Changing Field?

Whether or not they agree Harvard is placing increasing emphasis on hard data, some professors say the whole field of psychology has become more empirical.

"The result of interest in cognitive psychology and the nervous system has made that side of psychology everywhere in the country much more mathematical, much more allied with identifiable natural sciences," Maher says.

"The major trend of contemporary American psychology is to include cognitive factors," says Ira S. Cohen, director of educational affairs for the American Psychological Association.

Harvard's Psychology Department is "one-third theoretical and two-thirds empirical," says Estes, adding the proportion is in keeping with psychology departments at other universities. "That's the way the field is now," he says.

In fact, the increasing emphasis on empiricism among junior faculty members means that the Harvard Psychology Department is back in step with the nation, some professors say.

"Compared to other universities, I don't think Harvard is empirical," says Daryl J. Bem, a visiting professor of psychology from Cornell University "Harvard has been very much on the theoretical end [over the last 30 years]. If anything [a shift] is just a correction of the past. It's moving more toward the empiricism of other departments."

The changing nature of psychology means that students will have to get used to a more empirically oriented department, professors say, adding that they are concerned by lingering students preferences for less mathematically oriented courses.

"I think it's very clear that among the undergraduates, the softer kind of Psych is much more popular," says one professor who asked to remain anonymous. "I would like to see there be more people going into the cognitive science track."

"I don't like the trend," says Associate Professor of Psychology James E. Mazur. "I don't think that students get enough exposure to the harder aspects of psychology." Mazur cites the fact that nonhonors concentrators are not required to do laboratory work as evidence that students are still able to avoid the empirical side of psychology.

Nonetheless, professors say they recognize that some students believe the department's emphasis on hard data poses difficulties for some concentrators.

"I think it's fair to say that Psychology for undergraduates is often experienced by some as frustrating because they come into the field expecting to study individuals. They're not interested in statistics, mathematics or research," Maher says.

While some professors approve of the focus on empiricism, some concentrators say what they call a shift away from theoretical research has boxed in the department.

"I think the department has taken a definite direction towards what it considers empiricism, but I think that movement is founded on things that are superficial. It's eliminating things that aren't numerical--I think that's very shortsighted," says Psychology concentrator Christopher N. Chapman '89.

Students also say that the experimentally-based theses they are required to do have very little relevance to their future education. "I have problems with [data-crunching] because it turns out that most of the concentrators don't go into psychology," Agronin says.