Thanks Chris! Really appreciate the historical context. Alas yes, I revealed my
age and long-ago teaching load by using the "old" language. We are in the
process of revamping the class and always updating.
I agree, it does feel like a clash or accommodation of different cultures!
G.L. (Gary) Peterson,Ph.D
Psychology@SVSU
> On Aug 22, 2014, at 10:49 AM, Christopher Green <chri...@yorku.ca> wrote:
>
> Ooo! Something I know a little about. First off, Gary NO ONE says "history
> and systems" anymore. Sure fire way to reveal that you haven't revised your
> "history and systems" course in about 25 years. :-)
>
> Second, this debate has roots right to the very start of psychology. When
> Wundt et al. started doing "physiological psychology" (as he called it) in
> the 1870s, many physiologists (the term "biologist"wasn't really used much
> until later) claimed that the "new" discipline was really just a part of
> physiology (which had a certain plausibility, seeing as Wundt had literally
> taken the instruments from the physiology lab he worked in (Helmholtz's) and
> started using them to answer questions about the speed of thought).
>
> As psychologists began to develop their disciplinary rhetoric ("boundary
> work," as historians of science like to call it), the response that emerged
> was that, although psychologists used many of the same instruments as
> physiologists, the object of their study was consciousness itself rather than
> its physiological underpinnings. Consciousness was not part of the
> physiologists' domain. Although momentarily sufficient to keep the dogs at
> bay, the consciousness tactic" became increasingly problematic, especially
> after William James' 1904 article "Does Consciousness Exist?" If
> consciousness were so problematic that it could not effectively serve as
> psychology's defining concept, what was going to keep psychology from
> slipping (back?) into physiology? The answer to this crisis, as we all know,
> came about a decade later with John B Watson declared that "behavior"would be
> psychology's new core concept. This worked reasonably well, except that there
> were lots of biologists (as they now began to call themselves) who did work
> on (at least the most basic aspects of) behavior. Especially when the
> ethologists appeared on the US scene, around World War II, it created a bit
> of panic among those who thought that only "psychologists" did (could do?)
> behavior. It is no accident that, not long after, psychologists started
> talking a lot about "cognition" (though this is a complicated story with many
> diverse sources all converging in the US during the 1950s).
>
> To return to the question at hand, my understanding of the term "biological
> psychology"is that it is much broader than "behavioral neuroscientist."
> Biological psychologists look(ed) at (the psychological effects of)
> physiological mechanisms beyond the boundaries of the neurological; glandular
> and hormonal, for instance. So the two terms are not co-extensive. (Although
> there are biological psychologists still around, I'm not sure the extent to
> which *new* scientists using that particular label are still being produced.
> An academic career can take 40 years or more, and lots of people are not much
> interested in the massive retooling required to re-identify with a new group
> once their careers are well underway.) In any case, it is not really about
> definitions of the words. It is about the cultures of two groups of people.
> Behavioral neuroscience has developed its own distinct disciplinary culture
> (drawn more, I think, from neuroscience than from older forms of psychology)
> that probably make the two groups different in terms of both the scientific
> traditions they draw on and the problems they see as being "central" to their
> areas.
>
> My several-more-than-2-cents,
> Chris
> ......
> Christopher D Green
> Department of Psychology
> York University
> Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
>
> chri...@yorku.ca
> http://www.yorku.ca/christo
>
>> On Aug 22, 2014, at 9:33 AM, Gerald Peterson <peter...@svsu.edu> wrote:
>>
>> I am surprised there hasn't been more reactions/discussion here regarding
>> this issue. The issue seems clearly relevant to History& Systems type
>> classes, debate about subject matter of psychology, and the place of
>> biological reductionism in psych programs. Here, while most of us value the
>> neuroscience view and encourage our students working/researching in
>> "behavioral neuroscience," many also question whether the students are
>> missing a psychological perspective in such work. Is there a distinct
>> psychological view that should be conveyed in a psych curriculum that
>> differs from the neurobiological approach? Are biological/physio
>> psychologists actually doing psychological study? Why? Because they give
>> emphases (sometimes) to behavior? Aren't biologists studying behavior and
>> function as well? So are they then also doing psychology? Does a
>> psychologist look at behavior differently? Do psychological
>> explanations/theory differ from the neurobiological types of ideas? Is it
>> the molar-molecular dimension that is key, or is it that a psychological
>> account of presumed mental and/or experiential processes must be central? Is
>> this an ages-old historical issue regarding what is a defining issue for the
>> field? Or perhaps, Is the very idea of a psych viewpoint bankrupt or simply
>> irrelevant in this age of trending neuroscience?
>> Some might agree with Annette that perhaps the difference between Biological
>> Psychologist and Behavioral Neuroscientist is just a change in word usage.
>> Others might argue neither are psychologists!?
>>
>>
>> G.L. (Gary) Peterson,Ph.D
>> Psychology@SVSU
>>
>>
>>> On Aug 21, 2014, at 3:23 PM, Annette Taylor <tay...@sandiego.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>> Words change...usage changes...but people sometimes have a hard time
>>> changing.
>>>
>>> We currently have a search underway for a biological psychologist. It would
>>> seem that the concept of a biological psychologist is outdated and that the
>>> proper search might be for a behavioral neuroscientist. But there are
>>> people in our department who insist that the perspectives are different and
>>> that we really want a biological psychologist--someone trained in a
>>> psychology department and not someone trained for example, in a biology
>>> department or even an interdisciplinary department. Someone whose focus is
>>> primarily on behavior--not necessarily human--but definitely behavior and
>>> not something like the molecular level. So a person could study "learning
>>> and memory" at a more global behavioral level or at a finer tuned level in
>>> terms of brain structures, or a even finer tuned level yet at the molecular
>>> level. I think that the argument among some (I don't have this perspective
>>> so I'm trying to be fair to those who do) is that is that once you get down
>>> to cellular levels and below you are no longer a biological "psychologist."
>>>
>>> Is there any sense among tipsters as to any "real" difference in what a
>>> traditional biological psychologist might bring to a department as opposed
>>> to a behavioral neuroscientist? We are at a crucial growth junction having
>>> initiated a program in behavioral neuroscience to complement our program in
>>> psychological science. The feeling among some is that the biological
>>> psychologist would be better serve the general psychological science
>>> program in the sense of preparing students who want to go into areas such
>>> as human relations/business or into law school or even into clinical areas
>>> with less than a PhD--i.e., areas that need a fundamental understanding of
>>> brain/behavior relationships, but not so finely tuned to the cellular
>>> levels and below.
>>>
>>> I'd appreciate some feedback as to where the field is going.
>>>
>>> (It seems to be that interdisciplinary neuroscience is the direction but I
>>> could be wrong on that. I'm not sure how to best research this objectively
>>> in some way other than looking at the job postings at APA and APS and
>>> counting the numbers of descriptors used.
>>>
>>> Annette
>>>
>>>
>>> Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph. D.
>>> Professor, Psychological Sciences
>>> University of San Diego
>>> 5998 Alcala Park
>>> San Diego, CA 92110-2492
>>> tay...@sandiego.edu
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