Mary Whiton Calkins

Mary Whiton Calkins (1863-1930) was a philosopher and psychologist. In addition to these vocations, she was the first female president of the American Psychological Association and The American Philosophical Association. After having attended Smith College for an undergraduate degree she later attended Radcliffe and was permitted to attend classes at Harvard (an all-male school) so long as she was not an officially enrolled student. She taught psychology at Wellesley College and worked with Hugo Munsterberg, a German psychologist. During this time she published several papers on dreams and color/number association. Her greatest contribution to the field of psychology was "self-psychology," a field that emphasized introspection (primarily the self-examination of personal experiences). Her books and papers indicate a a view of psychology that primarily dealt with the mind and spirit while minimizing physical input such as sensorimotor and physiological experiences.