Granville Stanley Hall¶
Abstract¶
Granville Stanley Hall greatly influenced the relationship of American academia to psychological study. He launched two organizations that continue to promote empirical psychological study and scholarship to this day. Hall’s understanding of life’s stages, particularly adolescence and senescence has been critical to our current understanding of youth and old age.
Early Life and Education¶
Granville Stanley Hall was born on February 1, 1844, in Massachusetts. His father, Granville Bascom Hall, was a politician. His mother, Abigail Beals, went to school at Albany Female Seminary, then proceeded to become a teacher. Hall was raised in a religious household, and at first wanted to become a minister. When he graduated from Williams College in 1867, Hall completed his seminary training. But his time in the clergy was short-lived; after “ten weeks as a church pastor [Hall] decided to leave the ministry”. Hall then went on to teach “literature and philosophy” at Antioch College from 1872-1876. In 1878 he was given the first Ph.D in psychology in the United States. Hall studied physiological psychology in Germany. When Hall returned to the States he became very popular, being invited to give lectures at Harvard and Johns Hopkins University. After these series of lectures, Hall secured a faculty position lecturing on psychology at Johns Hopkins University in 1882. source
Key Discoveries¶
Granville Stanley Hall is perhaps one of the best-known psychologists in American history. Today, he is remembered for his influential contributions to the field including founding the first American psychology laboratory at the John Hopkins University, and representing a major transitional period in psychological thought. G. Stanley Hall earned a PhD in psychology, becoming the first American to do so. He became the first President of the American Psychological Association in 1892. source
In psychological thinking, Hall’s research marked a transitional period from thinking of human psychology as fairly static to viewing it as based in developmental stages. His thoughts were marked by the impact of more contemporary thinking in the 20th century. His work was valuable to a number of eugenics-based organizations. Following his family’s death in 1890, Hall was professionally prolific. He wrote widely and founded several newspapers and organization as well. In the following years G. Stanley Hall was appointed as the American Psychological Association’s first president.
One of his greatest achievement was to early psychology development and growth. “By 1898, out of the 54 PhD degrees awarded in the United States, Hall had supervised 30. Lewis Terman, John Dewey and James McKeen Cattell are some of those individuals who studied under his impact” source He and his students produced over 190 questionnaires that were instrumental in fostering an increase in interest in child development research. Hall furthermore used these questionnaires at Harvard to write two important papers: one on children’s lies (1891) and the other on children’s minds (1893).
Hall founded the first journal in the fields of child psychology and educational psychology, the Pedagogical Seminary (later the Journal of Genetic Psychology). “He has written 489 works covering most of the major psychological areas, including Senescence, the Last Half of Life (1922) and Jesus, the Son, in the Light of Psychology (1917). A psychologist’s life and confessions (1923) was his autobiography.”
Professional Activities¶
Granville Stanley Hall’s first published book particularly focused on German culture. Despite beginning his studies and works on English as well as philosophy, he later became a Professor at John Hopkins University, for psychology and pedagogy. The American Journal of Psychology also became one of his several achievements, launched in 1887.
Johns Hopkins University, Main Building
Adolescence, focuses explicitly on the theory of adolescence, as it is an important “level” of life. Hall refers to the adolescence period (ages 12 - 25) as “strum and drang”, also known as, “storm and stress”. It’s about how easily our actions and emotions can contradict. The main aspect of this stage of life is on reaching a certain level of maturity but still developing after reaching this stage if life. source
His book called Senescence highlights the “last half of life”. Senescence is when you reach the age of 60, and age older and older. It is the time of our life that leads to retirement and ultimately death source. The book and Hall’s theory of senescence concludes that “death is the end of the body and also the soul, which overall gives us the image that death allows a new life of joy, as well as love source.
