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Building a “Cross-Roads Discipline” at Mcgill University: a History of Early Experimental Psychology in Postwar Canada

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Building a “Cross-Roads Discipline” at Mcgill University: a History of Early Experimental Psychology in Postwar Canada BUILDING A “CROSS-ROADS DISCIPLINE” AT MCGILL UNIVERSITY: A HISTORY OF EARLY EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY IN POSTWAR CANADA ERIC OOSENBRUG A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Psychology. Graduate Program in Psychology York University Toronto, Ontario October 2020 © Eric Oosenbrug, 2020 Abstract This dissertation presents an account of the development of psychology at McGill University from the late nineteenth century through to the early 1960s. The department of psychology at McGill represents an alternative to the traditional American-centered narrative of the cognitive revolution and later emergence of the neurosciences. In the years following World War II, a series of psychological experiments established McGill as among the foremost departments of psychology in North America. This thesis is an institutional history that reconstructs the origins, evolution, and dramatic rise of McGill as a major center for psychological research. The experiments conducted in the early 1950s, in the areas of sensory restriction, motivation, and pain psychology, were transformative in their scope and reach. Central to this story is Donald O. Hebb, author of The Organization of Behavior (1949), who arrived at McGill in 1947 to find the charred remains of a department. I argue that the kind of psychology Hebb established at McGill was different from most departments in North America; this is developed through a number of interwoven storylines focused on the understanding of a particular character of McGill psychology - a distinctive “psychological style” - and its broader historical importance for Canadian psychology, for North American psychology, and for psychology across the globe. This psychological style was an amalgam, embracing both the experimentalism associated with behaviorists and attention to subjective and emotional states associated with psychoanalytic and Gestalt theory. It contributed to the development of cognitive (neuro)psychology, but through avenues that lay somewhat outside the main scientific developments commonly noted in existing historical studies, which tend to neglect the role of emotion and embodied experience. This dissertation provides an account of the complex interplay of factors that affected the trajectory of psychology at McGill with attention to key individuals, department structures, and priorities; it examines how research institutions in Canada were built after the war; how various tensions and relationships shaped these early projects; and investigates the development of key concepts, theoretical views, research practices, and commitment to interdisciplinarity. ii Acknowledgements I am grateful to so many who have supported me during the long writing of this dissertation, and throughout my graduate school journey. First, and foremost, I would like to thank my dissertation committee. Thomas Teo and Joel Katz, I appreciate your continuing patience, insight, and support. To my supervisor Michael Pettit, I extend my profound appreciation for the many years of encouragement and patience, as well as for his comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this dissertation. I am indebted to the staff at a variety of institutions for their assistance while undertaking research for this project. Many thanks to the librarians and archivists at the McGill University Archives, Osler Library of the History of Medicine, and the CAMH Archives. I would also like to offer my gratitude to the staff at the Psychology Graduate Office at York University. Finally, I would like to offer my appreciation to my parents for their unwavering support. This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, Helen and Bas. iii Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents iv Introduction 1 Chapter One: Psychology at McGill in the Early Twentieth Century 8 Early Development of Academic Psychology at McGill 9 The Mental Hygiene Movement in Canada and at McGill 19 The Department of Psychology at McGill 34 Scientific Psychology between Philosophy and Mental Hygiene 39 Academic Psychology at McGill in the 1930s 58 Chapter One Conclusions 61 Chapter 2: Psychology, McGill, and the Second World War 63 Canadian Psychology and World War II 64 The Reconstruction: Robert MacLeod and Postwar Psychology 70 Chapter Two Conclusions 82 Chapter 3: Donald Hebb and a “Neuro-Psychology” at McGill University 83 Hebb, Psychology, and the American Functionalist Tradition at McGill 86 Hebb's Training with Lashley at the University of Chicago and Harvard 94 Hebb at the Montreal Neurological Institute and