Considered the founder of forensic psychology: who is Hugo Münsterberg?

He has hundreds of journal articles and about two dozen books. He was a regular visitor to the White House as a guest of two American presidents, T Roosevelt and Taft. As a consultant, Münsterberg was sought after by both business and government leaders. Among his acquaintances were very rich, powerful, and famous people such as Kaiser Wilhelm from Germany, steel-rich Andrew Carnegie, philosopher Bertrand Russell, movie stars, and thinkers.

Münsterberg was honored with an honorary doctorate from Harvard University and was elected president of both the American Psychological Association and the American Philosophical Society. He was the founder of applied psychology in the USA as well as in Europe. He is also one of two psychologists accused of being a spy (Spillmann & Spillmann, 1993).

Münsterberg, who was involved in many fields, was promoted as "the prolific diffuser of applied psychology" (O'Donnell, 1985, p. 225). According to his biographer, Münsterberg was also very successful in introducing himself to the public.

Towards the end of his life, Münsterberg became a person who was despised and ridiculed, the subject of cartoons and cartoons, and the university he served for years was ashamed of himself. When J916 died, few people spoke highly of Münsterberg, who was once referred to as the giant of American psychology.

The Life of Münsterberg (1863-1916)

In 1882, at the age of 19, he left his birthplace Danzig and set out for Leipzig. He intended to study medicine. But he changed his career plans after taking a lesson from Wilhelm Wundt. The new psychology could open for him paths that medical research and practice could not. He received his doctorate from Wundt in 1885. He accepted the teaching position at the University of Freiburg, and since there was no opportunity there, he created a laboratory at home with his own means.

Münsterberg has published several articles on his experimental research in psychophysics. These articles were criticized by Wundt for dealing with the cognitive content of the mind. However, Münsterberg's work also received support and in a short time many students from Europe flocked to his laboratory for training. As such, Münsterberg seemed to have secured a professorship at a major university, becoming a famous and respected scientist.

In 1882, William James turned Münsterberg out of the way by offering to become the top-notch director of the Harvard University laboratory. He wrote a commendable letter to Münsterberg, declaring that Harvard is the largest university in the United States and that a very intelligent person is needed to run his laboratory. Münsterberg might have chosen to stay in Germany, but his ambitions drove him to accept James' offer.

Münsterberg was not able to convert German psychology to American psychology (that is, purely experimental psychology to applied psychology) very easily and quickly. He previously disapproved of the spread of applied psychology and scolded university administrators for paying scientists so little, forcing them to turn to applied fields for additional income. He criticized American psychologists for writing popular books for the uneducated, giving lectures to business leaders, and serving as experts for a fee. However, Münsterberg would soon be able to do all of this much better than they did.

After 10 years in the USA, he wrote his first book in English, perhaps realizing that no German University would offer him a professorship. Titled American Characters (1902), this book contained a psychological, sociological, and cultural analysis of American society. A talented and fast writer, Münsterberg could dictate a 400-page book to a secretary in less than a month. James said he thought Münsterberg's brain never got tired.

Admiring reactions to Münsterberg's book encouraged him to write for the public rather than his colleagues, and he soon began to write for more popular tabloids than psychology journals. He abandoned psychophysical research into the contents of the mind to deal with everyday life problems that psychologists could solve. His articles dealt with court hearings, crime, the justice system, consumer product advertising, career guidance, mental health and psychotherapy, education, and business and industry problems. He had prepared integration courses on learning and business and made films about mental tests.

Münsterberg did not shy away from controversy and controversy. In a sensational murder trial, he administered 100 mental tests to a man who murdered 18 people and claimed that a labor union president had paid him for the murder. Before the court jury announced its decision regarding the president, Münsterberg made a statement and claimed that the murderer's confessions that he had received help from the union president were correct. Münsterberg's credibility was damaged when the jury acquitted the trade union president, and a newspaper even nicknamed him "Professor Monstenwork". Münsterberg was among those who fought against the ban in 1908, opposing the ban on the sale of alcoholic beverages. He stated that he was speaking as a psychologist and mentioned that he was against the prohibitions and that the occasional alcohol intake was beneficial for his health. German-American brewers, including Adolphus Busch and Gustave Pabst, were very pleased with Münsterberg's contributions and provided substantial financial support for Münsterberg's efforts to bring Germany's image to the United States.