Contemporary Assessments¶
Much of G. Stanley Hall’s work remains relevant to this day. Having inspired a cultural shift towards viewing adolescence as a separate life stage from childhood and adulthood, Hall is often called the “Father of Adolescence.” He brought the German psychological idea of adolescence as a time of “storm and stress” to American psychology, differentiating the extreme emotions and behaviours of adolescence from the criminal activity or mental illness of adults, and laying the ground for the pop-culture stereotype of the moody “troubled teen.” He also articulated difference between male and female social groups in adolescence, attributing physical aggression to males and relational aggression (i.e. rumour spreading) to females. This insight on teen social groups has been helpful to psychologists and comedians alike, laying the basis for such cultural classics as Mean Girls, Tina Fey’s seminal work. Hall encouraged educators to view adolescence as an opportunity to intentionally shape individual and cultural development and contribute to advantageous human evolution. His approach to children and youth programming encouraged the launch of programming like the YMCA and YWCA that emphasize physical health, team building, and community building. His perspective is part of why we continue to encourage children and youth toward team sports and extracurriculars. Hall also identified old age as a separate life-stage. With an aging population in the 21st century, this identification and the study of this separate life-stage is increasingly significant, emphasizing the importance of providing seniors with positive social relationships, personal affirmation, and opportunities to contribute to society even as their physical abilities decline.
Hall’s long term influence on psychology also spread beyond the concepts of life stages. His launch of the American Journal of Psychology, American Psychological Association, and America’s first psychological laboratory essentially make him the father of American psychological academia. In fact, he directly oversaw the doctoral work of tens of the the USA’s first doctoral psychology students. He also promoted the works of Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler, providing them with necessary legitimacy that helped ensure their influence on psychological thought. Without Hall’s influence, the current landscape scientific psychology would certainly look very different!
Sigmund Freud’s 1909 Visit to Clark University
Unfortunately, not all of his work was so positively impactful . Hall’s opinions about the differences between boys and girls lend legitimacy to harmful stereotypes. Modern psychologists criticize the “storm and stress” idea, noting that not all adolescents fit that mold. And worst of all, Hall was strongly in favour of eugenics (intentionally breeding “superior” humans - think Nazis and Aryanism, or the forced sterilization of “troubled” youths and criminals in some parts of the world in the early to mid 20th century).
An enjoyable video about G. Stanley Hall:
Like every historical figure, Granville Stanley Hall contains multitudes. Modern psychologists must approach his work critically, while maintaining respect for his memory.
Further Reading¶
The full text of Adolescence: Its Psychology and its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education
https://archive.org/details/adolescenceitsps01hall/page/n9
English translation of Freud’s lecture series at Clark Univeristy About Psychoanalysis https://www.rasch.org/over.htm
Bibliography¶
Early Life and Education¶
G. Stanley Hall. (2019, September 9). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._Stanley_Hall..
Parry, M. (2006, July). G. Stanley Hall: psychologist and early gerontologist. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1483855/.
Key Discoveries¶
Cherry, K. (2019, August 28). G. Stanley Hall’s Important Contributions to Psychology. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/g-stanley-hall-biography-2795507.
G. Stanley Hall. (2019, September 9). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._Stanley_Hall.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2019, April 20). G. Stanley Hall. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/G-Stanley-Hall.
Professional Activities¶
Cherry, K. (2019, August 28). G. Stanley Hall’s Important Contributions to Psychology. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/g-stanley-hall-biography-2795507.
Contemporary Assessments¶
About Clark. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www2.clarku.edu/research/archives/archives/g-stanley-hall.cfm.
G. Stanley Hall (1844–1924). (n.d.). Retrieved from https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2026/Hall-G-Stanley-1844-1924.html.
(n.d.). Retrieved from https://www3.nd.edu/~rbarger/www7/hall.html.
(n.d.). Retrieved from https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2006-12691-005.
About Clark. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www2.clarku.edu/research/archives/archives/g-stanley-hall.cfm.
G. Stanley Hall (1844–1924). (n.d.). Retrieved from https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2026/Hall-G-Stanley-1844-1924.html.
Parry M. (2006). G. Stanley Hall: psychologist and early gerontologist. American journal of public health, 96(7), Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1483855/
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2019, April 20). G. Stanley Hall. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/G-Stanley-Hall.
Young, J., & Lee, S. F. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://ahp.apps01.yorku.ca/tag/g-stanley-hall/.
Images¶
D’Alembert, J. (Photographer). (2016). Johns Hopkins University, Main Building. [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Johns_Hopkins_University.jpg
- Sigmund Freud’s 1909 Visit to Clark University. Retrived from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hall_Freud_Jung_in_front_of_Clark_1909.jpg
- Portrait of Granville Stanley Hall. [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/G._Stanley_Hall.jpg
