Tolman, C. W. (1999). Angell, James R. (1869-1949). In E. Kazdin (Editor in Chief). Encyclopedia of Psychology. APA & Oxford University Press.

Angell, James Rowland (1869-1949), American psychologist. Angell graduated in 1890 from the University of Michigan where his first contact with psychology was in courses with John Dewey. With encouragement from Dewey, he stayed on at Michigan to complete his masters degree in 1891. During that year he read William James' Principles of Psychology with great enthusiasm and decided, on Dewey's recommendation, to continue his studies under James and Josiah Royce at Harvard. While there, he conducted experimental studies in the laboratory that had been established by James. He also assisted James in the collection of documentary material for the American Society for Psychical Research. In 1892 he decided he "would more wisely go abroad for further study" (Carl Murchison, Ed., A History of Psychology in Autobiography, vol. 3, Worcester, MA, 1936, p. 7). On finding that Wilhelm Wundt's laboratory in Leipzig could accommodate no more students, he went to Berlin to attend lectures in philosophy from Friedrich Paulsen and Wilhelm Dilthey, and in psychology from Hermann Ebbinghaus. In the spring of 1893, he moved on to Halle to study philosophy with Hans Vaihinger and psychology with Benno Erdmann. Under Vaihinger he wrote a dissertation on Kant's conception of freedom, but in the fall of 1893 before it was finally accepted he was drawn by the offer of a position at the University of Minnesota to teach philosophy and psychology.

Angell's stay at the University of Minnesota was brief. John Dewey had moved to the University of Chicago as head of the department of philosophy and invited Angell to join him. Angell accepted and went there in 1894 to assume charge of the laboratory and courses in psychology. He was made chairman of psychology when it became a department separate from philosophy in 1904. This marked the beginning of a gradual shift in Angell's career toward administration. He became Dean of the Senior College in 1908, Dean of the Faculties in 1911, and Acting President of the University in 1918-19.

Outside the university, Angell worked with the wartime Adjutant General's Committee on Classification of Personnel in 1917-18, developing means of integrating military and civilian training programs. This work led to the establishment of the Student Army Training Corps. In 1919-20 Angell was granted a leave of absence from the university to become chairman of the National Research Council. In 1920 he received an invitation to become President of the Carnegie Corporation, the acceptance of which marked his final departure from the University of Chicago.

A return to university life came in 1921 with an offer of the presidency of Yale University. Angell accepted and remained in that position until his retirement in 1937. In 1924 he was instrumental in establishing an Institute of Psychology dedicated to the integration of research in psychology, biology, and anthropology. Subsequently, the School of Medicine was strengthened in the field of psychiatry. This included the appointment of Arnold Gesell and the establishment of the Child Development Clinic. In 1931, under Angell's leadership and after years of planning, the Institute and the Clinic were brought together under an enlarged Institute of Human Relations devoted to research in psychology, primate biology, clinical psychiatry, child development, and social science.

Angell was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1920, to the American Philosophical Society in 1932, and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1932. He served on the Council of the American Psychological Association from 1903 to 1906, and was elected President of the Association in 1906. From 1912 to 1922 he served, as his former student Walter S. Hunter described it in the American Journal of Psychology (1949, 62, p. 450), "with great wisdom and distinction" as the Editor of the Psychological Monographs.

Edward B. Titchener had introduced the distinction between "structural" and "functional" psychologies in 1898 and defended the former as the only type to possess the promise of becoming a truly scientific psychology. It was Angell who took up this challenge, defending and urging a functional psychology in his APA presidential address of 1906 (Psychological Review, 1907, 14, pp. 61-91). This became the founding document and manifesto for what came to be known as "American functionalism," a general theoretical position that some maintain has characterized most American psychology since that time (cf. D. A. Owens and M. Wagner, Eds., Progress in modern psychology: The legacy of American functionalism, Wesport, CT, 1992). Although William James and John Dewey had not themselves made a sharp distinction between structure and function, Angell found inspiration in their work to support his program. In his presidential address, Angell described three conceptions of functional psychology that converged to form the broader functionalism that he advocated.

The first was a psychology of mental operations in contrast to a psychology of mental elements. The second was a psychology that conceived of the mind as principally mediating between the external world and the needs of the organism. The third was a psychophysical psychology that insisted on the essential significance of the mind-body relationship for understanding the mental life. Angell saw these conceptions as converging in the fundamental problem of just how the mind participates in accommodatory reactions. Functional psychology's stress on the utilities of consciousness marked it off sharply from the structural psychology of Titchener that was concerned with the identification of elemental features of the mind through the use of systematic introspection.

Angell's functional psychology, with its emphasis on adaptive behavior and the biological context, was strongly identified with Darwinian evolution theory. Angell's theory of habit formation, for instance, represented an adaptation to individual experience of Darwin's doctrines of natural selection and "lapsed intelligence." According to the former, early stages of habit formation were characterized by excessive reactions from which useless movements were gradually eliminated and successful movements selected. According to the latter doctrine, consciousness was needed most in early stages in which behavioral coördinations were most insecure and least organized. As perfection was achieved, consciousness, having fulfilled its function, was thought to drop out, leaving a fully automated reaction.

Walter Hunter described Angell as one of "the great figures who shaped the development of American psychology during the formative years" (American Journal of Psychology, 1949, 62, p. 439). The extent of his influence is indicated by the large number of his students who went on to very distinguished careers in psychology. These included five presidents of the American Psychological Association.

Bibliography

Angell, J. R. (1907). The province of functional psychology. Psychological Review, 14, 61-91.

Angell's APA presidential address of 1906. Generally regarded as the definitive statement on functional psychology.

Angell, J. R. (1908). Psychology. An introductory study of the structure and function of human consciousness (4th ed.). New York: Henry Holt and Company.

This is the fourth and final edition of Angell's immensely successful and influential textbook. The first edition had been published in 1904.

Angell, J. R. (1909). The influence of Darwin on psychology. Psychological Review, 16, 152-169.

Angell assigns to Darwinism a "larger part of the responsibility for the change which has brought into prominence functional and genetic psychology (including animal psychology), in distinction from the older and more conventional analytic psychology."

Angell, J. R. (1922). The evolution of intelligence. In G. A. Baitsell, Ed., The evolution of man (pp. 103-125). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

For its time, a characteristic and uncontroversial account of the evolution of animal and human intelligence, thoroughly compatible with Angell's functional psychology.

Angell, J. R. (1937). American education. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

A collection of articles and addresses on higher education, written between 1921 and 1937. This book was reprinted by Books for Libraries Press in 1970. It reveals more of the man and his general outlook on life than any of his scientific works.

Charles W. Tolman

Posted: [March, 2004]

Angell, J.R. (1936/1961). James Rowland Angell. In C. Murchison (Ed.). A history of psychology in autobiography. (Vol. 3). (pp. 1-38). Worcester, MA: Clark University Press. [Reprinted: New York: Russell and Russell, 1961)].