Psychologists on psychology

Psychology Press & Routledge Classic Editions

by David Cohen

Book by Cohen, David

Genres: Psychology

360 pages, Unbound

First published June 1, 1977

About the author

Librarian Note: There are more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Paul Davies · Rating 5 out of 5]

Over Christmas (2024), I reread Psychologists on Psychology. It was delightful to revisit the thoughts of eminent psychologists such as Skinner, Chomsky, Eysenck, and Broadbent. David Cohen doesn't shy away from controversial questions in his interviews and often challenges the psychologists about some of their work. He offers some very insightful thoughts about why people decide to become psychologists and the motivation behind their research.

I feel that this book is an important time capsule, capturing the thoughts on psychology at the time (i.e. the 1970s). It's been fifty years since this was published, and I would love to see a new version with similar interviews with contemporary minds in psychology.

[Shannon Hedges · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book consists of interviews with highly influential scientists and philosophers including Noam Chomsky, Hans Eysenck, R.D. Laing, and Philip Zimbardo. I really enjoyed the conversation between Zimbardo, former APA president, and Cohen, especially Zimbardo's response to Cohen's question regarding the idealism that surrounded the field post WWII:

"After World War Two, psychologists were filled with enthusiasm for doing good and working internationally but they had to publish to get promoted or they'd perish so they became conservative and tentative and focused narrowly on projects that were readily doable and publishable. But it is changing now with the infusion of new female blood and brains. Women want a psychology filled with meaning overflowing with using knowledge for social good and dealing with the emergent problems facing nations worldwide and I believe that as psychology becomes more relevant with female psychologists leading the way we will return to the idealism that flourished after World War Two."

He also discusses the Stanford Prison Experiment and his work on cults. It's a quick read, but a modern version is needed. It's clearly a bit outdated. I wonder what today's prominent psychologists have to say about the field.