Journul of Svciul Issues. Vol. 54, No. I , 1998, p p . 1-5

Toward a History of Psychological Expertise

Benjamin Harris” Universifv of Wisconsin, Parkside

Ian A. M. Nicholson University ojPrince Edward Islund

In honor of the 60th anniversary of SPSSl’s founding, this issue examines the ascendence of psychological expertise in American society. After World War II, psychology grew as the public accepted the illuminating power and social benefits of psychologists’ expert knowledge. In that period, four problems confronted psy- chological experts as their numbers and influence grew. First, they needed ideas and methods that were new and superior to common sense. Second, experts needed to appear both relevant and objective. Third, psychologists needed to forge alli- ances with those who held social power in the settings in which they wished to operate. Finally, experts needed to balance the roles of social critic and social engineer:

In 1953 a North Carolina clinical psychologist alerted his local FBI office to the fact that the American Psychological Association “has been infiltrated and is now controlled by Communists” (Special Agent in Charge, 1953, p. 1). To support this allegation, he explained that the APA’s membership had increased tenfold since 1945-a suspiciously high rate of growth for any profession. Equally incriminating was the fact that psychologists were speaking out on social issues. Both as individu- als and in groups, the informant noted, psychologists were offering advice on con- troversial topics such as race relations, McCarthyism, and civil liberties. For such behavior and for the APA’s growth, he could imagine no other cause except a Com- munist conspiracy.

*Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Benjamin Harris, Department of Psy- chology, University of Wisconsin. Parkside, Kenosha, WI 43 141. [e-mail: benjamin.harris@uwp.edu]

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0 1998 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues

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What was incomprehensible to this psychologist was his discipline’s having changed dramatically since the start of the Second World War. During the war and in the immediate postwar period, the profession of psychology evolved into some- thing dramatically larger and more diverse. The many roles that psychologists were now occupying contributed to the profession’s diversity, from basic researcher to applied scientist addressing social problems. By 1953 this latter role had become familiar, thanks to the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI). For more than a dozen years, SPSSI had promoted the application of social science expertise to the pressing issues of the day, as it continued to do through the McCar- thy era into the years of the civil rights and women’s movements, the Vietnam War, and beyond.

As SPSSI was approaching the mature age of 60 in 1996, the organizers of its annual meeting thought it appropriate to reflect on its formative years. We responded by organizing a historical symposium for SPSSI’s annual conference in the tradition of previous retrospectives (Harris, Unger, & Stagner, 1986; Krech & Cartwright, 1956). Rather than simply celebrating SPSSI’s many accomplish- ments, we identified a historical development to which SPSSI had made a unique contribution and that coincided with SPSSI’s passage from youth into organiza- tional adulthood.

In that symposium we examined the ascendence of psychological expertise in American society, as we do again in this issue. Here we use the term “expertise” to refer to various types of psychological know-how claimed by diverse specialists, from educators and psychologists to psychiatrists and social workers. The unifying element is a commitment to the illuminating power and social benefits of psycho- logical knowledge. Whatever their differences, these experts agreed that personal experience and social policy decisions needed to be validated by psychological and behavioral principles (Herman, 1995; Rose, 1992).

Viewed historically, such convictions are not new. Until World War 11, how- ever, the psychological expert had a comparatively modest social influence. In the 1930s, psychology was still a small field; the APA had fewer than 3,000 members, the bulk of whom were employed in universities and colleges. Psychologists out- side the APA were employed in a variety of school and institutional settings, but their numbers and influence were limited. One could find psychological experts at work in some applied settings and appearing in occasional popular periodicals, but in nothing compared to the levels of the postwar era. When reflecting on their per- sonal and political experience, prewar Americans were still apt to rely on a network of religious ideals, regional norms, and political traditions.

The Second World War helped usher in a new psychological age, which Ellen Herman has characterized as the “romance of American psychology” (1995, p. 2). During this period, the scope of psychology greatly expanded. The field ceased to be a predominantly academic discipline; psychologists created roles for themselves in a wide range of government agencies and private organizations. The increasing

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number of professional opportunities for psychologists generated a remarkable expansion in the field’s overall size. Between 1940 and 1970, membership in the APA grew by more than 1100 percent. This growth was testament not only to psy- chologists’ skill in professional development, but also to the increasingly psycho- logical tenor of the times. In the postwar period, psychological explanations were given a privileged position in national discussions. Social and personal realities were increasingly construed through the language of interpersonal relationships, group dynamics, and mental process.

We examine this progression from a small, academic discipline to an influential source of social expertise in this issue. In analyzing the characters and events in our authors’ accounts, we find four problems that confronted psychological experts as their numbers and influence grew. The first involves the methods and technologies of psychology. In the 1930s and 194Os, psychologists were venturing into new con- texts with the hope of finding new clients. Their success depended in large part on their ability to offer a form of psychological knowledge both new and superior to commonsense practice. Although the details differed from one specialty to another, psychologists repeatedly struggled to develop techniques their clients would value. Such techniques, in turn, changed the intellectual content of psychology in the 1940s and 1950s as they became the dominant methods for research.

