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A History of Psychology in Autobiography, Vol IV.Albert Michotte.

A History of Psychology in Autobiography, Vol IV.: Albert Michotte. This chapter presents an autobiographical sketch of Albert Michotte. When publication of my autobiography was proposed to me, my first reaction was to decline this honor. My life, academic and scientific as well as private, has proceeded so simply, so regularly, and indeed so logically, that it seemed to promise little of interest to anyone outside my immediate environment. Upon reflection, however, it occurred to me that a collection of autobiographies might well gain by including the most varied samples of the styles de vie of contemporary psychologists, and I yielded to the amiable insistence of a few of my colleagues. "Styles of life" may mean many things. It goes without saying that it is only of scientific life that I am thinking. The aim of this book is to provide a contribution to the history of psychology, including the details which the French so aptly call la petite histoire. Thus, what is paramount here, it seems to me, is that each of us should give an account of his opinion concerning his personal contribution to our knowledge of psychology, as well as trace the individual evolution of his ideas and the reasons which have provoked it. Having gone over again in my mind the whole course of my scientific life, which is nearing its close, I think that I may justly conclude that I have remained faithful to the conception of it which I developed in my youth and which was sketched in the first pages of this paper. I thought at first that I had special aptitudes for experimentation, and I have remained an experimenter during my whole career. I have constantly sought to accumulate data which were as solid as possible, capable of providing a base for the general syntheses which should, I felt, be reserved for the future, and also, perhaps, for minds more definitely oriented in that direction than was mine. Nevertheless my life's work does not at all appear to me as a mere hunt for facts, as a pure accumulation of observations, which would have given it a rather sterile character. The experiments that I carried out and the efforts expended to draw conclusions from them have always been dominated by my concern to provide a contribution to the understanding of one of the major problems which has never ceased to preoccupy me. And, if my work has borne fruit, it is precisely, I think, for this reason. Because I have thought again and again about the questions which interested me passionately, these questions have gradually ripened in my mind; the solutions, seen sketchily at first, have gradually become transformed and completed; and, finally, old problems have suddenly appeared to me, often after many long years, in an entirely new light. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved) http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A History of Psychology in Autobiography, Vol IV.Albert Michotte.

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Publisher
Clark University Press
Copyright
Copyright © 1952 American Psychological Association
Pages
213 –236
DOI
10.1037/11154-010
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

This chapter presents an autobiographical sketch of Albert Michotte. When publication of my autobiography was proposed to me, my first reaction was to decline this honor. My life, academic and scientific as well as private, has proceeded so simply, so regularly, and indeed so logically, that it seemed to promise little of interest to anyone outside my immediate environment. Upon reflection, however, it occurred to me that a collection of autobiographies might well gain by including the most varied samples of the styles de vie of contemporary psychologists, and I yielded to the amiable insistence of a few of my colleagues. "Styles of life" may mean many things. It goes without saying that it is only of scientific life that I am thinking. The aim of this book is to provide a contribution to the history of psychology, including the details which the French so aptly call la petite histoire. Thus, what is paramount here, it seems to me, is that each of us should give an account of his opinion concerning his personal contribution to our knowledge of psychology, as well as trace the individual evolution of his ideas and the reasons which have provoked it. Having gone over again in my mind the whole course of my scientific life, which is nearing its close, I think that I may justly conclude that I have remained faithful to the conception of it which I developed in my youth and which was sketched in the first pages of this paper. I thought at first that I had special aptitudes for experimentation, and I have remained an experimenter during my whole career. I have constantly sought to accumulate data which were as solid as possible, capable of providing a base for the general syntheses which should, I felt, be reserved for the future, and also, perhaps, for minds more definitely oriented in that direction than was mine. Nevertheless my life's work does not at all appear to me as a mere hunt for facts, as a pure accumulation of observations, which would have given it a rather sterile character. The experiments that I carried out and the efforts expended to draw conclusions from them have always been dominated by my concern to provide a contribution to the understanding of one of the major problems which has never ceased to preoccupy me. And, if my work has borne fruit, it is precisely, I think, for this reason. Because I have thought again and again about the questions which interested me passionately, these questions have gradually ripened in my mind; the solutions, seen sketchily at first, have gradually become transformed and completed; and, finally, old problems have suddenly appeared to me, often after many long years, in an entirely new light. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Published: Sep 11, 2006

Keywords: Albert Michotte; history of psychology; psychologists; autobiography

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