@article{d02e1a612dcd4c9c8fa6d19b7ce987fa,
title = "Psychological Operationisms at Harvard: Skinner, Boring, and Stevens",
abstract = "Contemporary discussions about operational definition often hark back to Stanley S. Stevens' classic papers on psychological operationism. Still, he was far from the only psychologist to call for conceptual hygiene. Some of Stevens' direct colleagues at Harvard—most notably B. F. Skinner and E. G. Boring—were also actively applying Bridgman's conceptual strictures to the study of mind and behavior. In this paper, I shed new light on the history of operationism by reconstructing the Harvard debates about operational definition in the years before Stevens published his seminal articles. Building on a large set of archival evidence from the Harvard University Archives, I argue that we can get a more complete understanding of Stevens' contributions if we better grasp the operationisms of his former teachers and direct colleagues at Harvard's Department of Philosophy and Psychology.",
keywords = "B. F. Skinner, Douglas McGregor, E. G. Boring, P. W. Bridgman, S. S. Stevens, behaviorism, operationism",
author = "Sander Verhaegh",
note = "Funding Information: This study was supported by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (Grant No. 275‐20‐064). The author's archival research was supported by a Kristeller‐Popkin Travel Fellowship from the , by a Rodney G. Dennis Fellowship in the Study of Manuscripts from Houghton Library, and a travel grant from the Evert Willem Beth Foundation. The author would like to thank Julie Vargas, anonymous referees for the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, and the staff at the Harvard University Archives for their help with this project. The author would also like to thank the audiences at both events for their valuable suggestions. Drafts of this paper were presented at the 2019 conference of the History of Science Society (Utrecht University) and the 2019 conference of the Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science (University of British Columbia). Journal of the History of Philosophy Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020 The Authors. Journal of The History of the Behavioral Sciences published by Wiley Periodicals LLC {\textcopyright} 2020 The Authors. Journal of The History of the Behavioral Sciences published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.",
year = "2021",
month = may,
doi = "10.1002/jhbs.22071",
language = "English",
volume = "57",
pages = "194--212",
journal = "Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences",
publisher = "John Wiley & Sons Inc.",
number = "2",
}