Psychological Bulletin

Bruner, Frank G.

doi: 10.1037/h0073126pmid: N/A

Reviews 7 studies (1912-1913) in support of racial differences in physiological and mental abilities among Blacks and Whites. Whites have been found to be only slightly superior to the Blacks in mental abilities, especially intelligence. However, Mayo found the Whites to be distinctly superior in learning capacity; and the in subjects requiring abstraction, such a s science and mathematics. According to W. I. Thomas, the main factor responsible for the differences in mental and social attainment is expressible in terms of interest, stimulation, imitation, opportunity, occupational differentiation, and mental attitude. The relative intelligence and advancement of a social group are dependent on the objects to which they give attention.

Franz, Sheperd I.

doi: 10.1037/h0063938pmid: N/A

Reviews the article Elemente der Völkerpsychologie: Grundlinien einer Psychologischen Entwicklung der Menschheit by Wilhelm Wundt (1912). The author is opposed to the theory that socio-psychological changes start with an accidental variation in an individual mind which is reproduced by imitation and thus becomes part of the culture of the group. Both the origin and the fixation of such psychic changes, according to him, are socially conditioned. The main subdivisions of the field are given by Language, Art, Religion, Myth, and Custom. In the five volumes of his Völkerpsychologie, the author segregated these subdivisions, following, as it were, a longitudinal sectioning of the cultural process; in his Elemente, he attempts a series of crosssections, his analysis being directed to cultural eras. Of such eras he distinguishes three: the Era of Primitive Man, the Totemic Era, and the Era of Heroes and Gods-besides the incipient Era of Humanity.

Franz, Sheperd I.

doi: 10.1037/h0067216pmid: N/A

Reviews the article The North American Indian of the Plains by Clark Wissler (1913). In this paper the author briefly characterizes the trend of recent anthropological thinking, illustrating his points by the concrete example of the Plains culture area. After sketching the main features of Plains culture, the author turns to the problem, whether the great degree of uniformity throughout the area is due to independent invention or to historical contact.

Franz, Sheperd I.

doi: 10.1037/h0064337pmid: N/A

Reviews the book Kinship and Social Organisation by W. H. R. Rivers . This essay deals with one of the most abstruse and technical of ethnological subjects,--terms of relationship. Nevertheless, it is of considerable interest to psychologists, for the point discussed by the author is whether the relationship terminology employed by various peoples can be explained on psychological grounds.

Franz, Sheperd I.

doi: 10.1037/h0065860pmid: N/A

Reviews the article The Belief in Immortality; and the Worship of the Dead. Vol. I: The Belief among the Aborigines of Australia, the Torres Straits Islands, New Guinea and Melanesia by J. G. Frazer (1913). In the present work the author avowedly confines himself to a collection of facts illustrative of the belief in immortality and of all the momentous consequences which have flowed from that belief. In regard to historical method, he is decidedly conservative; but as regards psychological interpretation he is nothing less than Bourbon. He insists on the rational basis of savage life; he rejects absolutely the doctrine that savages act first and afterwards invent reasons for their conduct; and he cannot imagine how any race of men who invariably acted first and thought afterwards could survive in the struggle for existence; finally, he is convinced that the believers in the essential irrationality of savage conduct uniformly lack personal experience with primitive cultures.

Franz, Sheperd I.

doi: 10.1037/h0066487pmid: N/A

Reviews the article The "Psychological Interpretation of Language by A. M. Hocart . This distinctly clever paper will interest the ethnologist mainly for its concrete illustrations of principles rather generally recognized in his circles. Basing his discussion entirely on the Fijian field the author points out that the supposed richness of concrete terminology and concomitant absence of abstract words is not amenable to a simple psychological interpretation, such as the inferior ability of the savage to see identity in difference. The development of a language is due to no rationalistic, logic-chopping analysis of the universe, but is conditioned by practical considerations in the life of the people using it.