Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Vivienne Cass


Background

In 1969, Cass received a Teacher’s Certificate, Diploma of School Music from Edith Cowan University. In 1973, she received her Bachelor’s degree for psychology from the University of Western Australia. Cass received her Master’s degree in psychology in 1975, also from the University of Western Australia. In 1986, Cass received her Doctorate of philosophy.

Professional Life and Work

             Dr. Vivienne Cass is a renowned psychological theorist. With over 20 years of experience, her specialty lies in human sexuality. She has her Master’s in psychology and worked in a clinical tutor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Western Australia and a Consultant Psychologist at the Homosexual Counseling Service of Western Australia. She is the author of The Elusive Orgasm: A Woman's Guide to Why She Can't and How She Can Orgasm. In 1974, she established the counseling service herself. What Cass is most known for is her six stage model of homosexuality identity formation, which was published in 1979. This was one of the first models of its kind, consisting of certain stages through which one discovers their sexual identity. There are six stages: Identity Confusion, Identity Comparison, Identity Tolerance, Identity Acceptance, Identity Pride, and Identity Synthesis. In confusion, a person may question their sexual orientation. They may wonder if they’re homosexual and either consider the idea or reject it. Comparison is pretty self-explanatory. In Identity Comparison, a person might compare themselves to homosexuals and heterosexuals in their life. In Identity Tolerance, a person becomes tolerant of the homosexual identity. They’re comfortable enough to find homosexual friends, but they aren’t at the stage of accepting themselves as a homosexual. In Acceptance, homosexuality begins to have a more positive connotation. People may even feel that they fit into the homosexual community. It’s probably between Acceptance and Pride that a person would identify themselves as homosexual. In Identity Pride, a person will strongly identify as homosexual and identify with other homosexuals. Finally, in Identity Synthesis, a person will feel comfortable with who they are. They’ll feel settled into whom they are. In 1979, Cass received she received the Theory Development Award of the National Gay Academic Union in the United States. As she further developed her six stage model, other theories began to come into existence. Cass published an evaluation in 1983 on those current theories of homosexuality.
Over the years, Vivienne Cass has become a member of various organizations, including the Australian Society of Authors (AUS), Australian Psychological Society (AUS),  Division of Independently Practicing Psychologists (AUS), Independently Practicing Clinical Psychologists Association (AUS), West Australian Sexology Society (AUS), Australian Society of Sex Educators, Researchers and Therapists (AUS), Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (USA), New York Academy of Science (USA), International Society for the Scientific Study of Women's Sexual Health,  part of the Editorial Board of Journal of Homosexuality, and Women's Sexual Health Foundation.

Relevance to Class Material

                Vivienne Cass is mostly known for her six stage identity model. Although it focuses on homosexuals, her theory has to do with identity development. As a class, we’ve discussed identity development, and we’ve discussed sexuality regarding homosexuals, but we’ve never discussed sexuality in connection to identity development. Cass provides a narrative that wasn’t there before about how homosexuals might grow to realize who they are and be comfortable in their own skin regardless of the heterosexist environment they live in. I think Cass’s identity model is a good counter-narrative to all the identity/ gender development theories we’ve read because this, unlike the theories we read about, isn’t heterosexist.

References


Martha Bernal


Andie Petrillo

 Martha Bernal

April 13th, 1931- September 28th, 2001


Biography:

Martha Bernal was born in San Antonio, Texas on April 13th, 1931, but spent most of her childhood and adolescence living with her family in El Paso, Texas. Her parents were Alicia and Enrique de Bernal, they immigrated to America when they were young adults. Throughout her life she was a victim to a lot of discrimination which inspired the many actions and accomplishments she made throughout her career and adulthood. When she was very young she was not allowed to speak spanish at school although she had many spanish peers and this shamed them about their heritage. She wasn’t encouraged to embrace who she was or where she came from and these feelings of being outcasted resignated with Bernal all through her life. She had one sister and both her mother and her sister were very supportive and encouraging of Bernal’s life choices to persue an education and become a working woman; however, her father did not share these feelings. He felt that as a woman she should find a husband and start a family. Regardless of his dissatisfaction with the idea she received a BA from the University of Texas in 1952. She continued her education at the graduate program at Syracuse University and was the first latina to recieve a Ph. D. in psychology. She earned this Ph. D. from Indiana University, Bloomington. Her achievements throughout her education and her career were huge, not only to the field of psychology, but also relating to women’s and minorities rights. She spent a large part of her career focusing her attention on these topics and made a lot of progress in improving the lives of people within each of these communities. Unfortunately, She suffered from three different bouts of cancer always returning to her work when she recovered. The third time Bernal was was diagnosed with lung cancer, ultimately killing her on September 28th, 2001.

