Freud, Murder, and Fame: Lessons in Psychology’s Fascinating History
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I just think I’ll die if I don’t hear from you. If I thought you were in I’d call you, dangerous as it is. Every time the phone rings I know I’ll jump from my chair. My heart will be in my throat, but I can listen, anyway.
Darling, every one wants you to stay, but do write me that no matter how long you stay away your heart and body will still be mine. They can’t break it now, can they? Only a change in one of us can do that, and I know every cell I have is yours, individually and collectively. My total reactions are positive and toward you. So likewise each and every heart reaction. I can’t be more yours than I am, even if a surgical operation made us one.
Well, I’ve made enough love in one day to a girl so young. You might grow weary in reading so much. I am so mad whenever I get to the end of your letters—are you that way? Could you kiss me for two hours right now without ever growing weary? I want you all 24 of the hours, and then I’d quarrel with the universe because the days are not longer. Let’s go to the North Pole where the days and nights are six months each.
This unwanted publicity effectively ended any hopes Watson may have had of securing a new position in academia as a psychology professor. Watson’s divorce became official on Christmas Eve, 1920, and John Watson and Rosalie Rayner were married just a few days later on New Year’s Eve. By all accounts, John and Rosalie had a happy marriage. Unfortunately, Rosalie died suddenly in 1935 of pneumonia, and Watson was crushed and became somewhat of a recluse in his later years. Although Watson would never enter the academic world again, he had a very successful career in advertising. For example, he helped to increase sales of toothpaste by linking it with sexual attraction; he used demographic techniques to identify target populations, and he used expert medical testimony in his advertisements. All of these techniques are still used today (see Buckley, 1989, for further details).
Watson would go on to write psychology articles for newspapers and popular magazines (e.g., Harper’s, The New Republic, McCall’s, Cosmopolitan) advocating behaviorism and in some cases attacking psychoanalysis even though he was no longer part of the academic world. As one example, in Harper’s Monthly Magazine, Watson wrote an article titled, “The Myth of the Unconscious: A Behavioristic Explanation,” he asks his readers, “Just why Freud should have resorted to voodooism instead of falling back upon his early scientific training is not clear” (1927, p. 502). Although speculation, one reason Watson may have attacked Freud at this point was because psychoanalysis clearly had captured the public’s attention.
Watson also made numerous appearances on radio talk shows, and published an influential and popular book on childrearing, Psychological Care of Infant and Child (1928). This book was written for “mothers who have leisure to devote to the study of their children” (p. 7). Fortunately, most mothers did not have leisure time to read and implement what Watson instructed in the book. The most controversial chapter of the book (Chapter 3, “The Dangers of too Much Mother Love”) instructs mothers to never hug or kiss their children, and never let children sit in their lap. John Watson used some behaviorist principles in the raising of his own children. In his first marriage to Mary, he made his two children wake themselves up in the morning, get ready for school, and make their parents breakfast in bed before leaving the house (Burnham, 1994). Watson (1928, pp. 5-6) even goes so far as to ponder “whether there should be individual homes for children—or even whether children should know their own parents.”
Finally, I had previously mentioned that historian John Burnham (1994), who was a graduate student at the time, had interviewed Watson in 1955. While having limited historical value (Watson provides some factually inaccurate information), the interview is fascinating. Watson did not grant interviews, and had at the end of his life burned his materials such as personal correspondence that would have been of great interest to historians (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). At least in this regard, destroying personal documents to frustrate historians, Watson and Freud are the same (see Chapter 3). In describing his interview, Burnham notes that Watson often used foul language and was eager to shock him. He offered a strong opinion about Freud which indicates that his views towards psychoanalysis, or at least toward the man who conceived it, had not softened as the years passed. Specifically, Watson said: “… Freud, being ugly and Jewish, must have felt inferior and used psychoanalysis as a way to point out other people’s shortcomings” (Burnham, 1994, p. 68).
I hope this chapter was successful in counteracting the negative stereotype that history is boring. If the reader was uninterested by the Watson account, it was likely my lack of skill as a writer, not a lack of intriguing material. I certainly did not cover all of the interesting details of Watson’s life, and would refer the reader to Buckley’s (1989) Mechanical Man for additional information.
Moreover, history has even more intrigue to share about the firing of Johns Hopkins’ most famous and popular professor. For many years, it was simply assumed that Watson was fired because he was (a) having an affair with a student, (b) once the affair became exposed, Watson made no attempt to conceal or break-off the relationship, (c) Rosalie’s grandfather was a large donor to Johns Hopkins University and was not pleased with this situation, (d) the Ickes family, which was politically connected, was furious with Watson’s actions, and (e) the President of Johns Hopkins had previously fired the chair of the psychology department for scandalous behavior. Thus, the reasons for Watson’s termination appear relatively straightforward.
Yet, as mentioned above, in 1974, a report surfaced that the affair was not the real reason for the firing, but a reprehensible research project that was being carried out in secret by Watson, and ultimately was discovered by University officials. At this point, I would like to delay until the next chapter exactly what the 1974 report said, in order to provide some background information about how historical interpretations are reconstructed by using data fragments from the past.
