On 17 Mar 2007 at 11:55, Hoganjohn wrote: > > I'm not a major fan of Freud, but the blogger is trying to > identifythe most influential studies. It would be hard to deny Freud's > influence. As for Freud not being a "real" researcher,I notice > thatsomeone has included Piaget on the list, and certainly his early > work with his three children was no more experimental than Freud's work > was.
That someone was me, of course. I don't think it's so hard to deny Freud's influence, if by "influence" we mean a lasting effect on the direction of evidence-based psychology. He caused lots of trouble, certainly, and had a powerful effect on literature and popular culture, but on real scientific psychology? Not a chance. As for Piaget, his methods may not have been experimental, but his observations launched a million experiments to see if he was right. His work has had a profound and lasting influence on current research in child psychology. My unprovable opinion is that modern psychology would have been better off had Freud never existed, but much poorer without Piaget. Stephen ----------------------------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Department of Psychology Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2600 College St. Sherbrooke QC J1M 0C8 Canada Dept web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy TIPS discussion list for psychology teachers at http://faculty.frostburg.edu/psyc/southerly/tips/index.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------------- --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english