Career and Achievements

Marth Bernal began her career in Clinical psychology and focused a lot of her early career on learning theories and empiricism. She used these techniques to work with children who were suffering from conduct disorder. She spent many years working with these children and focusing her attention to helping them, but she always had her heart set on focusing her research toward helping minorities and looking into multicultural psychology. Like many other fields in the U.S., a lot of psychological studies and theories revolved around white, typically middle or upper class people. Bernal felt that more attention needed to be paid to people that didn’t fit into these molds and that the field of psychology should be adapted to multicultural issues which may exist. Most of her later life was dedicated to this research and she made many achievements to helping this cause. She encouraged other Hispanics to become psychologists and tried to seek their help in her own studies. She worked to provide more educational and awareness opportunities for minorities, so they could have equal opportunities and encouragement to receive an education and delve into fields such as psychology.  Some associations she began are the Board of Ethnic Minority Affairs of the American Psychological Association and the National Hispanic Psychology Association. She also volunteered her time and was a part of several organizations such as: the National Latino/a psychological association, APA’s Commission on Ethnic Minority, Recruitment, Retention and Training. In addition to this work she also focused her attention into other causes and was a part of the Committee on Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Affairs. Due to her hard work and amazing accomplishments she received many different awards and different honors. Some include, the Distinguished Life Achievement Award from APA’s Division 45, the Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority issues. She sadly passed away before she had the ability to accept this award, but she was also awarded APA’s Distinguished Contribution to Psychology in the Public Interest Award in 2001. Throughout her career she wrote 60 journal articles and book chapters. She also spent some time as a professor at a few different universities in the US. Her work was not only helpful and progressive, but inspiring to many who followed in her footsteps. She opened many doors to minorities and women in psychology and has inspired many others to become involved in her work and continue her legacy.

How Martha Bernal Relates To Our Class Materials

A lot of Martha Bernal’s research and her own life history relates to the ideas of childhood development that we looked at in class. Bernal focused a large part of her research to childhood development, focusing mainly on conduct disorder. This disorder has a direct relation to the upbringing and development of children that we looked at during week 6 of our class. The article “Gendered Identities” discusses various development theories in children; one being social learning theory which was a main focus of some of Bernal’s research. In addition to this she was a very successful woman in the field of psychology and did a lot of work that benefited minorities and mainly women of color.

References

http://www.apadivisions.org/division-35/about/heritage/martha-bernal-biography.aspx





http://www.fofweb.com/History/MainPrintPage.asp?iPin=LSM024&DataType=AmericanHistory&WinType=Free

 

 

 

 

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Anne Anastasi





Anne Anastasi 
December 19, 1908- May 04, 2001
Background Information
My psychologist of the week is Anne Anastasi. She was born in New York City on December 19,1908. Her parents were Theresa Gaudiosi Anastasi and Anthony Anastasi but unfortunately, shortly after Anne turned one her father passed away. During this time period, it was not common for a woman to raise a child without a father, but Theresa made it possible. With the support from Theresa’s mother and brother, they helped raise Anne. Theresa was an educated woman with a college degree, but according to Webster.edu, after her husband passed, she was not prepared for the work force. With that being so, it was leading them to financial struggles. She ended up teaching herself booking keeping, opened a piano shop, but when that wasn’t successful, Theresa worked for the largest foreign newspaper company in New York City (Webster.edu). Thanks to Anne’s grandmother, she hired a schoolteacher and the both of them helped home school Anne up to the age of 9 (Feministvoices.com). 
Education 
During Anne’s short time span in grade school, she began her education in the third grade and ended up advancing to the sixth grade in just a short period of time. Just after two months of high school, she dropped out at around the age of 12. She was “unaware of traditional sex role stereotypes,” highly dissatisfied with the over populated classrooms along with the low academic standards they held for the students (Feministvoices.com, Webster.edu). Looking for a new challenge, Anne enrolled at the Rhodes Preparatory School in Manhattan and after two years, she was eligible to apply for Barnard College, which she was accepted at the age of 15 (Webster.edu).
Originally when Anne entered college, she thought she was going to major in mathematics, but after being a student in Harry Hollingworth’s class and an article she read by Charles Spearman, Anne was a changed woman and chose psychology (Feministvoices.com). Anne graduated college in 1928 and attended Columbia University to complete her graduates, which she completed in two years by the age of 21, earning her doctoral degree (Feministvoices.com). During graduate school, Anne met her husband John Porter Foley Jr., an industrial psychologist; they got married in 1933. A year into their marriage, Dr. Anastasi was diagnosed with cervical cancer which led to her being sterile and unable to have children. According to Feministvoices.com, “Anastasi believed this fact contributed to her professional success, since it freed her from the complications of motherhood without a difficult decision that might have left her conflicted.”
 Career 
  During the same year that Anastasi earned her doctorate degree, the economy was in harsh times due to the stock market crashing (apa.org). In 1930, Anne’s old professor Harry Hollingworth helped her get a job at Barnard University as an instructor, where she worked for three years. Although the great depression was in full effect, that did not stop Anastasi from pursuing her research. Thanks to the National Youth Administration and the Works Progress Administration, she was able to recruit research participants and begin her studies (Apa.org). By 1939, Anne worked at Queen’s College of the City University as the chairwoman of psychology. Although that was a big step for her career, she was not satisfied with her employment there because she felt she didn’t receive the proper support from her department along with many disagreements among the coworkers, which led to her dismissal of the job by 1946 (Apa.org, Webster.edu). By 1947 Anastasi started her new job at Fordham University and stayed there until her retirement in 1979. 
Accomplishments
  Anne Anastasi has had many accomplishments in her lifetime, she wrote her dissertation on psychological traits in 1958 and “challenged the psychological community to drop the “nature vs. nurture” debate” (Feministvoices.com). This led to the field’s name being changed from being called “individual differences” to “differentially psychology” (Feministvoices.org). According to The New York Times, Anne always thought of new ways on how human behavior could be analyzed and studied; earning her the nick name the “test guru”. Anne was a big contributor to psychometrics and 3 of her books were published; which still used to this day in classrooms. Her book called Psychological Testing was turned into 7 editions (Apa.org). Anne is best known for her contributions she made towards “research, teaching, textbook writing, and organizational leadership” (Webster.edu). According to Women of Psychology, some of Anne’s honors include being the president of multiple associations and received many awards in her career. Anne passed away in her home in New York City on May 4, 2001.
 
