A half century ago, psychologist George Miller (1969) memorably exhorted his colleagues to “give psychology away.” He proposed that a cadre of “psychological technologists” educate the general public in the “new conception of man that is emerging from our science” (p. 1070) and work directly to solve the practical problems encountered “in schools, hospitals, prisons, industries” (p. 1074). Of course, long before Miller's impassioned plea, many psychologists were giving public lectures, writing popular books, and consulting far from the ivory tower. The results were arguably mixed. John Watson (1928), father of behaviorism, warned parents not to show any affection toward their children beyond a handshake, and several years earlier a group of patriotic psychologists developed intelligence tests for World War I that were poorly administered and probably of no use to the Army (Samelson, 1977). Even before that, Harvard's Hugo Münsterberg made so many embarrassing...
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Book Review|
April 01 2022
Can Mental Tricks Effect Social Change?
The Quick Fix
By Jesse Singal. New York
: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux
, 2021
. 337
pp. Hardcover, $28
Benjamin J. Lovett
Benjamin J. Lovett
Teachers College, Columbia University Box 120, 525 West 120th Street New York, NY 10027 Email: BL2799@tc.columbia.edu
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The American Journal of Psychology (2022) 135 (1): 128–131.
Citation
Benjamin J. Lovett; Can Mental Tricks Effect Social Change?. The American Journal of Psychology 1 April 2022; 135 (1): 128–131. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/19398298.135.1.11
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