Chapter 2: RECONSTRUCTING THE PAST: AN INTRODUCTION TO HISTORICAL RESEARCH
One of the goals of this book is to attempt to answer the question of exactly how Sigmund Freud first became a household name in America. This is not a simple question that can be easily answered by picking up a book and finding the definitive answer, as it requires an evaluation based upon incomplete information. This book should be viewed as an attempt to reconstruct history, but the process is often not an exact one that leads to a definitive answer like a chemistry experiment. This chapter introduces the process of recreating the past.
Historical Interpretation using Data Fragments
For historical questions that require interpretation, such as how exactly did Freud become a household name in America or exactly why was John Watson fired from Johns Hopkins University, history has to be reconstructed using data fragments from the past. Data fragments include such things as official documents (e.g., birth certificates, court records), newspaper articles, documented eyewitness accounts, magazine articles, diaries, letters, and photographs, to name just a few of the potential sources. Unfortunately, I do not have access to a time machine where I can go back in history and find the unequivocal correct answer. Individuals attempting to reconstruct the past have to interpret incomplete information, and can come to differing conclusions especially when the available data fragments do not provide a definitive picture of what happened.
It is useful to think of history as containing both facts and interpretations. Historical facts are definitive answers supported by data fragments which are typically very specific (i.e., Freud was on the cover of Time magazine, October 27, 1924; Watson had a yearbook at Johns Hopkins University dedicated to him in 1909). Historical facts are some of the data fragments that support larger historical interpretations. In contrast, historical interpretations are an opinion about what occurred in the past (i.e., when did Freud become a household name in America? Why was Watson fired?), and should ideally be an unbiased opinion based upon and supported by historical evidence. The notion that books about history contain solely f
actual knowledge that is not open to different interpretations is simply not true. Since history is part fact and part interpretation, then this raises the question of exactly how do individuals attempt to recreate the past, especially when the questions of interest occurred a long time ago?
Recreating the Past: The Dinosaur Analogy
The following analogy is useful to illustrate how individuals attempt to recreate the past. What were dinosaurs like millions of years ago (i.e., what did they look like, how did they live)? What is presented in current books is interpretations by individuals, such as paleontologists, attempting to recreate the past based upon discovered data fragments. In this example of recreating dinosaurs, data fragments are the fossil remains. With some dinosaurs, the discovered fossil remains provide an almost complete skeleton, but with others the recreations that are provided are based upon just a limited skeleton. The more complete the data fragments discovered, the greater confidence we can have in the recreation. For example, The Field Museum in Chicago has on display the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex discovered to date, named Sue (see fieldmuseum.org). Because of the number of data fragments discovered, we can have better confidence in what T. rex looked like compared with other dinosaurs which have much more incomplete fossil remains, such as the Spinosaurus. It works much the same way when interpreting history, the more data fragments that are uncovered the more complete the picture that can be reconstructed, and the easier it becomes to come to the correct historical interpretation.
Yet, even when attempting to recreate the past with an almost complete skeleton, just like when individuals attempt to recreate the past with a substantial number of data fragments, there still typically exist subjective decisions that have to be made. When subjective decision making comes into play, the possibility exists that the interpretations can result in the wrong conclusion. For example, when I was growing up in the 1970s, the T. rex that I read about in books and the ones that I saw on television on Saturday mornings in such shows as Land of the Lost, was not the T. rex that was shown in the Jurassic Park movies or contemporary books. While I learned that the T. rex was a fearsome carnivore, which is consistent with today’s interpretation, I also learned that T. rex stood upright with its tail dragging on the ground and moved very slowly. Past interpretations of T. rex presented the dinosaur as a “living tripod,” and this interpretation dominated what the American public believed for most of the 20th century.
The first scientific paper that interpreted the T. rex as a tripod was a paper written in 1905 by Henry Fairfield Osborn (“Tyrannosaurus and Other Cretaceous Carnivorous Dinosaurs”; see http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/dspace/bitstream/handle/2246/1464/B021a14.pdf?sequence=1). A picture of the living tripod interpretation was published in Osborn’s article by William D. Matthew (p. 262), and greatly influenced the historical interpretation of T. rex (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tyrannosaurus_skeleton.jpg). When the first T. rex skeleton was put on display as a tripod for the public in New York City at the American Museum of Natural History in 1915, this further influenced how T. rex was viewed by both scientists and the general public. Subsequent evidence has resulted in the data fragments being interpreted differently. Specifically, a scientific paper about how this upright posture was not physically possible for a creature that size resulted in a new interpretation (Newman, 1970).
