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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2022
Psychological investigations are supposed to deal with the behavior of animals, including of course, the human being. They are supposed to deal with the broad, general problem of how and why we behave the way we do.
Most psychologists however, are still dealing with their particular science from the strictly biological point of view, and overlooking by and large, the ever gradual development of psychology into a social rather than biological science. Nevertheless, important methodological contributions are being made. These contributions show a progressive awareness of the societal influences to which Psychology is particularly susceptible. The problems dealt with and the way in which they are handled, reflect conditions in the everyday world. Even the experimenter in an ivory laboratory but reflects the current and wholly erroneous viewpoint fostered by interested groups, that science must be impartial and oblivious to human suffering and human welfare.
Read at the Symposium on Scientific Methodology held by the American Association of Scientific Workers in New York City, May 1941. The author is greatly indebted to Mr. Herbert Birch of the Washington Square College Psychology Department for clarifying some of the issues raised in this paper, though he is not to be held responsible for any errors committed.
1 G. W. Allport, Psychological Bulletin, 1940, 37, p. 7 (Jan.). Since Pearl Harbor the psychological profession as a whole has become much more active in fulfilling its responsibilities to society. Therefore this criticism no longer holds to the extent it did before the United States was attacked.
2 Address at Cooper Union, Feb. 5,1939.
3 Bulletin of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, Feb. 1939, (Jr. of Social Psychology, 1939, 10, 153-154).
4 Psychologists League Jr., II (1938), 64-67.
5 Race Differences, 1935, 182-210.
6 Social Psychology, 1940, p. 400.
7 Bulletin of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, Aug. 1939, (Jr. of Social Psychology, 1939, 10, 409-420).
8 Jr. of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1940, 35, 356-366.
9 Public Opinion Quarterly, 1939, 3, 449-457.
10 Ibid., p. 16.