Popular Misconceptions and The Effort To Counteract
Despite the various publications, the general public had minimal understanding of what psychologists did and what psychology was all about. Many believed psychology was "mind reading and spiritualism" and that it had no real application in everyday life. Whereas, in reality, psychology was more about studying normal human behaviors and experiences that could very well have strong applications to everyday life.
Thus, regardless of the mass interest in psychology, an accurate account of psychology for the layman was rare. Many psychologists became concerned that their profession was failing appropriately to reach the public.
In 1893, Joseph Jastrow and Hugo Münsterberg led a public exhibit on psychology in the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago as an effort to celebrate psychology, offer information to the public, and correct popular misconceptions. The exhibit provided catalogs of information on equipment, research topics, and purposes of psychology. (For the actual catalogs, go to these websites: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Jastrow/section.htm and http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Munster/Lab/) In a similar attempt to inform the public, the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis included (among others) presentations from G. Stanley Hall, Edward B. Titchener, Mary Whiton Calkins, John B. Watson, and Adolph Meyer. The exhibits also included public testing and experimentation.
Although admirable, the attempt to seek public approval failed to make a significant impact and psychologists became more concerned about their public image. In 1900, Jastrow wrote a book entitled Fact and Fable in Psychology that aimed to resolve popular psychological misconceptions by clearly discerning fact from fable. In preface to his book, Jastrow states, "It is a matter of serious concern that the methods of genuine psychology, that the conditions of advance in psychology, that the scope and nature of its problems should be properly understood." (vii)
Read more about this topic: Popular Psychology, History
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