61 Facts About Edwin Boring

Edwin Garrigues Boring was an American experimental psychologist, Professor of Psychology at Clark University and at Harvard University, who later became one of the first historians of psychology.

Edwin Boring was born on October 23,1886, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and grew up in a Quaker family interested in science.

In 1904, Edwin Boring attended Cornell University, where he studied electrical engineering.

Edwin Boring earned a ME degree in electrical engineering in 1908 and then took a job at Bethlehem Steel in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Edwin Boring conducted the study by placing a stomach tube in his own stomach to learn more about the sensations of the alimentary tract.

In 1914, Edwin Boring's efforts were rewarded when he received his PhD.

Edwin Boring felt deep respect for Titchener and admired his dedication to his work.

Edwin Boring continued to teach psychology at Cornell for 4 years but was glad when the war forced him to leave this position, as he felt that Cornell did not need him.

Edwin Boring was later appointed chief psychological examiner at Camp Upton in Long Island.

Edwin Boring made his contribution during the war but was troubled afterward by the lack of scientific objectivity that resulted from intelligence testing.

Edwin Boring found the use of probabilities to answer scientific questions to be particularly frustrating.

At the time, Edwin Boring felt that science was a field of certainty, not probability.

In 1920, Edwin Boring was offered a position at Harvard and was offered a position to continue working with Yerkes in Minnesota.

The appeal of stability led Edwin Boring to accept the position at Clark.

Controversy was stirred during the Red Scare, when Atwood accused Edwin Boring of being a Bolshevik encouraging underground radicalism at Clark.

Such allegations had no evidence of support, and while Edwin Boring waited for his reappointment to Clark, he received another offer from Harvard as an associate professor and an offer from Stanford University for a full professorship with a higher salary.

Edwin Boring was rewarded for his dedication to Harvard by being promoted to laboratory director in 1924; he held that position until 1949, when he resigned.

Edwin Boring was very interested in building a close relationship between the staff and students.

Edwin Boring emphasized the use of the experimental method, rather than the tools of philosophy, to investigate psychological questions.

In 1933, at the suggestion of his friends and family, Edwin Boring began psychoanalysis treatment with a former colleague of Freud, Hanns Sachs.

Edwin Boring remained in psychoanalysis for a year, five sessions a week, but he found it to be ineffective in alleviating his concerns.

Edwin Boring had hoped to achieve a change in personality by the end of the experience and was disappointed to find that he still had his old mindset.

Four years later, both Sachs and Edwin Boring wrote about the experience in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology.

In 1928, Edwin Boring became president of the American Psychological Association.

Edwin Boring was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the United States National Academy of Sciences.

In 1945, Robert M Yerkes asked Boring to join his Survey and Planning Committee, designed to bring psychologists together to discuss issues regarding the war and the role psychologists could play during wartime to help provide services to the country.

Edwin Boring suggested uniting the American Psychological Association and the Association for Applied Psychology and all other societies that were willing.

Edwin Boring was then asked to introduce the first elected president, Robert I Watson, at the first official meeting, but old age prevented Boring from making the trip.

Edwin Boring introduced him by a written statement he mailed, read by John A Popplestone.

On July 1,1968, Edwin Boring died in Cambridge, Massachusetts at 81 from multiple myeloma, a hereditary bone cancer which he acquired later in life.

Edwin Boring's remains were interred at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Later in his career Edwin Boring became interested in the perceptual ambiguity of figure-ground phenomena.

Edwin Boring discussed cartoonist W E Hill's "My Wife and My Mother-in-Law" in a 1930 journal article, explaining that this illustration was an accurate representation of the phenomena because the two different images are interpenetrating one another with no formal dividing line.

Edwin Boring contrasted this image to Edgar Rubin's Rubin vase figure, where he felt that there is an obvious dividing line between the human profiles and goblets.

One graduate student with whom Edwin Boring developed a student-professor relationship similar to the one Edwin Boring had had with Titchener was Stanley Smith Stevens.

The question that Stevens and Edwin Boring researched was concerning the bright and dull tones that could be produced with a siren when the holes were appropriately spaced, hypothesizing that brightness varies with both the intensity and the frequency of the pitch.

Edwin Boring suggested that they embrace the new technology and conduct the experiment with a cathode-ray oscilloscope and a wave-analyzer.

When Titchener withdrew from the journal Dallenbach asked I Madison Bentley, Margaret Floy Washburn, and Boring to pick up editorship of the journal.

Edwin Boring himself was surprised by his view being in direct opposition to his deeply respected mentor Titchener.

Edwin Boring sought to establish what these phenomena represent in physical terms.

Edwin Boring considered his most important work to be his second volume of history, Sensation and Perception in the History of Experimental Psychology, which was published in 1942.

For instance Edwin Boring describes forces of the time working to separate the disciplines of philosophy and psychology at Harvard, commenting that the change would have been made even without him there to propose it.

Also in this book, Edwin Boring claimed that different areas of the tongue are sensitive to sweet, salty, sour and bitter tastes.

Edwin Boring later resigned from Harvard University in 1949 and in that same year published the second edition of A History of Experimental Psychology where he brought the text up to date on advancements in the field of psychology.

Edwin Boring emphasizes the role of the Zeitgeist providing a context for the great thinkers in psychology to advance their ideas.

Edwin Boring published an article on his own in 1951 in the American Psychologist that focused on women in the field and emphasized his beliefs.

Edwin Boring wrote about the disadvantages women in psychology face as the result of society which affects their professional advancement.

Edwin Boring describes the standard procedure men undergo to achieve prestige in their career: a man must receive a PhD, conduct meaningful research that gets published, and undertake administrative work.

Edwin Boring appeared on Psychology One, which was the first publicly televised introductory psychology course that aired in 1956.

In 1961 Edwin Boring published a text about his career and life experiences.

Edwin Boring founded and edited a journal that was dedicated exclusively to psychology book reviews, Contemporary Psychology.

Edwin Boring demanded a high degree of quality which challenged psychologists to rise to his standard.

Edwin Boring left his legacy on the field of psychology in many ways.

Edwin Boring was a historian, researcher, professor, critic, editor, and served in positions on many committees and intellectual societies.

Edwin Boring acted through a wide range of faculties to leave his mark on psychology.

Edwin Boring had a profound impact, training many students who would go on to become influential in the field of psychology such as Stanley Smith Stevens.

Edwin Boring pushed psychologists to adopt better writing habits which ultimately benefited the audiences that would later read these works.

Edwin Boring's textbooks provided his interpretations of the field and were read by thousands of people.

Edwin Boring was a man of experimental psychology, objective science, but philosophical science.

Edwin Boring's research was based on sensory and perceptual phenomena, but he was a statesman and advocate for women in psychology and military psychology.

The many contributions Edwin Boring made in psychology were recognized later in his lifetime.