The Persuaders: Nonbehavioristic Psychologists

The Persuaders 271 high as well when the community is persuaded to change and it accepts a successful Persuader as a guide for some time. Practically all the "great names" in the history of science can be viewed as successful Persuaders. This chapter presents two apparently successful Persuaders and two relatively unsuccessful ones. At any one time there are probably many The Persuaders: unsuccessful Persuaders in a scientific community. They may be said to represent the seeds of potential change; but most of these seeds fall Nonbehavioristic Psychologists on arid ground. The chances of success for any Persuader is small. Yet without the presence of such people, the scientific community would be Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist. -RALPH WALDOEMERSON left with no coherent program of development when its current course faltered. Timing is a critical ingredient in the process of successful persua- ~ion.In psychology as elsewhere, a receptive audience is one that has almost arrived at the same conclusion by itself. Thus, Plans and the Struc- Although behaviorism unquestionably dominated scientific psychology ture ofBehiuiio~,by George A. Miller, Eugene Galanter, and Karl Pribram, until well into the 1950s, there were numerous cross-currents even in had a significant impact on the cognitive revolution, in part because it the heyday of behaviorism. I have already pointed to social psychology appeared in 1960, just as many psychologists were preparing to think as one field in which many of the major developments in the cognitive more cognitively. Had it bee$ published five years earlier, it would have framework were foreshadowed (Chapter 4). and of course there were been dismissed as too radical; five years later, it might have been neg- many other "protocognitive" trends in psychology. Many psychologists lected as too obvious. may have experienced considerable discomfort with behaviorism (e.g., By far, the most successful of these well-timed books was Ulric Roback, 1964). In fact, it was possible to come of age intellectually in Neisser's Cognitive Psychology (1 967), which presented the first integrated psychology without ever really believing in behaviorism: The interviews view of the snowballing empirical research. It named and crystallized in this chapter bear witness to that. Some psychologists such as Ernest a movement that was already pervasive, but until then was only vaguely R. Hilgard and Jerome S. Bruner flourished during the height of behav- perceived. As I pointed out in Chapter 4, the cognitive revolution did not iorism without ever becoming behaviorists. And three of our interview- define itself self-consciously until after it occurred "spontaneously" to many ees-Ulric Neisser, Walter B. Weimer, and Michael Wapner-continue individual psychologists. Neisser wrote the right book at the right time. to disagree with the cognitive point of view, though they are clearly more The widespread impact of Neisser's book can be compared with cognitive than behavioristic. All these psychologists can be called "Per- another attempt to mold a revolution in psychology-the "New Look" suaders" in that their fundamental stance vis-2-vis the larger communi- in perception. The New Look came and went in the early 1950s, based ty is an attempt to persuade the majority to change the dominant frame- on work by Jerome S. Bruner and Leo Postman (Bruner & Postman, work in some significant way. 1947; Bruner, 1984; Erdelyi, 1974). That work advocated a view of All of the Persuaders are nonconformists, though in a sense all scien- perception in which biases and emotional factors would be taken into tists have a nonconformist streak. If two scientists are doing work that account as an inherent part of one's perception of reality. In many ways, is too similar, there is one scientist too many. There is a premium on the New Look was an attempt to make themes taken from psychody- being different in science, within limits. But the Persuaders have gone namics, Gestalt psychology, and social psychology an integral part of the a step beyond the standard scientific independence of mind by developing experimental psychology of perception. Though the attempt triggered an entire point of view that is different from the dominant one. The price a great deal of research, the New Look failed to persuade most experimen- such people pay is often a lack of communication with the larger com- tal psychologists. (It probably has continued to influence some work in munity, and that has indeed been the case for all of the interviewees in social psychology, however, such as work on person perception and at- this chapter. The price is admittedly high, but the reward can be very tribution of personal causality.) 