Orval Hobart Mowrer
Orval Hobart Mowrer (January 23, 1907 – June 20, 1982) was an American psychologist and
Early life and education
Mowrer spent his early years on the family farm near
In his senior year, as a project for a sociology course, Mowrer composed a questionnaire to investigate sexual attitudes among students. It was distributed anonymously and the responses were to be returned anonymously. The questionnaire was accompanied by a letter from a non-existent "Bureau of Personnel Research" which began:
Dear University Student:
During the last several decades it has become increasingly apparent that there is something seriously wrong with the traditional system of marriage in this country. But, unfortunately, the whole matter has been so inextricably bound up with religious dogmas, moral sentiments, and all manner of prudish conventionalities as to make it exceedingly difficult to ascertain with any degree of accuracy the precise reasons for this situation.[7]
There were slight differences in wording between the questionnaires sent to women and those sent to men, but each contained 11 groups of questions requesting the student's opinions about illicit sexual relations, whether the student would marry a person who had engaged in sexual relations, how s/he would react to unfaithfulness in marriage, whether s/he had engaged in sex play as a child or sexual relations as an adult, and whether s/he would favor the legal establishment of "trial marriage" or "companionate marriage."[7]
Some of the students sent the questionnaires on to their parents, who complained to the administration. Two faculty members were aware of the questionnaire and allowed it to be distributed, sociology professor Harmon O. DeGraff and psychology professor Max Friedrich Meyer, although neither had read the cover letter. Ultimately both men lost their jobs, and Meyer never held an academic position again.[7] The American Association of University Professors censured the University for violation of academic freedom, in the first such action taken by the AAUP.[8]
The scandal had little impact on Mowrer's career. He left the university without a degree in 1929 (the degree was granted a few years later), entering Johns Hopkins University, where he worked under Knight Dunlap. Mowrer's PhD research involved spatial orientation as mediated by vision and the vestibular receptors of the inner ear, using pigeons as subjects. During his time at Johns Hopkins he also underwent psychoanalysis for the first time, in an attempt to resolve another episode of depression. After completing his doctorate in 1932 he continued his work on spatial orientation as a post-doctoral fellow at Northwestern University and then Princeton University.[6]
Yale, then Harvard
Academic positions were scarce during the
In 1936, Mowrer was hired by the Yale Institute of Human Relations, then a relatively new project funded by the
During the late 1930s Mowrer began experimenting with the use of electric shock as a conditioning agent. At the time, most psychologists agreed with
Using animals in similar experiments, he found that a cycle could be produced in which the subject became more and more responsive to conditioning.[12] He concluded that anxiety was basically anticipatory in nature and ideally functions to protect the organism from danger. However, because of the circumstances of conditioning, the degree of fear is often disproportionate to the source. Anxiety can be created artificially, and relief of anxiety can be used to condition other behaviors.[14] Mowrer's term for the state of expectancy produced by carefully timed aversive stimuli was the "preparatory set," and it was foundational to his later thinking in both learning theory and clinical psychology.
In 1940 Mowrer became Assistant Professor at the
During this time Mowrer's faith in
War work
In 1944 Mowrer became a psychologist at the Office of Strategic Services developing assessment techniques for potential intelligence agents.[9] Mowrer's experience with the laboratory induction of psychological stress, along with the work of other psychologists, was utilized to construct an environment in which recruits could be assessed for their ability to withstand highly stressful situations.[15]
As part of his work there, he participated in a seminar led by
Move to Illinois
In 1948, Hobart Mowrer accepted a research-only position at the
Mowrer's interest in clinical psychology was primarily a hobby during the 1950s, but it would eventually eclipse his work as a learning theorist. He had given up on psychoanalysis after 1944, partially as a result of the failure of his own analysts to cure his problems. Most importantly, Harry Stack Sullivan had persuaded him that the key to mental health lay in healthy, scrupulously honest human relationships, not in intrapsychic factors. Mower took Sullivan's ideas to heart and confessed to his wife some guilty secrets concerning his adolescent sexual behavior, and that he had had an affair during the marriage.[16] She was upset, but convinced (as was Mowrer) that those secrets might explain his bouts of depression. The depressive symptoms did remain in remission for eight years.[6]
In 1953, at the height of his career and on the eve of accepting the presidency of the
Religious views
During most of Mowrer's adult life he had no involvement with religion. He recognized that his theories about the importance of
In 1955 Mowrer read a religious novel which changed his thinking. His daughter was reading Magnificent Obsession by Lloyd C. Douglas and told her father that it might interest him. Mowrer was impressed by Douglas' thesis, expressed through a fictional character, that the Bible was a superb handbook of human relations.[18] A central theme of the novel is a secret shared by a small group of people who have found great spiritual and material success. It is derived from Jesus' suggestion to "do alms in secret", not letting anyone know. In the book, however, good deeds done in secret invest the characters with almost magical power. Mowrer turned the concept around to place the emphasis on the pathological potential of misdeeds when they are kept secret. He summed it up the phrase, "You are your secrets," sometimes reworded as "You are as sick as your secrets."