Works Cited
American Psychological Association. Anne Anastasi. Web. 23 Oct 2012.
            http://www.apa.org/about/archives/presidents/bio-anne-anastasi.aspx           
Benbassat, Danny. Women in Psychology. 2003. Web. 23 Oct 2012.
Psychology’s Feminist Voices. Anne Anastasi. Web. 23 Oct 2012.
The New York Times. Obituaries. 2001. Web. 23 Oct 2012.
            http://www.newyorktimes.com
Women’s Intellectual Contributions to the Study of Mind and Society. Web. 23 Oct             
            2012. http://www.webster.edu

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Mary Ainsworth


Background:

            Mary Ainsworth was born in Glendale, Ohio in December of 1913. She was the oldest of three girls and both her parents graduated from Dickinson College. When Ainsworth was five her family relocated to Canada after her father was transferred at a manufacturing firm. Ainsworth’s parents placed a high emphasis on education and weekly trips to the library were a regular event for her family. When Ainsworth was fifteen she became inspired to become a psychologist after reading the book Character and the Conduct of Life by William McDougall.

            Ainsworth began college in 1929 at the University of Toronto. She enrolled in the honors psychology program and completed her Bachelor’s degree in 1935, her Master’s degree in 1936, and a PhD in developmental psychology in 1939; all her degrees were from the University of Toronto.

            After completing her PhD, Ainsworth taught at the University of Toronto until joining the Canadian Women’s Army Corps in 1942. During her time in the Army she received the rank of major and administered tests, interviews, and conducted counseling. After returning from the Army, Ainsworth continued to teach at the University of Toronto where she met her husband Leonard Ainsworth, they married in 1950.

            After she was married Ainsworth and her husband moved to England so he could finish his graduate degree at University College. Ainsworth joined the research team at Tavistock Clinic in England this is where she began her research along with John Bowlby on mother-child relationships. Ainsworth continued her research on mother-child relationships while living in Uganda after her husband accepted a job at the East African Institute of Social Research.

            After spending two years in Uganda Ainsworth moved to Baltimore, Maryland after her husband accepted a job as a forensic psychologist. Ainsworth taught at Johns Hopkins and provided psychological service at Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital. Ainsworth and her husband divorced in 1960 but she continued to teach at Johns Hopkins until 1975. After 1975, Ainsworth relocated to Virginia and began to teach at the University of Virginia until her retirement in 1984. She died in Charlottesville, Virginia on March 21, 1999 at the age of 86.

Professional Life:

            Mary Ainsworth is best known for her work regarding the mother-child bond. While in Uganda she conducted a longitudinal field study on the mother-child bond and their subsequent interactions. She observed that while most mother-child bonds made children feel comforted and secure, she also observed mother-child relationships that were strained and conflicted.

