A Social History of Psychology

A Social History of Psychology documents the rise of psychology in the twentieth century and its growing influence on Western society. The book focuses on practical, or applied , psychology and examines the causes and social consequences of psychology s omnipresence in society. After a general overview of the history of psychology as a practical discipline, the book provides detailed accounts of the role of psychology in the fields of child rearing and education, work, mental health care, culture and ethnicity, delinquency and law, and attitudes and social orientations.

Focusing on psychology as a social enterprise, A Social History of Psychology is a unique resource for understanding the history and development of contemporary psychology.

Preface.

Introduction: Peter van Drunen and Jeroen Jansz.

1. Psychology and society; an overview: Jeroen Jansz.

2. Childrearing and education: Peter van Drunen and Jeroen Jansz.

3. Madness and mental health: Ruud Abma.

4. Work and organisation: Peter van Drunen, Pieter J. van Strien, and Eric Haas.

5. Culture and ethnicity: Paul Voestermans and Jeroen Jansz.

6. Delinquency and law: Ido Weijers.

7. Social orientations: Jaap van Ginneken.

Epilogue: Peter van Drunen and Jeroen Jansz.

About the authors.

Index.

Jeroen Jansz is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Science at the University of Amsterdam and secretary of the International Society for Theoretical Psychology. He has published numerous books and journal articles in both Dutch and English, including Person, Self, and Moral Demands (1991) and Psychology: A European Text (with Philip Zimbardo, Mark McDermott, and Nico Metaal, 1995).

Peter van Drunen is Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Groningen and a self–employed journalist and historian of psychology. He is the author of several books and articles on the history of Dutch psychology and the history of psychological testing, and former Director of the Archives of Dutch Psychology.

"Finally, for those teachers of history of psychology willing to assign a challenging text and supplement it with primary and secondary sources, a multi–authored textbook has arrived that they can be proud of...one must salute the writers of this path–breaking new history...hopefully it will find widespread adoption in the classroom."

William R. Woodward, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences

"By emphasising that psychology is above all a practical discipline, rooted in real–world crises and dilemmas rather than simply theoretical ones, this erudite yet approachable book casts a difference light on its history."

Times Literary Supplement

"Much of the pedagogical literature on the history of psychology that is available today has not been informed by recent scholarly research and is almost a culture unto itself. This textbook can help to bring the two cultures in the history of psychology closer together. It thus represents a valuable contribution to the literature of the field."

Adrian Brock, University College Dublin

The history of psychology has for too long focused on academic developments while failing to see the importance of the gradual dissemination and infiltration of the psychological into every day life. This accessible volume provides an important corrective by demonstrating that the social history of psychology in Europe and North America is not only worthy of investigation but can make us reconsider the entire history of the discipline from the bottom up.

Hank Stam, University of Calgary

Reading A Social History of Psychology was a great pleasure. It s an up–to–date textbook with two interacting themes – Jansz and van Drunen describe the development of psychology in the broader context of American and European societies, and they delineate the history of psychology as a practical science. The book is informative, well written, nicely illustrated and clearly recommendable to anyone interested in the history of our field. Helmut E. Lück, FernUniversität, Hagen, Germany