The cult of experiment: the Psychological Round Table, 1936-1941

The Psychological Round Table (PRT) was an important yet anomalous society founded by young American experimental psychologists. Although it was secretive, it encouraged contact among young experimental psychologists. Although it was motivated by perceived inequities in professional psychology, it was governed by an autocratic minority. And although it was self-consciously informal and irreverent, it clandestinely used formal selection procedures. These aspects of the PRT are documented and explained (counter to L. Benjamin, 1977) as manifestations of the PRT's devotion to psychological experimentation, specially understood. Secrecy, specifically, served not to protect PRT participants from senior colleagues but to create an environment free of political and professional influences and thus taken to be well suited to the vetting of experiments. In this regard, the PRT is distinguished from more familiar scientific societies.     

Developmental change in the acuity of the "Number Sense": The Approximate Number System in 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-year-olds and adults

Behavioral, neuropsychological, and brain imaging research points to a dedicated system for processing number that is shared across development and across species. This foundational Approximate Number System (ANS) operates over multiple modalities, forming representations of the number of objects, sounds, or events in a scene. This system is imprecise and hence differs from exact counting. Evidence suggests that the resolution of the ANS, as specified by a Weber fraction, increases with age such that adults can discriminate numerosities that infants cannot. However, the Weber fraction has yet to be determined for participants of any age between 9 months and adulthood, leaving its developmental trajectory unclear. Here we identify the Weber fraction of the ANS in 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old children and in adults. We show that the resolution of this system continues to increase throughout childhood, with adultlike levels of acuity attained surprisingly late in development.     

The science of ethics: Deception, the resilient self, and the APA code of ethics, 1966-1973

This paper has two aims. The first is to shed light on a remarkable archival source, namely survey responses from thousands of American psychologists during the 1960s in which they described their contemporary research practices and discussed whether the practices were "ethical." The second aim is to examine the process through which the American Psychological Association (APA) used these survey responses to create principles on how psychologists should treat human subjects. The paper focuses on debates over whether "deception" research was acceptable. It documents how members of the committee that wrote the principles refereed what was, in fact, a disagreement between two contemporary research orientations. The paper argues that the ethics committee ultimately built the model of "the resilient self" into the APA's 1973 ethics code. At the broadest level, the paper explores how prevailing understandings of human nature are written into seemingly universal and timeless codes of ethics.     

Revelry,Rivalry, and Longing for the Goddesses of Bengal: The Fortunes of Hindu Festivals,by Rachel Fell McDermott,New York: Columbia University Press, 2011, xviii + 372 pp. ISBN 978-0-231-12918-3, US$90.00 (cloth); ISBN 978-0-231-12919-0, US$29.50 (paperback)

This article introduces a review symposium on Sexuality in Classical South Asian Buddhism. I situate this book in the newly emerging field of Buddhism and sexuality, and also provide a discussion of previous works by the author that led to the current volume under review. I also provide a broad overview of the book itself for those unfamiliar with the work. The responses in this symposium are offered by Sarah H. Jacoby (Northwestern University), John Powers (Deakin University), and Amy Paris Langenberg (Eckerd College).