Cheiron Young Scholar Award

[Larry Stern]

Announcement of Cheiron’s Young Scholar Award, 2024

 

Cheiron’s Young Scholar Award Committee is pleased to announce that two young scholars have been chosen to receive the 2024 award: Cassidy Kuhar, for her “Qualities of a « bon pilote »: Exploring U.S.-French Collaborations to Select and Classify Aircrew in WWII” and Caitlin Mace, for her “Controversy at the Boundaries: The Instinct Controversy c. 1890–1930.”

 

Cassidy Kuhar is an Honors Psychology major with a French minor and a certificate in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at The University of Akron who will be graduating in May 2025. For the past three years, Cassidy has worked as a student assistant at the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology, where she has gained valuable experience in archival research. Her academic interests are shaped by her dual identity as a musician and psychology student, currently focusing on the history of music psychology and the factors influencing expertise development. Cassidy aspires to continue her education through graduate training in social and cognitive psychology.

 

According to Kuhar:

The roles of psychologists in the war effort expanded exponentially in the Second World War, with over 1,000 psychologists in the United States working directly with the Army, Air Force, or Navy, and another 500 contributing as civilians (Faye, 2011; see Capshew, 1999). The vast majority of these numbers were involved with the Army Air Forces (AAF). They conducted research, designed apparatus and equipment, and trained administrators and instructors. The earliest – and most–focused – area of research involved the development of testing batteries for the selection of aircrew personnel and their classification into the positions of pilot, bombardier, navigator, mechanic, and gunner. The evolution of this program has been well-studied, but international collaborations that emerged from it have been largely left unexplored.

Drawing on English and French archival and published sources, this paper presents a case example of these collaborations, focusing on the co-creation of a psychophysical selection and classification program by the French Air Force and U.S. psychologists. Sources include declassified U.S. military reports, photographs, archival training and orientation films from the AAF and War Training Service, bilingual versions of written psychological tests, and psychomotor tests, including artifacts from the AAF School of Aviation Medicine held by the Archives of the History of American Psychology. World War II-era published sources prepared by French and U.S. psychologists, physicians, and military personnel have also been consulted.

Caitlin Mace is a graduate student in the History and Philosophy of Science department at the University of Pittsburgh. She earned a B.A. in psychology with a minor in ethics and values from what is now Cal Poly Humboldt and an M.A. in philosophy from California State University, Long Beach. Her current research focus is on neural circuits and representations in the philosophy of neuroscience. Other research interests include memory engrams, instinct, animal models, reductionism, and levels.

 

In her work, Mace focuses on controversy in psychology, with special reference to the cpncept of “instinct”:

 

Does ‘instinct’ have a place in a scientifically legitimate study of humans and non-human animals? This was the question at the heart of the instinct controversy in psychology and related fields (c. 1890–1930). I show that the instinct controversy was a result of efforts to establish psychology as a scientifically legitimate field. Such legitimizing work involves the rejection of non-scientific standards, practices, and concepts, as well as boundary settlement between the field of inquiry and other scientific and non-scientific fields. Based on debates in the instinct controversy, I interpret psychologists at the time to have considered scientifically legitimate concepts to be those that are explanatory, based on accepted theory, and useful for producing fruitful research. American psychologists determined the instinct concept to be none of these things, resulting in the decline of use of ‘instinct’ for a generation.

 

The Young Scholar Award Committee congratulates both Kuhar and Mace and encourage them to submit an extended and polished version of their papers to the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences. If a paper is accepted by JHBS for publication, she will receive a $500 honorarium from the publisher, Wiley-Blackwell, in recognition of the Cheiron Young Scholar Award. Please join us in congratulating Cassiday and Caitlin.

 

The Committee also sends our thanks to each of the young scholars who submitted his or her paper for the award. Each of the submitted manuscripts was thought-provoking and carefully researched, thus making the committee’s decision particularly challenging. We hope that these and other qualified young scholars will continue to submit their work for our award in the years to come.

 

Last, special thanks and appreciation goes to members of the Young Scholar Award Committee, Jill Morawski and Stephanie Pache, for their efforts.

 

Larry Stern

Executive Officer, Cheiron

[Vincent Hevern]

Really excellent choices from the descriptions offered here. 

Vinny

Vincent W. Hevern, SJ, Ph.D.
Professor, Psychology Dept.
Le Moyne College 
1419 Salt Springs Rd
Syracuse, NY 13214
hev...@lemoyne.edu
www.hevern.com

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[David Robinson]

It was a wonderful Cheiron program in Akron last June. Thanks to the officers and committee for administering the Young Scholar Award! And congratulations to the winners and to all who presented!

--David R.

David K. Robinson, Professor of History emeritus

Truman State University, Kirksville, Missouri

Past-Executive Officer, Cheiron (International Society for History of Behavioral & Social Sciences)

History of Psychology Editor, American Journal of Psychology (AJP)

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