After reading other fictional and non-fictional works by Lloyd Douglas, who had left the
Integrity therapy
After Mowrer's positive experiences as a result of his disclosures to his wife in 1945, he began to counsel students using several simple premises: that
In a 1972 article detailing the procedures of the groups,[20] Mowrer described the intake interviews as "very unlike a social case-work interview" and "more like those followed in intakes at Synanon or Daytop." The prospect was first put at ease by "sharing" offered by the interviewers. Committee members would then zero in on some point on which the person seemed to be evasive, inconsistent or defensive. If the person immediately "came clean" to the satisfaction of the committee, s/he would be rewarded with verbal approval and admission to the group. If any resistance was shown, there would be further confrontation, then deliberation by the committee in the presence of the prospective member. According to Mowrer it was rare for someone to be flatly turned down, although they might be asked to seek help elsewhere (with a "psychiatrist of our choice") and come back when they were able to be honest as defined by the group.[20]
Meetings lasted at least three hours. No one could leave before the three hours were up, and anyone who walked out during a "run" (i.e. while the target of group confrontation) was permanently excluded from the group. Any language was acceptable, including profanity and yelling, but no physical violence or threat thereof. Feelings were to be expressed in "gut-level" language and verbal aggression was common. Embraces and physical expressions of affection were also common. All significant details of member's everyday lives were to be shared with the group, and members had contracts detailing steps they would take toward honesty and restitution. These agreements were recorded in a "commitment book" and the member had to answer to the group for any failure to keep a commitment.[20]
Mowrer dropped the term "Integrity Therapy" in favor of "Integrity Groups," to avoid the impression that it was possible to outgrow the need for Group attendance. He considered membership in an Integrity Group to be a lifelong commitment (members were shuffled among groups to avoid fixed relationships). Criticism of the Integrity Group concept centered on Mowrer's negativity about human nature, and the questionable value of investing a group with supreme authority over one's life.[21]
When it was suggested that his techniques resembled
Later years
The popularity of Integrity Groups faded during the 1970s.[6] Mowrer's techniques in fact were to have a substantial legacy in the alcohol and drug rehabilitation field,[3] but community groups did not last. Mowrer recognized the irony of this. Opposition to professionalism in therapy had been a guiding principle for both Molly and Hobart Mowrer and for years they resisted the temptation to sponsor formal training in I.G. leadership.[6] Times were changing, however, and it seemed that the only future available for Mowrer's approach was in the hands of paid professionals. He did continue to have some non-professional influence through the Grapevine articles he wrote for Alcoholics Anonymous, an organization he very much admired.[22]
Hobart Mowrer was an advocate of the idea that mental illness has a substantial biological and genetic basis. He held this conviction in spite of his equally strong belief in the importance of the "pathogenic secret." Mowrer accepted the importance of biological factors at a time when many people did not, and was in this respect ahead of his time. He regarded his own affliction as in some sense a "gift," the driving force behind his innovative ideas, but also the great misery of his life.
Mowrer had hoped to remain professionally active in retirement, but circumstances forced him to slow down shortly after he retired in 1975. Molly became seriously ill and he developed medical problems of his own. Molly's death in 1979 was a great loss, and also left him with few responsibilities. He had accepted that his periodic depressions would never be entirely cured, and had long held the opinion that suicide was a reasonable choice in some circumstances. He died by suicide in 1982 at the age of 75.[9]
References
- ^ "Galesburg State Research Hospital - Asylum Projects".
- ^ American Psychological Association (2008-01-09). "APA Past Presidents". Retrieved 2008-05-17.
- ^ OCLC 56921380.
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- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Mowrer, O. Hobart (1974). Gardner Lindsey (ed.). A History of Psychology in Autobiography Volume 6.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8262-1449-2.
- ^ Knight, Jonathan (January–February 2003). "AAUP: The AAUP's Censure List".
- ^ .
- ISBN 978-0-313-22201-6.
- ISBN 978-0-03-059147-1.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8090-9811-8.
- ^ N., Pam M.S., "MILLER-MOWRER SHUTTLEBOX," in PsychologyDictionary.org, April 7, 2013, https://psychologydictionary.org/miller-mowrer-shuttlebox/ (accessed February 20, 2019).
- ^ OCLC 185637244.
- ^ "Office of Strategic Services Assessment Program".
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- ^ OCLC 192134874.
- ISBN 978-0-310-51140-3.
- ^ S2CID 146370712.
- ^ S2CID 145580865.
- OCLC 775098.