A Search for Identity

Two years ago, the Psychology and Social Relations Department decided that the "SR" part of its title was no longer relevant. But although the renamed Psychology Department has decided what it is not, students and professors say, it is less sure of what it is.

To most professors, the name change meant little, because it did not define a new direction. The department "tends to be drifting at the moment. It no longer has a strong identity," says one professor who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "It doesn't have a sense of its mission."

The essential split, department members say, lies between the "hard"--or more numerical--and the "soft" areas of the field. Professors say students are more inclined toward the latter, which includes the study of perception and personality.

However, the rising stars of the department's faculty tend to focus on the "hard" side of the field, which includes bio-psychology, cognitive psychology and animal behavior, professors say. These areas of psychology place a heavy emphasis on original experiments which produce empirical data.

Furthermore, the department is setting out to fill four senior posts and three junior positions by the fall of 1989, says department chairman Brendan A. Maher, Henderson Professor of the Psychology of Personality.

Two of the four open tenured slots are in the "softer" areas of personality and perception, and the field of personality has been without a senior scholar since the departure of former Professor of Psychology David C. McClelland in June 1986.

The continuing vacancy in this post has led some professors to question Harvard's commitment to the area. "They need to decide in their hiring practice whether they're going to go on with personality or not go on with personality," says one professor.

Data-Crunching

The split between student interest in "soft" psychology and faculty expertise in the more numerical side of the field has led many undergraduates to complain that the department is too empirically oriented. They say it is virtually impossible to write theses that are not based on original experiments.

"There's a lot of pressure for the undergraduate concentrators to do a thesis that is empirical, that deals a lot with data-crushing," says Mark E. Agronin '87, a first-year medical student at Yale. While at Harvard, Agronin concentrated in psychology and founded the William James Society for students interested in the field.

In particular, concentrators say they have trouble finding advisiors for non-empirical thesis topics. They add that "think pieces," which focus on theory, are less likely to be accepted as thesis material. As a result, some concentrators say, students find themselves having to put an empirical twist on a theoretical subject.

One student says he recently talked to a faculty member about writing a paper which would discuss the role of religion in psychoanalysis by comparing the writings of Sigmund Freud, an atheist, with the work of other psychoanalysts. The student says his professor told him the topic was just not empirical enough. Instead, "she suggested I send a questionnaire to psychoanalysts and just ask them about their beliefs," the students says.

Some graduate students and professors agree that the department is accepting fewer theses based on historical--rather than experimental--research. "It is kind of too bad that there are some kinds of theses that are too theoretical and wouldn't get through this department as a thesis. Once in a while they will let a theoretical one through," says Tamra J. Pearson, a fourth year graduate student and teaching fellow.

"We've had theses that have been pretty theoretical says Starch Professor of Psychology William K. Estes. "Far as I can see the department has been changing gradually over a long time."

However Maher disagrees, saying, the majority of honors theses have always focused on empirical data.

Changing Field?

Whether or not they agree Harvard is placing increasing emphasis on hard data, some professors say the whole field of psychology has become more empirical.

"The result of interest in cognitive psychology and the nervous system has made that side of psychology everywhere in the country much more mathematical, much more allied with identifiable natural sciences," Maher says.

"The major trend of contemporary American psychology is to include cognitive factors," says Ira S. Cohen, director of educational affairs for the American Psychological Association.

Harvard's Psychology Department is "one-third theoretical and two-thirds empirical," says Estes, adding the proportion is in keeping with psychology departments at other universities. "That's the way the field is now," he says.

In fact, the increasing emphasis on empiricism among junior faculty members means that the Harvard Psychology Department is back in step with the nation, some professors say.

"Compared to other universities, I don't think Harvard is empirical," says Daryl J. Bem, a visiting professor of psychology from Cornell University "Harvard has been very much on the theoretical end [over the last 30 years]. If anything [a shift] is just a correction of the past. It's moving more toward the empiricism of other departments."

The changing nature of psychology means that students will have to get used to a more empirically oriented department, professors say, adding that they are concerned by lingering students preferences for less mathematically oriented courses.

"I think it's very clear that among the undergraduates, the softer kind of Psych is much more popular," says one professor who asked to remain anonymous. "I would like to see there be more people going into the cognitive science track."

"I don't like the trend," says Associate Professor of Psychology James E. Mazur. "I don't think that students get enough exposure to the harder aspects of psychology." Mazur cites the fact that nonhonors concentrators are not required to do laboratory work as evidence that students are still able to avoid the empirical side of psychology.

Nonetheless, professors say they recognize that some students believe the department's emphasis on hard data poses difficulties for some concentrators.

"I think it's fair to say that Psychology for undergraduates is often experienced by some as frustrating because they come into the field expecting to study individuals. They're not interested in statistics, mathematics or research," Maher says.

While some professors approve of the focus on empiricism, some concentrators say what they call a shift away from theoretical research has boxed in the department.

"I think the department has taken a definite direction towards what it considers empiricism, but I think that movement is founded on things that are superficial. It's eliminating things that aren't numerical--I think that's very shortsighted," says Psychology concentrator Christopher N. Chapman '89.

Students also say that the experimentally-based theses they are required to do have very little relevance to their future education. "I have problems with [data-crunching] because it turns out that most of the concentrators don't go into psychology," Agronin says.

Although Harvard professors say that their emphasis on empirical data reflects a general trend, a scholar at Stanford University disagrees, saying that theoretical research is on the rise. "The field is going less empirical, not more empirical. There's been a flood of work in this area that's largely non-empirical," says Brian A. Wandell, Stanford associate professor of psychology.

According to Harvard professors, Stanford regularly ranks number one to Harvard's number two in polls ranking psychology departments nationwide.

Even if Wandell is correct, and professors at other universities are placing more emphasis on theory, Harvard professors say that such a move would be inappropriate for undergraduates.

Although scholarly theses, based on historical rather than experimental data, are welcomed by the department, professors say they are difficult for students to execute well.

"There is no rule against [theoretical theses, but] I have always advised students that in the long run doing empirical theses turns out easier to do well than a thesis based entirely on library research," Maher says.

"In my view a lot of undergraduates would like to do such theses but have trouble with them," says Professor of Psychology Sheldon H. White.

While students and professors disagree whether the department should become more or less theoretical, both sides concur that no great change will take place until the seven posts are filled.

The new senior professors, Maher says, will probably specialize in the fields of personality, perception, cognitive science, and psychoanalysis. These four people will play an important role in shaping the department in the coming years.

The appointees who specialize in the "softer" fields, in particular, may bring new vitality to the part of the department in which students seem most interested. Professor of Psychology Stephen M. Kosslyn, who heads the search committee for the senior post in the field of perception, says six scholars are currently being considered for the position. "We hope to have an offer out this semester," he says.

The search for a senior professor who specializes in cognitive psychology is also nearing completion, according to Estes, who chairs that search committee. "With luck we might have some news within a month or so," Estes says.

Last spring the department searched for a professor who specialized in biological psychology. After the scholar chosen rejected Harvard's offer, the appointment landed "on the shelf," Maher says.

As the searches continue, all that students and faculty members who are unhappy with the department's current direction, or lack thereof, can do is wait.

"I don't know what direction they're planning to head into and I'm not sure they know either," says Mazur, who is in his eighth and last year at Harvard and will be teaching at Southern Connecticut University next year.