The book “Great
Psychologists and their times” is not what you might think it is. Readers not
familiar with D.K. Simonton’s previous work might expect something like a Who’s
Who in Psychology. Instead, it is a book about greatness and how it manifests
in some people and not in others. The intention of the book is to understand
greatness in psychology, not necessarily to learn about individuals.

This may appeal
to readers who are interested in what psychological research methodology can
contribute to the understanding of the discipline’s own development. The
author, Dean Keith Simonton, is a psychology professor at the university of
California, Davis, and has written a number of books on the study of genius and
creativity, and their impact on diverse fields. He uses quantitative methods to
understand these phenomena, rather then biographical analysis.

One can probably
say that Simonton’s approach makes sense. After all, psychology as a science is
largely nomothetic, not idiographic. That is, instead of describing individual
biographies and their unique features (the idiographic approach), psychological
science tries to identify universal rules and general principles of phenomena
(the nomothetic approach). For example, textbooks dealing with intelligence are
not descriptions of intelligent people; they tell the reader something about
intelligence, how to measure it, and how it covaries with other variables.
Simonton uses the same approach for another field of the psychology of
individual difference: greatness.

Of course,
“greatness” is not a term that can be found in psychology textbooks. The
conceptualization of this construct is arguably the weakest point in Simonton’s
work. After all, what Simonton tries to achieve is an analysis of
regression-style breakdown of greatness. And this requires an objective and
replicable measurement of people’s value on a greatness scale. In analogy to I.Q.-scores,
something like a “greatness quotient” would be required. Simonton does not give
such scales; he doesn’t really define “greatness” either. Instead he talks
about a number of phenomena both quantitative (like citations or publications)
and qualitative (like eponyms).

This book will
not tell you what greatness is and how to measure it. At times, talk is not
about “greatness” but about “eminence” or “impact in the field,” but these
terms are also poorly conceptualized. And while impact can be quantified,
“eminence” and “genius” are singular phenomena by definition, i.e. they
probably don’t lend themselves easily to a nomothetic approach.

And it is never
quite clear who those eminent psychologists are Simonton is writing about. The
reader has to take Simonton’s word for it that he probably knows reasonably
well who can be considered eminent and who can’t (and who of the select few are
more eminent than others). For a book of more than 400 pages, the description
of the subjects is rather brief (only the first 60 pages). This is followed by
over 300 or so pages about all the factors that influence greatness.

Having said this,
the book does give a good overview of psychology’s current knowledge about
factors that influence achievement and/or productivity and it’s an excellent
introduction to psychological research strategies. The reader learns what is
known about the influence of age, birth order, parental loss, professional
training site, religion, etc.

Simonton has a
talent for using mathematical modeling where you wouldn’t expect it, but at the
same time, he sometimes falls for pseudo-precision. For example, in chapter 8
(Worldview), he gives the result of a factor analysis of 54 theorists’
worldviews. The idea of using factor analysis for this purpose is surprisingly
creative and a nice demonstration that even something like worldview can be
quantified. However, giving all factor scores down to three decimal places
suggests a degree of exactness that just can’t be derived from the data. The
conclusion from such data analysis is rather disappointing — it can be summed
up as: “Psychologists with all sorts of worldviews can be influential.”

There are
numerous such examples where Simonton applies quantitative methods with great
skill, and the student of personality and individual differences will likely
benefit from such demonstration of applied statistical methods. Occasionally
however, the conclusions from these analyses do not seem to justify the effort.
In chapter 11, Simonton demonstrates that the low proportion of women among
eminent psychologists during various time periods had to do with women’s roles
in society at different times; there is no proof that women are inherently less
brilliant than men. Not exactly an original or unprecedented finding.

“Great
Psychologists and their times” is a fine example of the skilful application of
psychology’s scientific arsenal to a field where idiographic methods still
dominate. In that, it is original and creative, an example of the book’s very
subject matter. If you are interested in methodology and in nomothetic
creativity research, this book will be valuable for you.

Some editorial
reviews also suggest that this book can teach readers how to become great
psychologists, but that seems extremely questionable. It has yet to be
demonstrated that impact can be predicted as well as retrospectively analyzed.
And again, if you want a good overview of who the greatest psychologists were
and what exactly they thought and did, get a good history of psychology book
instead.

© 2002 Jürgen Klecker

Jürgen Klecker, Dipl.-Psych., is a clinical
psychologist trained at the University of Würzburg, Germany and at Trinity
College Dublin, Ireland. He’s worked as a teaching assistant in clinical
psychology and held several seminars on applied cognitive behavior therapy. He
now works as a drug therapist in a privately owned clinic.

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