Quote of the Day, December 16th, 2008
Hugo Münsterberg was a German-American psychologist and philosopher who was interested in the applications of psychology to law, business, industry, medicine, teaching, and sociology. He was a forerunner in the field of behaviorism: in theoretical psychology, his “action theory” defined attention in terms of the openness of the nerve paths to the muscles of adjustment. His work in industrial/organizational psychology was extremely experimentally based. He looked at problems with monotony, attention and fatigue, physical and social influences on the working power, the effects of advertising, and the future development of economic psychology. He also looked at the reliability of eye witness testimonies. In reaction to Freud’s theoretical emphasis on unconscious determinants, Münsterberg stated:
“The story of the subconscious mind can be told in three words: there is none.”
-Hugo Münsterberg, deceased on this day in 1916.
