2-036 - No developmental psychology without recapitulation theory

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

This symposium is dedicated to exploring the roots of developmental psychology.
The cradle of the discipline can be found in Jena, Germany. German Romanticism emerged in the aftermath of the battle of Jena, where Napoleon defeated Prussia (1806). The Enlightenment notion of Progress assumes that the child will, through natural development, move from the primitive to the highest level (of Western civilization). The resulting romanticized child personified hopes for a better future.
This conception of child development was biologized in the recapitulation theory of Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) from Jena. This theory motivated the first empirical study of child development by his colleague William Preyer, who observed his first-born son (Preyer, 1882), a study generally seen as marking the beginning of developmental psychology as a discipline. Discussions of the tenability of Haeckel’s theory will be examined.
The recapitulation theory, tenable or not, served as a strong basis for (male) scholars to study children. In these gentlemen’s daily lives children “… took on the coloration of mother, hearth and heaven” (Kessen, 1979). But recapitulation theory suggested that studying children, interesting in itself, was not as important as learning via children, about evolution. As a consequence, a strong echo of Haeckel’s law (ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny) can be discerned in the works of the founding fathers of developmental psychology -- notably Preyer, Stanley Hall, Baldwin, and Piaget.
Hence the title of this symposium, along with the related purpose of demonstrating how the reconstituted SRCD History Committee’s agenda can inform present and future research.

Sub Unit

• Methods, History, Theory

Chair

• Frank S Kessel, Univ of New Mexico

Discussant

• Stephen A Lassonde, Brown University

Individual Presentations

• The Jena story - Presenting Author: Willem Koops, Utrecht University

• The Clark Story - Presenting Author: Christopher Green, York University

• The Geneva-Paris Story - Presenting Author: Paul Harris, Harvard University