The Life and Work of Psychologist James McKeen Cattell

Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsEarly LifeCareerContributions to PsychologySelected Publications

Table of ContentsView All

View All

Table of Contents

Early Life

Career

Contributions to Psychology

Selected Publications

James McKeen Cattell was the first psychology professor in the United States, teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. During those early days, psychology was often regarded as a lesser science and was often even viewed as a pseudoscience.

Cattell is credited with helping established psychology’s legitimacy as a science thanks to his focus on quantitative methods of research could be viewed as more objective, repeatable, and scientific than other ideas of what psychology was at the time. These are issues that the field of psychology is still grappling with today.

Cattell was also the founder and editor of a number of scientific journals including The Psychological Review.

Cattell was awarded his Ph.D. in 1886 and became a lecturer at the University of Cambridge. He returned to the United States to teach psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and later at Columbia University. In 1895, he became the President of theAmerican Psychological Association, which had been founded only a few years earlier in 1892.

Early in its history, psychology was often viewed as a lesser science or even a pseudoscience. As Cattell explained in his 1895 APA address:

“In the struggle for existence that obtains among the sciences psychology is continually gaining ground…. The academic growth of psychology in America during the past few years is almost without precedent…. Psychology is a required subject in the undergraduate curriculum …, and among university courses psychology now rivals the other leading sciences in the number of students attracted and in the amount of original work accomplished.”

Cattell is an important figure in psychology thanks to research onintelligence, his use of quantitative methods and his focus on establishing psychology as a legitimate science.

Cattell was fundamental in establishing several major psychology journals includingThe Psychological Review,ScienceandPopular Science Monthly, which later went on to becomePopular Science.

While other names in the field of psychology have perhaps became more well-known, Cattell remains a key foundational figure in the psychological fields of study in the United States.

Cattell died on January 20, 1944 at the age of 83.

Below are a number of Cattell’s published works:

SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Cattell, James McKeen in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge University Press, 10 vols, 1922-1958.Cattell, J. M. (1896). Address of the president before the American Psychological Association, 1895.Psychological Review, 3 (2), 1-15.Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia (1995) Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc.

Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Cattell, James McKeen in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge University Press, 10 vols, 1922-1958.Cattell, J. M. (1896). Address of the president before the American Psychological Association, 1895.Psychological Review, 3 (2), 1-15.Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia (1995) Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc.

Cattell, James McKeen in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge University Press, 10 vols, 1922-1958.Cattell, J. M. (1896). Address of the president before the American Psychological Association, 1895.Psychological Review, 3 (2), 1-15.Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia (1995) Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc.

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