In an unfortunate and dubious period, Busch donated $50,000 to the German Museum Münsterberg proposed, just weeks after Münsterberg's article denouncing the prohibition was written. This coincidence attracted a lot of media attention.

Münsterberg's thoughts on women are also hard to ignore. Although he was quite supportive of several female Ph.D. students at Harvard—one of them was Mary Whiton Calkins—he believed that graduate studies were studies that required a lot of attention, attention, and effort for a woman. He was of the opinion that women should not be trained for careers because these studies drove them away from home. He was against women teaching in public schools because women did not teach as well as men and they constituted a very poor model for male students. He also felt that women should not be allowed to serve on juries because women could not think rationally. Münsterberg's thoughts made the newspaper headlines.

The rector of Harvard University and most of Münsterberg's colleagues were dissatisfied with this sensational creation and Münsterberg's interest in applying psychology to practical problems. The already strained relations culminated in Münsterberg's overt defense of his homeland, Germany, in World War I. Germany was the aggressor in the war, claiming the lives of millions of people, and Münsterberg openly insisted on defending Germany by gathering all antipathy.

Newspapers wrote that Münsterberg, who never became a US citizen, was a secret agent, a spy working for Germany. Boston newspapers urged him to resign from Harvard. Neighbors suspected that Münsterberg's daughter was using the pigeons she kept in the courtyard of their house to transmit messages to other spies. A former Harvard graduate had offered the university $10 million in exchange for firing Münsterberg.

Münsterberg received letter death threats and was humiliated by his colleagues. His social exclusion and hateful attacks eventually destabilized Münsterberg. Newspapers wrote about the rumors of peace in Europe on the cold and windy 16 December 1916. Münsterberg told his wife, “Peace will come with spring” (Münsterberg, 1922, p.302). He went to school on foot in the heavy snow to give his morning lesson. By the time he reached the conference room, he felt very exhausted. He entered the classroom and gave his lesson. “He lectured for about half an hour, he was in a state of hesitation about something, and after a while he stretched out his right hand to prevent him from shaking” (New York City Evening Newspaper, December 16, 1916 ). He collapsed to the ground without saying anything else and died instantly from the force of his impact.

Forensic Psychology

Münsterberg wrote in newspapers on topics such as crime prevention, the use of hypnosis when interrogating suspects, the use of mental tests in the search for criminals, and the unreliability of eyewitness accounts. He was particularly interested in the situations of eyewitnesses and conducted research on the fallibility of human perception at the time of a crime and later in the collection of evidence. He created imitation crime moments and immediately questioned the witnesses who witnessed the incident and asked them to describe what they saw at that moment. Witnesses could not come to a consensus on the details of the incident, although the scene of the incident they saw was still very fresh in their memories. Based on this, Münsterberg raised the question of how accurate the statements could be in the court that followed the discussion of the event after the event.

He described the problems in eyewitness witnessing in his book called Witnessing Chair, which he wrote in 1908. The book also discusses false confessions that can affect the outcome of a trial, the influence of the witness by the questioner, and the use of investigative physiological measures that increase the suspect or accused's sensory states such as heart rate, blood pressure, and skin resistance. The book was last reprinted in 1976, almost 70 years after it was first published.

In the late 1970s, the issues raised by Münsterberg began to be reconsidered (Loftus, 1979; Loftus & Monahan, 1980) and the American Psychological-Law subsidiary of the American Psychological Association to assist in the development of basic and applied research in forensic psychology. The community was established.

Biography of Hugo Münsterberg, Applied Psychology Pioneer