at Queen's University 99 Hebb returns to work with Lashley: The Yerkes Laboratory 109 Hebb's Neuropsychological Vision 115 Chapter Three Conclusions 140 Chapter 4: Psychology in Canada and at McGill After World War II 143 Rise of Applied Psychology in Postwar Canada 145 Psychology as a Basic Science 149 Funding Canadian Psychology After the War 156 Tensions between Academic and Applied Psychologist in Canada 168 “More than a single discipline” 170 In Support of a Science of Unsolved Problems: The MacLeod Report 181 Opinicon and the Future of Psychology in Canada 184 Chapter Four Conclusions 188 iv Chapter 5: Between Brain and Body- The Legacy of Hebbian Neuropsychology 190 Taking Shape: Hebb’s Postwar Research Agenda 193 Experiments on Sensory Restriction 201 The Discovery of the “Reward Centre” in the Brain 211 Pioneering Studies in the Psychology of Pain at McGill 220 Conclusions to Chapter Five 232 Conclusion 240 The Neuropsychological Self 244 References 247 v Introduction “The focal problem of psychology is found in the patterns of behavior shown by the whole animal of a higher species in adjusting to his environment over appreciable periods of time; to say the same in a different way, it is found in the mental processes of the higher animal” (Hebb, 1958, p. 8). Just after his retirement in 1976, Canadian psychologist Donald Olding Hebb (1904- 1985) reached out to then Minister of State for Science and Technology, Hugh Faulkner (1933- 2016), to urge additional financial support for experimental psychology from the Trudeau government (Hebb, 1976). During the 1950s Hebb had overseen the Department of Psychology at McGill University. From his time as Chair, a number of important psychological discoveries can be traced. These include the mechanism of reward in the brain, the peculiar effects of prolonged sensory isolation, and insights that mark the early development of a psychology of pain in the 1950s. Twenty years later, in his letter to Faulkner, Hebb remarked that, “Any one of these by itself might have been a landmark in the study of man [...] all took place within a short period and may be seen as parts of the same spurt in the knowledge of behaviour, and they all took place in Canada” (Hebb, 1976). While it is unknown whether these examples convinced Faulkner to provide the requested funding, it is clear Hebb believed Canadian psychology had proven that it was continuous with biological science, as “a hard-headed scientific discipline” (Hebb, 1976). This physiological and neurological approach demarcates Canadian psychology in the mid-twentieth century from the American behaviorist tradition. A special issue of the Canadian Journal of Psychology started, “If there is any brand of psychology which is peculiarly Canadian, it is the field of brain and behavior, and especially that area of it which has become known as neuropsychology” (Kimura, 1983, p. 1). But why? This dissertation examines the early history of experimental psychology in Canada (specifically at McGill University) in order to address this question. The history of psychology in Canada, compared to the development of the discipline in other parts of the work such as the United States and Great Britain, has been scarcely examined. In part this is due to the smaller size of Canadian psychology departments and research output. It might come as a surprise to readers that there was much history to be written from this period. Indeed, before World War II there was little in terms of experimental or academic psychology 1 outside a handful of universities (Wright & Myers, 1982). After the war, however, Canadian psychology underwent a surge of interest in psychological knowledge and expertise; and with funding came tremendous growth at Canadian universities (Frost, 1984; Wright & Myers, 1982). It is said that Canadian psychology ‘came of age’ in the 1960s (Wright, 1969). While this may be true for the nation as a whole, the decade that came before laid the groundwork for the organization, direction, and growth of experimental psychology that would follow. To the extent that there is a traditional origin story of the emergence of psychology in Canada, much emphasis has been placed on the first experimental laboratory at the University of Toronto (e.g., Hoff, 1992; Wright, 2002; Green, 2004). However, much groundbreaking Canadian psychological research is attributed to the contributions of psychologists associated with the Department of Psychology at McGill University in the 1950s. It was during this postwar period that Donald Hebb extended his neuropsychological theories into the nature of learning and motivation while constructing early neural network theory, and his students, such as Brenda Milner, Ronald Melzack, and James Olds redefined the areas of memory, pain, and reward (respectively). Psychology at McGill and in Montreal during this period signaled the
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