With this observation she then developed the “Strange Situation.” During the Strange Situation the researcher takes the mother and the child of about a year of age into a room filled with toys. At first the mother and the child are alone in the room but then the researcher enters the room and after a few minutes the mother leaves the room. After a few more minutes with just the researcher in the room with the child, the mother is allowed to re-enter the room. The researcher then observes the child’s reaction to their mother upon her return into the room.

Ainsworth concluded that there are three different attachment styles between mother and child. One attachment style is the anxious/avoidant style where the child may not show signs of distress when the mother leaves the room, and avoids her upon her return. The second attachment style is the secure attachment where the child will be distressed when she leaves the room but will seek comfort from her upon her return. The final attachment style is the anxious/resistant where the child stays close to the mother before her departure, becomes highly distressed when she leaves but upon her return rejects the comfort of their mother. Ainsworth determined that the attachment style each child has with their mother could be a determinant of their future behavior. Children with anxious attachment styles are more likely to develop maladaptive behaviors later on in life than children with secure attachment styles.

Application to Psychology of Women:

            The work of Mary Ainsworth is relevant to our class because she was one of the first people to examine mother-child relationships. She was the first woman to attempt to explain how the mother-child bond could affect their children later in life and defined what a secure bond is between a mother and child as well as various negative attachment styles. Although Ainsworth said that her work could be depicted as encouraging mothers to stay at home during children’s early years to ensure secure attachment to their child, she was sure that alternative arrangements to stay at home mothering could also create secure bonds with children as well.

References:



Dr. Carol Gilligan



Background
Dr. Carol Gilligan is an only child born on November 28, 1936 of a lawyer named William Friedman and a nursery school teacher names Mabel Caminez. She was raised in a Jewish family in New York City. She describes herself as a Jewish child of the Holocaust era and grew up with firm moral and political convictions. As a child she studied language and music.  Growing up she played the piano and pursued a career in modern dance during graduate school.  She attended Swarthmore College and earned her B.A in English literature. She earned a master’s degree in clinical psychology from Radcliffe College and her PH.D. in social psychology from Harvard University in 1964. She is married to James Gilligan, M.D., who directed the Center for the Study of Violence at Harvard Medical School. They have three children together.
Professional life and work
Dr. Carol Gilligan is an influential American feminist, ethicist, and psychologist. She began teaching at Harvard University in 1967. In 1970 she became a research assistant  for  Lawrence Kohlberg known as a great theorist of moral development. In 2002, Carol Gilligan became a Professor at New York University (NYU). She currently also works with NYU’s School of Law, the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She teaches a seminar at the Law School on Resisting Injustice and an advanced research seminar on The Listening Guide Method of Psychological Inquiry. She is a visiting professor at the University of Cambridge affiliated with the Centre for Gender Studies and with Jesus College. She is the  published author of , In a Different Voice, Harvard University Press, (1982),  Mapping the Moral Domain: A Contribution of Women's Thinking to Psychological Theory and Education, Harvard University Press, (1989), Making Connections: The Relational Worlds of Adolescent Girls at Emma Willard School, Harvard University Press, (1990), Meeting at the Crossroads: Women's Psychology and Girls' Development, Harvard University Press, (1992), Between Voice and Silence: Women and Girls, Race and Relationships, Harvard University Press, (1997), The Birth of Pleasure, Knopf, (2002), Kyra, Random House, (2008), The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, & Democracy's Future, Cambridge University Press, (2009) (with co-author David A.J. Richards),  and a dramatic adaptation of the novel The Scarlet Letter, co-written with her son Jonathan and produced by Prime Stage Theatre in November 2011. She has also earned several awards including the Grawemeyer Award in Education in 1992, Time Magazine - one of the 25 most influential Americans in 1996, and 4th Annual Heinz Award in the Human Condition in 1998.  
 
Relevance to class materials



Dr. Carol Gilligan is very well known for her work with and against Lawrence Kohlberg. Eventually Gilligan began to criticize some of Kohlberg' s work because she realized that most studies of psychological and moral development involved only privileged white men. She believed that this caused a biased opinions that oppressed women .she criticized Kohlberg’s stage theory of moral development because the males view on individual rights was prioritized and higher staged  than women’s views of development in terms of its caring effect on human relationships. She voices her opinions in her famous book " In a different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women ' s Development " which was published in 1982.  
“Gilligan's book is a complaint against the male centered personality psychology of Freud and Erickson, and the male centered developmental psychology of Kohlberg. Her complaint is not that it is unjust to leave women out of psychology (though she says that). Her complaint is that it is not good psychology if it leaves out half of the human race.”

Dr. Gilligan proposes a stage theory of moral development for women:


 
Sources

Posted by Christie Logrono