The second problem is one we term the “irony of objectivity.” Historically, psy- chology enjoyed aprofessional success at least partly based on its ability to transcend, or at least to appear to transcend, political partisanship (Ash, 1992; Danziger, 1990). Laboratory procedure played an important role in constructing this “objective” per- sona. The appearance of objectivity was maintained by removing subjects from the ordinary world and by distancing psychologists from their subjects. These procedures were effective, but as Mitchell Ash has noted, the technical methods that validated psychological knowledge outside the laboratory were responsible for fueling “public doubt about the applicability of such ‘objective’ knowledge in the ‘real’ world” (p. 199). Psychology thus found itself in the awkward position of relying on a practice that put its very authority into question. This issue chronicles the many different ways psychologists dealt with issues of objectivity and political impartiality.

The third problem concerns the context of expertise. Psychologists who entered government service during World War I1 quickly discovered that influence was a complex commodity. Its production was not a straightforward empirical pro- cedure; psychologists had to do more than simply provide officials with good research to be influential. They had to forge alliances with those who held social power in the settings in which they wished to operate, and they had to present their findings in a manner widely intelligible and politically acceptable. In short, psy- chologists had to tailor their professional persona to fit those whom they then hoped to influence. The articles that follow show psychologists tailoring themselves to fit the needs of their intended clients, with different degrees of self-awareness. In many cases, radical postures of the 1930s were reversed to fit the postwar era.

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The final problem is one confronting both the historian and the expert: What value and political meaning does one assign to the expert? Generally, opinions on this issue have divided along disciplinary lines. To most practitioners, the growth of psychology represents social progress; advancing psychology as a profession is a way of advancing human welfare. In contrast to this benevolent view, social critics have linked psychology with the emergence of a socially destructive narcissism and a politically regressive individualism (Lasch, 1977; Reiff, 1966).

Often, this conflict between practitioners and critics is expressed in the histori- cal vision of each group. Critics of contemporary practices see the postwar period as an increasing betrayal of psychology’s potential to inform and liberate the individ- ual (Harris, 1986, 1997). Defenders of today’s psychosocial praxis see history as a discovery narrative, finding precursors of today’s enlightenment in the past. In doing so they impose on earlier eras the concepts and values of today (Harris, 1994). For both critic and practitioner, the resulting history becomes distorted (“presen- tist”) as the contradictions and subtleties of the historical record are sacrificed in pursuit of evidence supporting one side of today’s intradisciplinary debates.

The purpose of this issue of theJournal is not to advocate either the views of the practitioners or those of the social critics. Rather, we prefer a third position that cele- brates the political complexity and contradictions of psychological expertise. Throughout this century, psychology has contributed to a diverse range of political and social programs, neither uniformly good nor uniformly evil (Herman, 1995; Rose, 1988). Similarly, the motives and ideals of psychological experts have never been uniform or consistent. Rather, they run the gamut from elitism and paternalism to populism and anarchism, with contradictory qualities appearing even within sin- gle individuals. We hope that this issue, taken as a whole, celebrates the contradic- tions and complexities of the historical record. To us, this is the best way to honor SPSSI, its members, and their contributions.

As we have noted elsewhere (Harris, 1994), commissioned histories are inher- ently problematic. Often, the organization celebrating an anniversary is reluctant to have its internal dynamics, tensions, and contradictions discussed. For this reason, we are particularly grateful to SPSSI and to the Journal’s editor, Phyllis Katz, for their willingness to support a critical historical volume.

References

Ash, M. ( 1992). Historicizing mind science: Discourse, practice, subjectivity. Science in Context, 5,

Danziger, K. (1 990). Consfructing the subject: Historical origins ofpsychological research. New York:

Harris, B. (1986). Reviewing fifty years of the psychology of social issues. Journal of Social Issues, 42,

Harris, B. (1994). Century of progress? Contemporary Psychology, 39,465-468.

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Harris, B. (1997). Repoliticizing the history of psychology. In D. Fox & I . Prilleltensky (Eds.), Critical

Harris, B., Unger, R., & Stagner, R. (Eds.). (1986). Fifty years of the psychology of social issues. Jour-

Herman, E. ( I 995). The romance ofAmerican psychology. Berkeley: University of California Press.

psychology: An introductory handbook (pp. 21-33). London: Sage.

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Krech, D., & Cartwright, D. (1956). On SPSSI’s first twenty years. American Psychologist, 11, 470473.

Lasch, C. (1977). Haven in a heartless world: The family besieged. New York: Basic Books. Reiff, P. ( I 966). The triumph of the therapeutic: Uses of faith after Freud. New York: Harper. Rose, N. (1988). Calculable minds and manageable individuals. History of the Human Sciences, I ,

Rose, N. (1992). Engineering the human soul: Analyzing psychological expertise. Science in Context, 5,

Special Agent in Charge, Charlotte, NC, Office, FBI. (1953, May 14). Alleged Communist infiltration and control of the American Psychological Association. Memorandum to the director of the FBI (Bureau file 100-40177, FBI Headquarters, Washington, DC). (Expurgated copy obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.)

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BENJAMIN HARRIS is Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Parkside, and Executive Officer of the International Society for the History of Social and Behavioral Sciences. In 1983-86 he chaired the SPSSI’s History Task Force and edited Fifty Years of the Psychology of Social Issues (Journal of Social Issues, 42, no. 1, 1986) with Rhoda Unger and Ross Stagner. His publications include “Repoliticizing the History of Psychology,” in Dennis Fox & Isaac Prillel- tensky (Eds.), Critical Psychology: An Introductory Handbook (London: Sage, 1997).

IAN NICHOLSON is Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Prince Edward Island, Canada. He has published historical papers on psychological exper- tise, humanistic psychology, and personality theory. Among his recent publications is “Gordon Allport, Character, and the Culture of Personality,” in History of Psy- chology (1998).