Tolman, C. W. (1999). Bentley, Madison (1870-1955). In E. Kazdin (Editor in Chief). Encyclopedia of Psychology. APA & Oxford University Press.

Bentley, [Isaac] Madison (1870-1955), American psychologist. Bentley studied psychology at the University of Nebraska under H. K. Wolfe, who had received his doctorate at Leipzig under Wilhelm Wundt in 1887. Graduating in 1895, Bentley continued at Cornell University under Edward B. Titchener, completing his doctorate in 1899. He remained at Cornell to teach, was promoted to Assistant Professor in 1902, and became chairman of the undergraduate division in 1910. In 1912 Bentley was called to the University of Illinois as Professor and Head of Department. Volunteering for military service in 1917, he conducted research on the non-acoustical organs of the ear for the Air Corps until his discharge at the end of 1918. In 1928 Bentley returned to Cornell to succeed Titchener as Sage Professor of Psychology and Chairman of the Department.

Over the span of his career, Bentley made significant research and scholarly contributions on a wide range of topics. These included work on the memory image (American Journal of Psychology, 1899, 11, 1-48), the design of a technique for analyzing and synthesizing complex sensations such a "wetness" (American Journal of Psychology, 1900, 11, 405-425), a controversial demonstration of learning in Paramecia (with L. M. Day, Journal of Animal Behavior, 1911, 1, 67-73), a major study with E. V. Cowdry of mental disorders (The Problem of Mental Disorders, New York, 1934), and several articles on anthropological psychology (e.g., American Journal of Psychology, 1947, 60, 479-501).

Theoretically, Bentley opposed both behaviorism and mentalism. His own position was intended to overcome metaphysical dualism and to establish a distinctly psychological science that was not merely secondary to biology. He proposed a disciplinarily neutral organism whose functions could be classified as either biological or psychological. Psychological functions were distinguished in that they overcame the separation of organism and environment through "absorption" of the latter by the former, as when one imaginatively plans to rebuild an object that no longer exists. Research, in Bentley's view, ought to be less concerned with measuring results of tasks completed by psychological functions than with describing their modes and derivations.

Bentley's most widely recognized contribution to psychology by far was in the field of editing. He became Coöperating Editor of the American Journal of Psychology in 1903, holding that position until 1926 when he became co-editor with Karl Dallenbach, in which position he remained active until 1950. He was editor of The Psychological Index from 1916 to 1925, associate editor of The Journal of Comparative Psychology from 1921 to 1935, editor of the Journal of Experimental Psychology from 1926 to 1929, and editor of three issues of Psychological Monographs in 1916, 1921, and 1926. Karl Dallenbach (1956) described Bentley as an editor of the "old school." He was known to completely re-write contributors' articles that he thought promising but poorly written. According to Dallenbach, "[N]o manuscript ever passed under his editorial pen without being the better for it. . . . The debt that psychology and various psychologists owe Bentley for his editorial services is great" (American Journal of Psychology, 1956, 69, p. 185).

Bibliography

Bentley, M. (1926). The major categories of psychology. Psychological Review, 33, 71-105.

Bentley's APA presidential address of 1925. A sometimes whimsical but always penetrating critique of the dominant psychologies and psychological practices of the time.

Bentley, M. (1930). A psychology for psychologists. In C. Murchison (Ed.), Psychologies of 1930 (pp. 95-114). Worcester, MA: Clark University Press.

The most accessible of Bentley's systematic statements of his own theoretical ideas about psychology as a distinctly psychological discipline.

Bentley, M. (1936). Autobiography. In C. Murchison (Ed.), A History of Psychology in Autobiography (Vol. 3, pp. 53-67). Worcester, MA: Clark University Press.

Bentley's own account of his career. Biographical details are scarce, but the thoughts leading to his own theoretical position are vividly portrayed.

Dallenbach, K. M. (1956). Madison Bentley: 1870-1955. American Journal of Psychology, 69, 169-193.

The most complete account of Bentley's life and career.

Charles W. Tolman

Posted: [April, 2004]