What do you think?
Rate this book
Cambridge Studies in the History of Psychology
Constructing the Subject: Historical Origins of Psychological Research
The book traces the history of psychological research methodology from the nineteenth century to the emergence of currently favored styles of research. Professor Danziger considers methodology as a kind of social practice rather than being simply a matter of technique. Therefore his historical analysis is primarily concerned with such topics as the development of the social structure of the research relationship between experimenters and their subjects, as well as the role of methodology in the relationship of investigators to each other and to a wider social context. Another major theme addresses the relationship between the social practice of research and the nature of the product that is the outcome of this practice.
264 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1990
3 people are currently reading
181 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 3, 2018
A masterwork. As a historical and sociological study of early psychology, it is peerless, and may well be an exemplar for the study of science in general.
The arguments' framework is the development of the role of the experimental subject in psychology, which Danziger argues came to determine the development of the discipline within decades of its inception. This is hardly as restrictive a topic as it might seem, and it touches a huge array of the historical forces that shaped today’s psychology, including its use of statistics, its links to education and state control, its vying for scientific legitimacy and private funding, and its deep and multinational ties to eugenics and race science. Danziger has discovered a fault line in psychology that extends across the entire discipline, evident from its formative years. As a result, from a specific position, the sprawling edifice can be collapsed with a single cohesive line of argument.
The first 7 or so chapters are a ruthless dissection that strips psychology of any legitimacy with a superb command of sources and data. They roughly cover 1879 (Wundt's opening of the first psychology lab) to the beginning of the second world war, when Danziger convincingly argues that psychology had crystallised many of the trends evident today. As psychology developed out of physiology and philosophy, a struggle to differentiate and legitimate itself as a scientific and reputable field began. The dual tendencies exhibited by Wundt's introspectionism, a limited but empirical science and a more loose and qualitative phenomenology, was rapidly reduced in order to gain a foothold in the contemporary academic environment. The European culture of an aristocratic elite, trained in philosophy, initially created a version of psychology where an elite circle of academics investigated one another's psychology, blurring the line between experimenter and subject. However, as psychology spread to America, the bourgeois democratic culture supplanted the old style. More laypersons were admitted to become subjects of psychology, but only a few could be endowed with the social power to understand and report these subjects' experiences. This merged with pioneering British eugenicists' statistical techniques for identifying stable patterns across the new mass samples, a trend that accelerated as psychologists adapted themselves to the needs of capitalism and the state. By the end of the era studied here, psychologists had developed sophisticated statistical instruments to identify good officers for the military, good salesmen for businesses, and predictive educational assessments for classrooms, but little that could be called insight into the problems identified by Wundt in the 50 years previous.
This earlier and somewhat despondent, deconstructive section is then complemented by later excellent discussion on the alternative possibilities for psychology, including the Gestalt and Lewinian school, a Weimar Germany collective of mostly jewish and women psychologists. Their radical ideas about levelling the ground between experimenter and subject suggests the silhouette of a psychology still to come, inspiring a minority of psychologists in the late 20th century such as James Gibson and Urie Bronfenbrenner. As they were destroyed by the Nazis, most orthodox psychologists were being recruited into the fascist German state as it rearmed, to help identify candidates for officer training, a brutal demonstration of the concrete reality behind psychology's idealised self-image.
Danziger's analysis often strains at the borders. While it is very coherent and well-structured, the author pulls his analysis back from larger structures or modern parallels. Hence, Danziger is reluctant to name capitalism as the motivator for applied psychology (primarily using the term “industry” or “market” instead), or the less substantial references to eugenics and race science that have left just as indelible a mark on psychology. Given the author’s history investigating the effects of apartheid in South Africa, this is likely a deliberate reduction of scope for the sake of clarity (certainly another book could be written on that topic), though I personally feel that given his vociferous reaction to scientific malpractice, the racist and ableist assumptions behind many of psychology's developments should have had more discussion. This light criticism is the most I can muster, and given the book ends with a call to align a new psychology to groups interested in knowledge not for social control, but their own emancipation, I do not think it is a damning one.
The author's writing deserves note. His points are clear and repeated with emphasis, technical language minimised and sentences short and snappy. I would recommend it to be read by anyone, psychologist or not: its narrow field of study belies an issue of interest to many, and it is well-written enough to make itself available to that wide audience. However, it particularly deserves reading from psychologists, though the book demonstrates very well that the field is effective and aggressive at policing its integrity. This is a shame as the book is particularly relevant in 2018. Danziger demonstrates how important theoretical problems were avoided by replacing them with narrow technical problems, and as a result the subject is now uniquely fragile and dependent on an empirical basis. For instance, well conducted but theoretically ridiculous papers, such as Bem's (2011) study of ESP, were published in a top journal (JSPS) primarily because the editors could find no principled reason for rejecting it- after all, it met the same empirical standards their other publications had. More recently, many relied-upon studies in psychology have been found to be irreproducible, due to their weak designs and questionable research practises. These again are motivated to meet purely empirical standards that are emphasised in psychology at the cost of theoretical substance. It is a powerful reminder of how long psychology has been almost entirely conducted for the sake of ideological cover and social control, and the science it could be has been endlessly smothered in the crib.
