Putting Psychology in its Place

Graham Richards retired from his posts as Director of the British Psychological Society’s History of Psychology Centre and Professor of History of Psychology at Staffordshire University in 2006. His previous publications include Human Evolution: An Introduction for the Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed., 2020), Psychology: The Key Concepts (2008), ‘Race’, Racism and Psychology: Towards a Reflexive History (2nd ed., 2011), On Psychological Language (1989) and Creationism: Design Errors and Cross-Purposes (2014). Paul Stenner is a Professor of Social Psychology at the School of Psychology and Counselling at the Open University, UK. He is Past President of the International Society for Theoretical Psychology and a Fellow of the Academy for Social Science and of the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung. His recent books include Liminality and Experience: A Transdisciplinary Approach to the Psychosocial (2017), Doing Q Methodological Research: Theory, Method and Interpretation (2012, with S. Watts) and Psychology without Foundations: History, Philosophy and Psychosocial Theory (2009, with S. Brown).

List of figures. List of tables. Preface to fourth edition. Preface to third edition. Preface to second edition. Preface. Part I: Origins and theories. 1. Introduction: Psychology and history. 2. Psychology 1600-1850: Continuity and discontinuity. 3. Founding Psychology: Evolution, experimentation and being scientific. 4. William James and the origins of modern Psychology. 5. Behaviourism. 6. Gestalt Psychology. 7. Cognitive Psychology. Part II: Some topics. 8. Psychology and the brain. 9. Looking at perception. 10. Memory: some points to remember. 11. Emotion: the problem or the whole point. 12. Personality: Psychology and who you are. 13. Social Psychology. 14. Applied Psychology. Part III: Psychology’s subjects. 15. Psychology, madness and the meanings of psychological distress. 16. Psychological uses of animals. 17. Psychology and the child. 18. Psychology and gender. Part IV: Two general issues. 19. Psychometrics and the problem of measurement. 20. Psychology and language. Part V: Four cultural entanglements. 21. Funding and institutional factors. 22. Psychology meets religion. 23. Psychology and ‘race’. 24. Psychology and war. Part VI: Conclusion. 25. Closure - or not?. Appendix: The elephants outside the room. Index.