STANLEY HALL: BIOGRAPHY, THEORIES, OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS - PSYCHOLOGY - 2025

Granville Stanley Hall (1844-1924) was one of the pioneers in the field of psychology in the United States. He is generally considered the founder of such important movements within this discipline as child or educational psychology, in addition to having done fundamental work to include the ideas of Darwin and Freud within the study of the human mind.

Although he originally studied to be a priest in the United States, after a year in seminary he decided to go to Germany to study psychology. His interest in this discipline arose after reading the work Physiological Psychology, by Wilhelm Wundt, who is generally considered as the father of the experimental version of this field of study.

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During the years following his studies, he achieved very important achievements in this field, including obtaining the first doctorate in psychology awarded in the United States, and the development of questionnaires as a measurement element within the study of the human mind. Together with her team, she developed almost 200 questionnaires that she used to study the psychological development of children.

After obtaining his doctorate, Stanley Hall began to promote academic psychology in his native country, founding several chairs in the discipline and becoming the first president of the American Psychology Association, today considered the main driving force behind this science.

Biography

Early years

Granville Stanley Hall was born on February 1, 1884, in a town near Massachusetts called Ashfield. There he grew up on a farm, in a conservative family.

Upon graduation from Williams College, near the place of his birth, he entered Union Theological Seminary with the intention of becoming a priest, so he began studying theology.

However, like many other students of his day, he was inspired by Wilhelm Wundt's book Principle of Physiological Psychology to begin to learn more about the workings of the human mind.

Thus, he began to study psychology at Harvard University, where he met William James, one of the most important figures in this discipline at that time.

After getting his doctorate in psychology, he soon realized that the discipline was still very young and that there were no jobs related to that field in the United States, so he decided to go to Berlin to study at the local university. There he met Wundt, with whom he worked in his laboratory for a short time.

Later, he returned to the United States and began teaching language and philosophy at Antioch College in Ohio, although he soon moved to his native Massachusetts and became a professor of history and philosophy at Williams College, where he had earned his graduate degree.

Finally, after a series of prestigious talks at Harvard and John Hopkins University, he secured a permanent position at the latter center.

Once there, in 1883, Stanley Hall founded what many consider to be the first psychology laboratory in the United States.

Work trajectory

After spending a few years at John Hopkins University researching educational issues, he left the center in 1889 and became president of Clark University, a position he held for the next 20 years. There, he continued to lay the foundations for what would be formal academic psychology in the United States.

In fact, because of his contributions in this field, when the American Psychological Association (APA) was founded, its members offered to become its first president, which Hall accepted.

Over the next several years, he continued to promote psychology as a serious and scientific discipline, and established relationships with leading researchers from around the world.

Among other things, in 1909 Stanley Hall invited Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung to lecture at Clark University, where he continued to serve as president. This he did despite the fact that their ideological positions were at odds, as an attempt to strengthen ties between the American and European currents in psychology.

Among his main interests within the study of the human mind were developmental and educational psychology. Specifically, he spent a lot of time trying to understand the changes that occur in adolescence, especially on the subject of aggression.

For example, among its main theoretical points is the idea that men attack more physically, while women do it more emotionally.

Until his death in 1924, he continued his work promoting psychology in the United States. Among the most famous researchers who studied under his tutelage were James Cattell, John Dewey, and Lewis Terman.

Theories

Although he studied many different subjects, probably Stanley Hall's most important theory was that of recapitulation, based on the idea that the development of each individual is a mirror of that carried out by his species since its appearance.

The main idea behind it is that, although when humans are born we hardly present differences with other animals, as we develop and with the help of education we can reach all the potential present in our species. In this sense, Hall focused primarily on the ability to perform logical reasoning.

Although this theory is now considered obsolete, at the time it caused a great interest in developmental psychology, which allowed for further studies in this area.

Stanley Hall primarily focused on researching the early life of humans, although later he specialized in adolescence and also began to conduct studies on old age.

Stage 1: early childhood

According to studies by Stanley Hall, until about 7 years of age children do not use rational thinking practically. On the contrary, they relate to their environment mainly through the senses and feelings, and those around them do not have much of an influence on them.

For Hall, during these first years humans are very similar to apes, since children absorb data as they perceive it, without passing it through the filter of rational thought. At the same time, he considered that we resembled monkeys due to the high energy of the children and their rapid physical development.

Stage 2: second childhood

Stanley Hall marked the end of early childhood at around 8 years of age, when children's brains are roughly the same size as adults.

For this American researcher, formal education must begin at this time; but he was totally against the system that existed in his time and that still exists today.

Thus, Hall believed that education should focus on preparing children for adult life once they leave school, rather than forcing them to memorize facts and focus on subjects such as mathematics.

On the other hand, one of the characteristics that Hall pointed out for individuals in second childhood is the absence of morality, which causes them to often behave cruelly. This is due to a lack of logical reasoning, which is still developing.

The job of parents and educators at this stage is to take care of the physical condition of the child, rather than focus on trying to develop his mental capacities.

Stage 3: adolescence

The last stage described by Hall, and the one he focused on the most, is adolescence. In it, for this researcher the main aspect of the person's life is sexuality.

Due to this, the psychologist believed that it was useful to carry out an education separated by sex, with the aim that young people could focus on developing their morality and acquiring the tools they needed for life.

Hall also studied the appearance of aggression at this stage, a very typical characteristic of adolescence. Many of her studies were based on innate differences between the sexes, which has caused some of her theories to be called into question in more recent times.

Other contributions

Although his psychological theories have not had great relevance in the contemporary era, the truth is that Hall was one of the most important figures in twentieth-century psychology due to his work as a promoter of this discipline within the academic field.

Thus, their work opened the doors to the arrival of a large number of researchers, and laid the foundations of such important disciplines as developmental psychology and that of individual differences (having studied Cattell, one of the most important thinkers in this branch, under his tutelage).

In addition, he founded several magazines, created the first psychology laboratory in the United States, and trained many of the great psychologists of the next generation. Finally, he managed to strengthen ties between the leading European psychoanalysts and their American contemporaries.

Published works

Here are some of the most important publications Stanley Hall made throughout his life.

- Aspects of German culture (1881).

- Contents of children's minds when entering school (1893).

- Confessions of a psychologist (1900).

- Adolescence (1907).

- Educational problems (1911).

- Aspects of the life and education of children (1921).

- Senectud, the last half of life (1922).

References

1. "G. Stanley Hall ”in: Britannica. Retrieved on: June 27, 2019 from Britannica: britannica.com.
2. "G. Stanley Hall ”in: Psychology and Mind. Retrieved on: June 27, 2019 from Psychology and Mind: psicologiaymente.com.
3. "G. Stanley Hall ”in: Famous Psychologists. Retrieved on: June 27, 2019 from Famous Psychologists: famouspsychologists.org.
4. "Biography of Psychologist G. Stanley Hall" in: VeryWell Mind. Retrieved on: June 27, 2019 from VeryWell Mind: verywellmind.com.
5. "G. Stanley Hall ”in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: June 27, 2019 from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org.