examined empirically for the first time reading. Cattell also made self-experiments on the effect of the (then legal) hashish. He was his pupil, Edward Lee Thorndike, a stimulator of behaviorism. His theory approaches were close to functionalism.

Cattel was with Granville Stanley Hall, Wundt also a student, the propagator of experimental psychology in the United States. Cattell was involved not only for the establishment of psychology as a science, but also, for example, as editor of the journal ' Science ', for science as a whole.

James McKeen Cattell is not to be confused with the British-American personality psychologist Raymond Cattell Bernard among others, a personality structure with 16 primary factors ( 16PF ) and the concept of fluid and crystalline intelligences designed.

Works

Cattell was editor of several major journals - among other things ' Science ', ' Psychological Review ', ' School and Society ' and ' Scientific Monthly '.

• The time it takes to see and name objects. Mind 11, 1886, 63-65
• Psychometric tests. Part 1: Philosophical Studies Vol 3, 1886, 305-335; Part 2: Vol 3, 452-492; Part 3: Vol 4, 1888, 241-250
• Mental tests and measurements. Mind 15, 1890, 373-381
• Chronoscope and chronograph. Philosophical Studies 9, 1893: 307-310
• Measurements of the accuracy of recollection. Science 2, 1895, 761-766
• Address of the president before the American Psychological Association, 1895. Psychological Review 3, 1896, 134-148
• On reaction -times and the velocity of the nervous impulse. Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences 7, 1895: 391-415
• The time of perception as a measure of differences in intensity. Philosophical Studies 19, 1902, 63-68
• Statistics of American psychologists. American Journal of Psychology 14, 1903, 310-328
• Psychology in America. Science 70, 1929, 335-347
• The founding of the Association. Psychological Review 50, 1943, 61-64