The arguments' framework is the development of the role of the experimental subject in psychology, which Danziger argues came to determine the development of the discipline within decades of its inception. This is hardly as restrictive a topic as it might seem, and it touches a huge array of the historical forces that shaped today’s psychology, including its use of statistics, its links to education and state control, its vying for scientific legitimacy and private funding, and its deep and multinational ties to eugenics and race science. Danziger has discovered a fault line in psychology that extends across the entire discipline, evident from its formative years. As a result, from a specific position, the sprawling edifice can be collapsed with a single cohesive line of argument.
The first 7 or so chapters are a ruthless dissection that strips psychology of any legitimacy with a superb command of sources and data. They roughly cover 1879 (Wundt's opening of the first psychology lab) to the beginning of the second world war, when Danziger convincingly argues that psychology had crystallised many of the trends evident today. As psychology developed out of physiology and philosophy, a struggle to differentiate and legitimate itself as a scientific and reputable field began. The dual tendencies exhibited by Wundt's introspectionism, a limited but empirical science and a more loose and qualitative phenomenology, was rapidly reduced in order to gain a foothold in the contemporary academic environment. The European culture of an aristocratic elite, trained in philosophy, initially created a version of psychology where an elite circle of academics investigated one another's psychology, blurring the line between experimenter and subject. However, as psychology spread to America, the bourgeois democratic culture supplanted the old style. More laypersons were admitted to become subjects of psychology, but only a few could be endowed with the social power to understand and report these subjects' experiences. This merged with pioneering British eugenicists' statistical techniques for identifying stable patterns across the new mass samples, a trend that accelerated as psychologists adapted themselves to the needs of capitalism and the state. By the end of the era studied here, psychologists had developed sophisticated statistical instruments to identify good officers for the military, good salesmen for businesses, and predictive educational assessments for classrooms, but little that could be called insight into the problems identified by Wundt in the 50 years previous.
This earlier and somewhat despondent, deconstructive section is then complemented by later excellent discussion on the alternative possibilities for psychology, including the Gestalt and Lewinian school, a Weimar Germany collective of mostly jewish and women psychologists. Their radical ideas about levelling the ground between experimenter and subject suggests the silhouette of a psychology still to come, inspiring a minority of psychologists in the late 20th century such as James Gibson and Urie Bronfenbrenner. As they were destroyed by the Nazis, most orthodox psychologists were being recruited into the fascist German state as it rearmed, to help identify candidates for officer training, a brutal demonstration of the concrete reality behind psychology's idealised self-image.
Danziger's analysis often strains at the borders. While it is very coherent and well-structured, the author pulls his analysis back from larger structures or modern parallels. Hence, Danziger is reluctant to name capitalism as the motivator for applied psychology (primarily using the term “industry” or “market” instead), or the less substantial references to eugenics and race science that have left just as indelible a mark on psychology. Given the author’s history investigating the effects of apartheid in South Africa, this is likely a deliberate reduction of scope for the sake of clarity (certainly another book could be written on that topic), though I personally feel that given his vociferous reaction to scientific malpractice, the racist and ableist assumptions behind many of psychology's developments should have had more discussion. This light criticism is the most I can muster, and given the book ends with a call to align a new psychology to groups interested in knowledge not for social control, but their own emancipation, I do not think it is a damning one.
The author's writing deserves note. His points are clear and repeated with emphasis, technical language minimised and sentences short and snappy. I would recommend it to be read by anyone, psychologist or not: its narrow field of study belies an issue of interest to many, and it is well-written enough to make itself available to that wide audience. However, it particularly deserves reading from psychologists, though the book demonstrates very well that the field is effective and aggressive at policing its integrity. This is a shame as the book is particularly relevant in 2018. Danziger demonstrates how important theoretical problems were avoided by replacing them with narrow technical problems, and as a result the subject is now uniquely fragile and dependent on an empirical basis. For instance, well conducted but theoretically ridiculous papers, such as Bem's (2011) study of ESP, were published in a top journal (JSPS) primarily because the editors could find no principled reason for rejecting it- after all, it met the same empirical standards their other publications had. More recently, many relied-upon studies in psychology have been found to be irreproducible, due to their weak designs and questionable research practises. These again are motivated to meet purely empirical standards that are emphasised in psychology at the cost of theoretical substance. It is a powerful reminder of how long psychology has been almost entirely conducted for the sake of ideological cover and social control, and the science it could be has been endlessly smothered in the crib.
