Tolman, C. W. (1999). Carr, Harvey A. (1873-1954). In E. Kazdin (Editor in Chief). Encyclopedia of Psychology. APA & Oxford University Press.

Carr, Harvey A. (1873-1954), American psychologist. Carr was born on an Indiana farm and grew up in a community that "firmly believed in the value of book learning" (C. Murchison, Ed., History of Psychology in Autobiography, Worcester, MA, 1936, p. 69). He began his undergraduate work at DePauw University and continued at the University of Colorado where he studied psychology with Arthur Allin, earning his B.S. in 1901 and M.S. in 1902. He went on to the University of Chicago to study experimental psychology with John Dewey, James Rowland Angell, and John B. Watson. He was awarded the Ph.D. in 1905 with a doctoral dissertation on "A visual illusion of motion during eye closure." Finding no university position, Carr taught high school in Texas and at the State Normal School in Michigan in 1905 and 1906, and then at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn until 1908 when he was invited to replace Watson at Chicago, where he remained until his retirement in 1938.

Carr served as chairman of the Department of Psychology at Chicago from 1926 to 1938. He was elected president of the American Psychological Association in 1926 and of the Midwestern Psychological Association in 1937. He was advisory editor for the Journal of Experimental Psychology from 1916 to 1925 and associate editor of the Journal of General Psychology from 1929 to 1954. He also served for many years as General Editor of the Longman's Psychology Series.

Carr is usually regarded as having succeeded Angell as torchbearer for the Chicago school of American functionalism. Edna Heidbreder wrote: "The work of Carr represents functionalism when it had settled down and become a recognized school, and was no longer a renaissance and a reformation" (Seven psychologies, New York, 1933, p. 219). But Carr's functionalism was more austere than Angell's which had sought to "discern and portray the typical operations of consciousness under actual life conditions" (Psychological Review, 1907, 14, 61). While not denying consciousness and subjectivity, as Watson had done in his version of behaviorism, Carr paid them little direct attention, preferring instead to speak of the adaptive activities of the organism and their conditions. These were analyzed in terms of causal relations between stimuli and responses, which were studied objectively and, when possible, experimentally. "Personality, mind, and self," he said, "are conceptual objects that can be studied only indirectly through their manifestations" (Psychology: A Study of Mental Activity, New York, 1925, p. 4). Carr's functionalism thus differed from strict behaviorism in granting that mental processes existed of which behavior could be understood as a manifestation. This did not, however, extend to animals. In his APA presidential address he wrote: "I am somewhat of a behaviorist in the field of animal psychology, although I do not class myself as such so far as human psychology is concerned" (Psychological Review, 1927, 34, p. 104).

Carr took charge of the animal laboratory at Chicago and continued Watson's study of the senses used by albino rats for getting through mazes. Vision, he learned, was by far the most important to them. In the course of this work, Carr invented an improved maze which became widely adopted for experiments of this sort. He had admired Watson's animal work and encouraged his students to choose thesis topics in comparative psychology. He supervised 18 theses in that field over the span of his career. He was disappointed, however, that students tended to avoid comparative psychology because they felt that identification with it "would be detrimental to their professional placement and advancement" (C. Murchison, Ed., History of Psychology in Autobiography, Worcester, MA, 1936, p. 79)

He was still less successful in persuading students to share his enthusiasm for the problems of space perception. Over his career only five theses were produced on this problem. Carr attributed this largely to the "technicalities of the subject" (C. Murchison, Ed, History of Psychology in Autobiography, Worcester, MA, 1936, p. 79). It remained an important topic for him, however. He continued work on it, and near the end of his career published his textbook on the subject, An Introduction to Space Perception (New York, 1935).

Student response to his interest in learning was more gratifying. Over his thirty years as professor at Chicago he supervised 29 theses on memorization, perceptual-motor learning, and the conditions affecting acquisition of adaptive behaviors. Carr was a sharp critic of popular research practices in the field of learning. He alleged that psychologists made "illicit use of mathematics" (Psychological Review, 1933, 40, 514-532) and sought oversimplified answers to their questions (Psychological Review, 1937, 44, 274-296).

Carr had a reputation for being a cautious but tolerant thinker and was universally admired by his students. It is said that his main influence on psychology came through his students and manifested itself more in attitude and style than, as Helen Koch put it, in any "specific content of their preachments" (Psychological Review, 1955, 62, p. 82).


Bibliography

Carr, H. A. (1930). Functionalism. In C. Murchison (Ed.), Psychologies of 1930 (pp. 59-78). Worcester, MA: Clark University Press.

A vigorously mounted defense against the allegation that functionalists cannot agree on their use of the term "function."

Pillsbury, W. B. (1955). Harvey A. Carr: 1873-1954. American Journal of Psychology, 68, 149-151.

An obituary with biographical information.

Whitely, P. L. (1976). An new name for an old idea? A student of Harvey Carr reflects. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 12, 260-274.

A warm tribute to Carr by an appreciative former student. Reprinted in D. A. Owens & M. Wagner (Eds.), Progress in Modern Psychology: The Legacy of American Functionalism. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992.

Charles W. Tolman

Posted: [January, 2004]

Carr, H.A. (1936/1961). Harvey A. Carr. In Carl Murchison (Ed.). A history of psychology in autobiography. (Vol. 3). (pp. 69-82). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. [Reprinted: New York: Russell and Russell, 1961)].