272 The Cognitive Revolution in Psychology The Persuaders 273 Another psychologist interviewed in this chapter, Ernest R. Hilgard, analogy of a scientific community to a biological species, exploiting and exemplifies some early attempts to move psychology in a new direction. developing its ecological niche. When a biological species encounters a Hilgard entered psychology as a product of the prebehavioristic Eastern crisis occasioned by some change in its environment, its continued sur- establishment in experimental psychology, centered in Ivy League col- vival depends critically on individuals who differ from the mainstream, leges such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Cornell. These schools were who have the genetic capability to exploit new niches. In just the same the special province of an intellectual and social elite, and psychologists way, individuals who differ from the mainstream may begin to play a among them tended to be broadminded, widely educated, and cosmo- special role in times of crisis in a scientific community. Indeed, most of politan in outlook. Behaviorism acted on this tolerant world as a purge: the great names in the history of science can be viewed in this way - as It displaced the inclusive outlook with a much more exclusive one. But individuals who, 50 years earlier, would have been ignored as peculiar psychologists such as Hilgard, who were trained in prebehavioristic at best, but who seem to have had just the right solution at the right time psychology, continued to pursue a broader psychology. for the scientific community when it came to a crossroads. Curiously, Hilgard's best-known work m'ade him appear to be the Thus neither Weimer nor Wapner are standard cognitive psychol- essential behaviorist. Conditioning and Learning (1940), written with Donald ogists, though they are more cognitive than behavioristic. Both depart G. Marquis,-was for many years the core of the behavioral curriculum from the current cognitive perspective in significant ways. Weimer favors in graduate programs in psychology, together with its successor volume, the viewpoint of "ecological psychology" (ex., Gibson, 1966, 1979), focus- Hilgard and Marquis' Conditioning and Learning, written by Kimble (1961). ing on environmental determinants of perception and action rather than Learning was, of course, the primary focus of behavioristic research, and on inferred theoretical mechanisms. Wapner's viewpoint is more difficult conditioning was the experimental paradigm that was thought to con- to define. One thread is a theoretical metaphor that differs from the con- tain all the essential elements of learning. Until fairly recently, any ventional "information-processing" metaphor; instead of talking about graduate student had to know "Hilgard and Marquis" better than any "representation," he prefers to talk about "adaptation" in the nervous other book. system. Although these metaphors are often interchangeable, they tend But Hilgard never thought of himself as a behaviorist. In fact, when to emphasize different aspects of human functioning. the book was completed, he and Marquis came to the conclusion that Whether outsiders to the cognitive community can have any more the behavioral program was fundamentally flawed: Conditioning could influence than Hilgard and Bruner enjoyed in the case of behaviorism not, after all, provide a foundation for the whole of learn- still remains to be seen. We would expect cognitive psychologists to have ing. Hilgard expressed this in his next book, Theories $Learning (1948), a more theoretical orientation than behaviorists, and this may lead to but the message was apparently not understood by most experimental a greater openness to new ideas. Whether this will in fact happen will psychologists. be interesting to see. Psychologists are hardly unusual among scientists in turning a deaf ear to unconventional views. The two remaining interviewees in this chapter are more or less "scientific isolates," because they believe that Ulric Neisser: Crystallizing the Cognitive Revolution current psychology fails to include some very important elements. Both men are extraordinarily intelligent and creative, and are concerned with Ulric Neisser (b. 1928) is a prolific researcher who wrote the book that very broad questions; each by temperament is more a theoretician than named and crystallized the new framework: Cosnitiue Psychology (Neisser, an experimentalist. In fact, neither Walter Weimer nor Michael Wapner 1967). The book clearly shows influences from the field of Artificial In- have published experimental work, though both have been trained as telligence and Gestalt psychology. Neisser tells us that he was also much experimentalists and completed experimental doctoral dissertations. (It moved by the spirit of humanistic psychologists such as Abraham Mas- is worth noting in this regard that contemporary psychology has virtually low-in fact, he saw the cognitive approach as a more humanistic view no professional niches for theoretical psychologists. Any theory not tied , !, of the human organism. directly to a program of experiments is still commonly disregarded.) Ulric Neisser received a good part of his undergraduate and graduate It is well to recall at this point one of the themes of this book: the training during the period of behavioristic dominance, but he never I8: 274 The Cognitive Revolution in Psycholoo The Persuaders 275 became a behaviorist.

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