Margaret Floy Washburn: Biography Of This Experimental Psychologist
Margaret Floy Washburn (1871-1939) was the first woman to obtain official recognition of the degree of Doctorate in Psychology from Cornell University, and she was also the second woman president of the APA (American Psychological Association).
His studies have been pioneering, although little known, in experimental psychology especially applied to the mental processes of animals and human beings. She is also one of the first representatives of the struggles for equal opportunities for women in higher education.
In this article you will find a biography of Margaret Floy Washburn as well as some of her main contributions to psychology and some of the elements that generated important barriers for the participation and scientific development of women at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.
Margaret Floy Washburn: biography of a pioneer of psychology
Margaret Floy Washburn was born on July 25, 1871 in New York City. She grew up in a context where education was taught in spaces reserved for men, and spaces also reserved for women were gradually opened.
Washburn He trained in philosophy and science at Vassar College and later pursued graduate studies with James McKeen Cattell, who had started a psychology laboratory at Columbia University. Although women were not allowed to participate in the laboratories in this context, Margaret Floy Washburn was admitted as a “listener.”
A year after working with Cattell, Washburn decided to study at Cornell University along with the British psychologist Edward B. Titchener, since there seemed to be more opportunities to obtain an official degree as a psychologist. This is how she became Titchener’s first doctoral student and the first woman to have her Doctorate in Psychology officially recognized in the year 1894.
Washburn developed in a privileged family context from which he was able to develop an important professional career and face the context that excluded women from academic activity while demanding a life based on marriage and family.
He kept his professional career as a priority and gained a lot of prestige both for his research and his teaching activity. For example, she published a total of 69 experimental studies that were produced in her laboratory at Vassar College, where she also prioritized the participation of women. In 1903 she was part of the list of the best 50 psychologists in America.
Society of psychologists and the first generation of women
Edward B. Titchener had some disagreements with the psychology that the APA supported at the time, so he decided to found the first alternative society of experimental psychologists. Titchener had flatly refused to accept women as part of his society , among other things because he considered it inappropriate for them to be present in the smoking room; a place that the APA had already opened for female scientists.
In this context Washburn had distanced herself from Titchener and had become critical of his reductionist approaches to the mind, but she was already part of the first generation of prestigious women in experimental psychology. In fact, in the year 1921 She was named president of the American Psychological Association becoming the second woman to hold that position (the first was Mary Whiton Calkins).
Once Titchner had died, the Society of Experimental Psychologists reorganized, and for the first time admitted two women as members of the group: June Etta Downey and Margaret Floy Washburn. In 1931, Washburn even arranged for the annual meetings of psychologists to be held at Vassar College, the women’s college to which she was attached. In the same year she became the second woman elected as a member of the prestigious National Academic of Science.
The main contribution of Washburn’s work to psychology was the study of consciousness and mental processes in animals and later in humans He specifically explored the existence of conscious processes, such as attention and learning. Furthermore, he placed emphasis on the importance of motor movements for the activation and development of psychological processes, especially for learning, attention and emotion.
From his animal studies, Washburn argued that it is motor excitement that prepares for future actions In other words, higher mental processes, such as reflection and awareness, decision making and learning, occur from physical movements that predispose or inhibit action in the presence of distal stimuli (those that activate the sensory system). because they function as an announcement of the arrival of a proximal stimulus, which is the one that directly affects the organism).
Some of his main works are The Animal Mind (The Animal Mind), from 1908, which has been recognized as one of the pioneering studies in animal cognition, as well as one of the investigations that allowed the field of experimental psychology to mature and standardize both definitions and vocabulary.
Another of his main works is Movement and Mental Imagery (Movement and mental imagery) of 1917, which was where he significantly developed his theory of consciousness. It is in the latter that Washburn managed to integrate the experimental method of introspection with an emphasis on motor processes.