Just like our understanding of the T. rex has changed over time, so does our understanding of history when new findings appear or a new interpretation of the same data fragments that leads to a more likely explanation occurs. History should be viewed as dynamic, ongoing, and ever changing, not simply boring old facts that need to be memorized and should be uncritically accepted as the unwavering truth. Perhaps in another 50 years the pictures of what scientists believe T. rex looked like will change again. The posture of T. rex also illustrates that once a more likely interpretation occurs, it can be a slow process in the information filtering down to everyone else. Despite the new evidence in the early 1970s that T. rex almost certainly did not exist as a living tripod, this information did not become widely known for many years.
Let’s continue with the dinosaur analogy. Currently in books, documentaries, internet sites, etc., you will find color pictures of the T. rex, descriptions about hunting habits, and a wide variety of explanations about their behaviors. This type of knowledge about the larger questions should be viewed as tentative, and may or may not be correct. Once again, without a time machine, there is simply no way to verify certain interpretations. I always like to ask my students was the T. rex pink? While this question appears to have an obvious “no” answer, it does force the individual to distinguish between a historical fact, and historical interpretation based upon the available data fragments. Consistent with contemporary living creatures, the color of the skin would likely provide some camouflage that would provide a hunting advantage, so pink seems unlikely based upon what scientists believe the landscape was like when T. rex roamed the earth. When interpretations are being made, both paleontologists and historians are giving their informed opinion about what they believe is most likely to have occurred in the past based upon the quality of the evidence uncovered.
While facts are true, even informed opinions based upon evidence can be wrong. Thus, it is always important to distinguish if the information provided is a historical fact or is a historical interpretation (i.e., an opinion). Facts do not change, while opinions about what occurred can certainly change, especially when new information is presented that contradicts the prevailing viewpoint. This distinction between facts and opinions is especially important for books pertaining to historical interpretations of events, which includes this book.
When evaluating the accuracy of historical claims (or claims about the dinosaurs), I have found it useful to use the following scale (see Figure 1), which is on a reciprocal continuum: historical fact (factual information does not change) => strongly supported by the available data fragments <=> ambiguous based upon the available data fragments <=> not likely based upon the available data fragments <= historical fiction (fiction has been demonstrated to be false based upon factually discrediting the claim and will not change). Historical facts and historical fiction are not open to interpretation (represented by the arrows in Figure 1), but the middle portion of the range (strongly supported, ambiguous, not likely) represented by overlapping circles requires interpretation by both the paleontologist as well as the historian.
Figure 1
Using the above scale, what are we to make of T. rex? It was a dinosaur with serrated teeth is a historical fact, and no forthcoming information will change that (just like no forthcoming information will change the fact that Freud appeared on the cover of Time magazine for the second time, June 26, 1939). The belief that T. rex was the smallest dinosaur is historical fiction. That the color of T. rex’s skin was not pink is strongly supported. Whether the T. rex hunted primarily as a predator or as a scavenger is somewhere in the middle range (strongly supported, ambiguous, not likely), and varies depending upon which individual is interpreting the data fragments. Because data fragments provide an incomplete picture, there can be disagreement when interpreting the same information. The belief that T. rex was primarily a vegetarian is not likely. Yet, any interpretation in the middle of the scale can theoretically change because it has not been factually verified or factually discredited. Finally, newly discovered factual evidence can move something from the middle range which is open to interpretation to either historical fact or historical fiction.
The Firing of John Watson: Historical Interpretation
What about John Watson? First, that he was fired by Johns Hopkins University is a historical fact. However, exactly why he was fired at this point in time is open to historical interpretation unless a conclusive data fragment that is yet to be discovered is found in the future. It is the job of the individual interpreting history to evaluate all of the discovered data fragments and search for any undiscovered “dinosaur bones” wh
en making an interpretation. What exactly was the 1974 evidence of reprehensible research that came forth which questions the interpretation that Watson was fired for his public affair with his student Rosalie Rayner?
Psychologist James McConnell wondered why John Watson, one of the leading professors in the country, would be terminated for having an affair, especially since affairs with students were likely not uncommon in the 1920s (Benjamin et al., 2007). McConnell, in searching for evidence, found a former colleague of Watson’s, Deke Coleman, when Watson worked in advertising. The real reason, according to Mr. Coleman, was that “Watson had been conducting studies of actual sexual intercourse, measuring physiological responses during the sexual act. Coleman claimed that Watson conducted these studies using himself and his graduate assistant, Rayner, as the participants. Coleman also stated that Watson had been fired for these studies, not just for having an affair with his graduate student” (Benjamin et al., 2007, p. 132).
McConnell would ultimately publish this account of Watson’s firing in an Introductory Psychology textbook that he authored in 1974, and the account spread to other textbooks. Textbooks play a very important role in transmitting information, as most professors do not have the time to double check every interpretation and ultimately rely on most information in textbooks at face-value. In fact, I first heard this account of Watson’s firing in a History of Psychology course that I had taken as an undergraduate psychology student at Buffalo State College. I would subsequently repeat the story when lecturing myself years later. The professor teaching the course when I was a student likely repeated McConnell’s account from the textbook used, which was an early version of Schultz and Schultz’s A History of Psychology (I use the current version of the textbook when teaching).