April 17, 2025
心理学史方法论的经典。研究社会语境来反对素朴经验主义建构的心理学史本身很有意思，但往往局限于心理学（社科）研究结果的性别种族歧视，仍流于表层。Danziger这本书则提供了系统的理论框架，梳理心理学知识生产的过程如何逐一被社会建构渗透。整个理论框架足够细致包容，为史学和权力结构分析提供了太丰富的介入角度，歧视问题仅是冰山一角；Danziger更深刻的否认了心理学追求客观知识的素朴经验主义倾向，促使我们反思心理学这门学科的志业应当何在。
阅读难度不小，第二章勾勒心理学如何从哲学母腹产出，需要了解一定的德古和心灵哲学；从第五章进入心理学知识归因有点吃力，七八九章更艰难。除非扎实掌握心理学的研究规范，没有教授指导不建议阅读。
阅读难度不小，第二章勾勒心理学如何从哲学母腹产出，需要了解一定的德古和心灵哲学；从第五章进入心理学知识归因有点吃力，七八九章更艰难。除非扎实掌握心理学的研究规范，没有教授指导不建议阅读。
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 27, 2017
Another comprehensive (and dense) piece of scholarship by Dr Danziger, a psychologist-turned-historian of the field. Here he traces the development of American research method from its German roots in 19th century to mid 20th century, presenting us an analysis of the development with reference to the social and historical context.
While the author has explained why the development took that direction (the academic struggle of founding psychology as a respectable discipline), the general tone is critical and an alternative title could be "the cost we paid to establish psychology as a science in the 20th century". The concluding chapter is particularly harsh but a reader may still feel the relevance of such critique today
Overall, it's an rewarding read to understand a crucial aspect of the discipline. I am not giving more stars as there seems to be a peculiar lack of details for the American side of the story (while many are given for the German one) and the first half may not be as strong as the second half. The last three chapters (with topics on the obsession of quantification, the implications of the practical origin of personality psychology, the sociology and philosophy of knowledge) are probably more important than the rest.
While the author has explained why the development took that direction (the academic struggle of founding psychology as a respectable discipline), the general tone is critical and an alternative title could be "the cost we paid to establish psychology as a science in the 20th century". The concluding chapter is particularly harsh but a reader may still feel the relevance of such critique today
Overall, it's an rewarding read to understand a crucial aspect of the discipline. I am not giving more stars as there seems to be a peculiar lack of details for the American side of the story (while many are given for the German one) and the first half may not be as strong as the second half. The last three chapters (with topics on the obsession of quantification, the implications of the practical origin of personality psychology, the sociology and philosophy of knowledge) are probably more important than the rest.
January 24, 2019
An extremely important book for anyone with an interest in psychological research. Painstakingly researched analysis of the development of how psychological studies came to be the way they are.
Read
October 20, 2025No sé por que pero como me costo acabar esto y ni siquiera me informé de lo que se supone quería saber. lo tengo que releer pero ya lo he intentado tres veces y el resultado es el mismo. Qué será.
Want to read
November 28, 2008Popular passages:
To introspection, our feeling of pink is surely not a portion of our feeling of scarlet ; nor does the light of an electric arc seem to contain that of a tallow-candle in itself. - Page 232
Appears in 43 books from 1877-2007
All natural sciences aim at practical prediction and control, and in none of them is this more the case than in psychology to-day. We live surrounded by an enormous body of persons who are most definitely interested in the control of states of mind, and incessantly craving for a sort of psychological science which will teach them how to act. - Page 219
Appears in 12 books from 1892-2007
History records no career, war, or revolution that can compare in significance with the fact that the correlation between intellect and morality is approximately .3, a fact to which perhaps a fourth of the world's progress is due. - Page 235
Appears in 17 books from 1951-2007
... the kind of research conducted by Wundt. Those who remember the psychological laboratories of twenty years ago can hardly escape an occasional shock of contrast which, for the moment, throws into vivid relief the difference between the old order and the new. The experimenter of the early [eighteen-] nineties trusted, first of all, in his instruments; chronoscope and kymograph and tachistoscope were — it is hardly an exaggeration to say — of more importance than the observer. . . . There were... - Page 43
Appears in 4 books from 1888-1994
... out of ignorance. This very error, however, has never been routed. It has gone on, multiplying mischief. The substitute for insufficient reason is cogent reason. The more we know of the intimate nature of the entity with which we are dealing the more accurate and complete can our descriptions become. But, if in psychology we must deal — and it seems we must) — with abilities, capacities, dispositions and tendencies, the nature of which we can not accurately define, then it is senseless to... - Page 151
Appears in 5 books from 1919-1994
If psychology would follow the plan I suggest, the educator, the physician, the jurist and the business man could utilize our data in a practical way, as soon as we are able, experimentally, to obtain them. - Page 212
Appears in 17 books from 1894-2007
B's. When it is not feasible to learn what the consequences of weighting one person's satisfactions more than another's will be, our trustee for humanity will do well to weight the wants of good men more than the same wants of bad men, since there is a probability that the gratification of wants will cause both to maintain or increase their customary activities. - Page 235
