Bridge over troubled waters? The most "central" members of psychology and philosophy associations, ca. 1900.

Abstract

There are many different ways to assess the significance of historical figures. Often we look at the influence of their writings, or at the important offices they held with disciplinary institutions such as universities, journals, and scholarly societies. In this study, however, we took a novel approach. We took the complete memberships, ca. 1900, of four organizations—the American Psychological Association, the Western Philosophical Association, the American Philosophical Association, and the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology—and visualized them as a network. We then identified individuals who “bridged” between two or more of these groups and considered what might be termed their “centrality” to the psychological-philosophical community of their time. First, we examined these figures qualitatively, briefly describing their lives and careers. Then we approached the problem mathematically, considering several alternative technical realizations of “centrality” and then explaining our reasons for choosing eigenvector centrality as the best for our purposes. We found a great deal of overlap among the results of the qualitative and quantitative approaches, but also some telling differences. J. Mark Baldwin, Edward Buchner, Christine Ladd Franklin, and Frank Thilly consistently emerged as highly central figures. Some more marginal figures such as Max Meyer, and Frederick J. E. Woodbridge, Edward A. Pace, Edward H. Griffin played interesting roles as well.

Daniel J. Chiacchia

PhD Student, Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management

My research interests include the social psychology of working in the digital economy (e.g., the automation of work and dehumanization, ‘gig’ work); leadership during threat and uncertainty (e.g., how leaders effectively adapt to change); as well as best practices in quantitative methodology, including open science, replicability, statistical power, data visualization, and effect sizes.