Revision in the History of Psychology

Katalin Dzinas (1997), recipient of the Mary J.Wright Award,
provided her revision of the reasons behind the establishment
of the Canadian Psychological Association in 1938-1939.

Beginning of CPA has been attributed to WWII an account
that appears in 1958 (20 years after the fact) with C. Roger Myers.

CPA documents, including the early volumes of the Bulletin,
do not verify this account. Instead, Bernhardt's 1947 account
suggested that WWII may not have been one of the central reasons.

The revisionist work of C. Roger Myers was presented
as having led us away from other important reasons.
Community building, ...

Judith Kalin (1997) also wrote on C. R. Myers. He was influenced by the MacLeod Report, psychology needed to become more scientific!

Was in competition with Hebb at McGill who had been recognised
as the "most visible scientist in Canadian psychology"

J D. Ketchem: U of T. is "the largest invisible department
of Psychology in the world!"(Wright & Myers, cited in Kalin, p.4)

Myers as chair sought to hire more scientists even though he himself
worked as a consultant for Ontario Mental Hospital system.

 Kalin suggests that:

"fueled by the subtle competition with Hebb", who
had suggested that only academics be invited to
Opinicon, he sought to develop an "eminent, visible,
scientific department" by increasing salaries given.

References

Dzinas, K. (1997). Founding the CPA: A case of revisionist history. Paper presented to the annual convention of the Canadian Psychological Association, Toronto, Ont., June 13, 1997.

Kalin, J. (1997). The C.R. Myers' oral history collection. Paper presented to the annual convention of the Canadian Psychological Association, Toronto, Ont., June 13, 1997.

also on revision:

Tonks, R. (1997). A Revisionist's history of psychology in Canada. Psybernetika, 3, 1, http://www.sfu.ca/~wwwpsyb/issues/1997/spring/editor.htm