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V. M. BEKHTEREV IN RUSSIAN CHILD SCIENCE, 1900S-1920S: "OBJECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY"/"REFLEXOLOGY" AS A SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT
Insights
Vladimir Bekhterev
Area of Science:
- Child science development
- Psychology
- Neuroscience
Background:
- The early 20th century saw a surge in scientific interest in children, leading to the establishment of child science.
- This field integrated disciplines like developmental psychology, child psychiatry, and special education.
Discussion:
- This article examines Vladimir Bekhterev's contributions to early 20th-century child science.
- Bekhterev's "objective psychology" and "reflexology" aimed to revolutionize human sciences, particularly psychology.
- His approaches faced challenges competing with other movements within Soviet pedology.
Key Insights:
- Bekhterev's work significantly influenced child science, despite limited adoption of his specific methodologies.
- Child development studies were central to Bekhterev's broader scientific transformation program.
- His research sought to establish a new, empirically grounded understanding of the psychological realm.
Outlook:
- Understanding Bekhterev's "objective psychology" and "reflexology" offers insights into the historical development of child psychology.
- Further research could explore the lasting impact of Bekhterev's ontological approach to psychology.
- This historical analysis contributes to the broader discourse on the evolution of scientific paradigms in child development studies.
Abstract:
In the early 20(th) century the child population became a major focus of scientific, professional and public interest. This led to the crystallization of a dynamic field of child science, encompassing developmental and educational psychology, child psychiatry and special education, school hygiene and mental testing, juvenile criminology and the anthropology of childhood. This article discusses the role played in child science by the eminent Russian neurologist and psychiatrist Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev. The latter's name is associated with a distinctive program for transforming the human sciences in general and psychology in particular that he in the 1900s labelled "objective psychology" and from the 1910s renamed "reflexology." The article examines the equivocal place that Bekhterev's "objective psychology" and "reflexology" occupied in Russian/Soviet child science in the first three decades of the 20(th) century. While Bekhterev's prominence in this field is beyond doubt, analysis shows that "objective psychology" and "reflexology" had much less success in mobilizing support within it than certain other movements in this arena (for example, "experimental pedagogy" in the pre-revolutionary era); it also found it difficult to compete with the variety of rival programs that arose within Soviet "pedology" during the 1920s. However, this article also demonstrates that the study of child development played a pivotal role in Bekhterev's program for the transformation of the human sciences: it was especially important to his efforts to ground in empirical phenomena and in concrete research practices a new ontology of the psychological, which, the article argues, underpinned "objective psychology"/"reflexology" as a transformative scientific movement.