Appears in 6 books from 1936-1994
The fact is that there is no point of contact between the unextended and the extended, between quality and quantity. We can interpret the one by the other, set up the one as the equivalent of the other ; but sooner or later, at the beginning or at the end, we shall have to recognize the conventional character of this assimilation. - Page 232
Appears in 14 books from 1914-2003
Journal, x. 242. is the individual, not the aggregate of individuals as such. This being the case, statistical methods are only necessary in so far as experiment fails to attain its ideal, the ideal of only permitting one causal circumstance to vary at a time. - Page 225
Appears in 6 books from 1921-1994
The essentials of this method are : 1. The measurement and comparison of comparable results. 2. The analysis and comparison of the conditions under which given results are secured — especially of the means and time employed in securing given results. 3. The consistent adoption and use of those means that justify themselves most fully by their results, abandoning those that fail so to justify themselves. The progressive improvement of a school system demands that... - Page 104
Appears in 9 books from 1881-1994
To introspection, our feeling of pink is surely not a portion of our feeling of scarlet ; nor does the light of an electric arc seem to contain that of a tallow-candle in itself. - Page 232
Appears in 43 books from 1877-2007
All natural sciences aim at practical prediction and control, and in none of them is this more the case than in psychology to-day. We live surrounded by an enormous body of persons who are most definitely interested in the control of states of mind, and incessantly craving for a sort of psychological science which will teach them how to act. - Page 219
Appears in 12 books from 1892-2007
History records no career, war, or revolution that can compare in significance with the fact that the correlation between intellect and morality is approximately .3, a fact to which perhaps a fourth of the world's progress is due. - Page 235
Appears in 17 books from 1951-2007
... the kind of research conducted by Wundt. Those who remember the psychological laboratories of twenty years ago can hardly escape an occasional shock of contrast which, for the moment, throws into vivid relief the difference between the old order and the new. The experimenter of the early [eighteen-] nineties trusted, first of all, in his instruments; chronoscope and kymograph and tachistoscope were — it is hardly an exaggeration to say — of more importance than the observer. . . . There were... - Page 43
Appears in 4 books from 1888-1994
... out of ignorance. This very error, however, has never been routed. It has gone on, multiplying mischief. The substitute for insufficient reason is cogent reason. The more we know of the intimate nature of the entity with which we are dealing the more accurate and complete can our descriptions become. But, if in psychology we must deal — and it seems we must) — with abilities, capacities, dispositions and tendencies, the nature of which we can not accurately define, then it is senseless to... - Page 151
Appears in 5 books from 1919-1994
If psychology would follow the plan I suggest, the educator, the physician, the jurist and the business man could utilize our data in a practical way, as soon as we are able, experimentally, to obtain them. - Page 212
Appears in 17 books from 1894-2007
B's. When it is not feasible to learn what the consequences of weighting one person's satisfactions more than another's will be, our trustee for humanity will do well to weight the wants of good men more than the same wants of bad men, since there is a probability that the gratification of wants will cause both to maintain or increase their customary activities. - Page 235
Appears in 6 books from 1936-1994
The fact is that there is no point of contact between the unextended and the extended, between quality and quantity. We can interpret the one by the other, set up the one as the equivalent of the other ; but sooner or later, at the beginning or at the end, we shall have to recognize the conventional character of this assimilation. - Page 232
Appears in 14 books from 1914-2003
Journal, x. 242. is the individual, not the aggregate of individuals as such. This being the case, statistical methods are only necessary in so far as experiment fails to attain its ideal, the ideal of only permitting one causal circumstance to vary at a time. - Page 225
Appears in 6 books from 1921-1994
The essentials of this method are : 1. The measurement and comparison of comparable results. 2. The analysis and comparison of the conditions under which given results are secured — especially of the means and time employed in securing given results. 3. The consistent adoption and use of those means that justify themselves most fully by their results, abandoning those that fail so to justify themselves. The progressive improvement of a school system demands that... - Page 104
Appears in 9 books from 1881-1994
July 6, 2016
A critical look at the intellectual birth of Psychology as its own scientific field and its fight for legitimization within the academic community. Even though written in encumbered, pedantic prose with confusing shifts in logical progression, this work nonetheless deserves attention, especially by psychologists.
May 9, 2010
One of the most boring books I have ever read, and I LOVE psychology. I couldn't even finish it.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews