Mind Changers

Claudia Hammond presents the history of psychology series which examines the work of the people who have changed our understanding of the human mind. This week she examines the work of Abraham Maslow who, in the mid-twentieth century, developed a theory of human motivation which was particularly influential in management.

In his 1954 book, Motivation and Personality, Maslow explained his Heirarchy of Needs: how only when basic physiological needs, and those of safety and security, are met can humans aspire to be motivated by higher goals such as status and self-respect. And he maintained that only a small number of exceptional people - he gave Albert Einstein and Eleanor Roosevelt as examples - are capable of reaching the highest level of motivation, and are driven by the desire to accomplish all they are capable of.

Maslow was also a pioneer, with Carl Rogers, of Humanistic Psychology - a response to the sharply opposing schools of psychoanalysis and behaviourism which dominated psychology at the time.

Claudia Hammond visits Brandeis University outside Boston, where Maslow was the founding Professor of Psychology, to speak to some who knew him, and hears from psychologists and management experts how his influence persists. Contributors include Margie Lachman - Professor of Psychology at Brandeis University, Lawrence Fuchs - emeritus Professor of American Civilization and Politics at Brandeis (who died last month), and Warren Bennis - Professor of Management and Organization at the USC Marshall School of Business.

Producer: Marya Burgess.

Claudia examines the Hierarchy of Needs, part of Abraham Maslow's theory of motivation.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond presents the history of psychology series which examines the work of the people who have changed our understanding of the human mind. This week she reflects on the enduring impact of Anna Freud's approach. By insisting on observation in her nurseries, she promoted the understanding of the child's perspective. Her continuing legacy can be seen in the way children are cared for in hospital and within the legal system today.

Claudia explores how Anna, the only one of Freud's six children to follow him into the field of psychoanalysis, started out as a teacher in 1920s Vienna and soon identified the toddler age as crucial to the child's future emotional development. After she fled to London with her father in 1938, she set up the Hampstead War Nurseries, the foundation for the Hampstead Child Therapy Course and Clinic, which became the Anna Freud Centre after her death in 1982. Claudia visits the Centre to meet Nick Midgley, a child psychotherapist there, and Dr Inge Pretorius, who is in charge of the Parent Toddler service. She also meets students training to be child psychotherapists, who are taught to observe in minute detail the interaction between children and carers in the way Anna Freud pioneered.

At one of the Centre's therapeutic parent toddler group parents explain what sets it apart from other groups, and discovers that today the Anna Freud Centre is breaking new ground with its Developmental Neuroscience Lab, using EEGs to further their understanding of the psychology of children and adolescents. Co-Director of the Centre, Mary Target, believes Anna Freud would have approved, though many within psychoanalysis are sceptical of this approach.

Producer: Marya Burgess.

By insisting on observation in nurseries, Anna Freud promoted understanding of children.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond presents a series looking at the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century.

She re-visits Ellen Langer and Judith Rodin's 1976 study, conducted in a New England nursing home, Arden House.

When the two psychologists set up the experiment so that residents on two floors of the 360-bed home for the elderly would experience some changes in their everyday life, they had no idea that they were introducing factors which could prolong life.

While residents on both floors were given plants and film shows, only those on the fourth floor had the opportunity to control these events: choosing the plant and looking after it themselves, and choosing which night of the week to view the film.

Eighteen months later, when Langer and Rodin returned to the home, they were astonished to discover that twice as many of the elderly residents in this 'choices' group were alive, compared with the control group on the second floor, who had been given plants that the staff tended, and were told which was their film night. It appeared that taking control made you live longer.

These findings fit in well with the work on learned helplessness in dogs which Martin Seligman had done in the late 1960s, and on Langer and Rodin's own studies on the perception of control.

Claudia Hammond meets Ellen Langer, now Professor of Psychology at Harvard, and hears about Arden House and the work she has gone on to do on what she calls 'mindfulness'. She visits Arden House, which is still a nursing home, and is shown around by current administrator Joanne Scafati.

Dr Zelda Di Blasi, who lectures in psychology at University College, Cork, sets the study in context, and Rosalie Kane, Professor of Public Health at the University of Minnesota, and Howard Kaplan, CEO of City Club Living accommodation for the elderly, discuss the impact of Langer/Rodin on care of the elderly.

Claudia Hammond revisits Langer and Rodin's 1976 Arden House study.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond presents the history of psychology series which examines the work of the people who have changed our understanding of the human mind. This week she explores the legacy of BF Skinner and Behaviourism. One of the most famous psychologists of the 20th century, by applying to human learning the theory he developed through animal studies, he became one of the most controversial.

Claudia is shown round his study by his daughter, Julie Vargas; remaining much as it was when he died in 1990, it is full of quirky, Heath-Robinson-type, home-made gadgets, evidence of Skinner's practicality and ingenuity. They reveal another side to the man famous for his operant conditioning experiments with rats and pigeons, and infamous for his template for what some have described as a totalitarian state, in his book 'Beyond Freedom and Dignity'.

Claudia also meets his younger daughter, Deborah Buzan, and explodes the myth that she was raised in one of Skinner's experimental 'boxes'.

She hears more about the man and his work from Richard McNally at Harvard, and Gordon Bower and Lee Ross of Stanford University.

Producer: Marya Burgess.

A classic experiment in operant conditioning conducted by the famous behaviourist.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond presents the history of psychology series which examines the work of the people who have changed our understanding of the human mind. This week she explores the legacy of BF Skinner and Behaviourism. One of the most famous psychologists of the 20th century, by applying to human learning the theory he developed through animal studies, he became one of the most controversial.

Claudia is shown round his study by his daughter, Julie Vargas; remaining much as it was when he died in 1990, it is full of quirky, Heath-Robinson-type, home-made gadgets, evidence of Skinner's practicality and ingenuity. They reveal another side to the man famous for his operant conditioning experiments with rats and pigeons, and infamous for his template for what some have described as a totalitarian state, in his book 'Beyond Freedom and Dignity'.

Claudia also meets his younger daughter, Deborah Buzan, and explodes the myth that she was raised in one of Skinner's experimental 'boxes'.

She hears more about the man and his work from Richard McNally at Harvard, and Gordon Bower and Lee Ross of Stanford University.

Producer: Marya Burgess.

A classic experiment in operant conditioning conducted by the famous behaviourist.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond presents the history of psychology series which examines the work of the people who have changed our understanding of the human mind. This week she explores Carl Rogers' revolutionary approach to psychotherapy, led by the client and not the therapist. His influence can be seen throughout the field today.

Claudia meets Rogers' daughter, Natalie Rogers, who has followed in her father's footsteps and developed Expressive Arts Person-Centred Therapy, and hears more about the man from Maureen O'Hara of the National University at La Jolla, who worked with him. Richard McNally of Harvard University and Shirley Reynolds of Surrey University explain how far Rogers' influence extends today, and Claudia sees this for herself in a consulting room in downtown San Francisco, where she meets Person-Centred psychotherapist, Nina Utigaard.

Producer: Marya Burgess

Three Approaches to Psychotherapy (1965): film clips courtesy of Sharon K. Shostrom, Psychological & Educational Films.

While Freud relied on expert and patient, Rogers pioneered a therapeutic model of equals.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond presents the history of psychology series which examines the work of the people who have changed our understanding of the human mind. This week she explores Carl Rogers' revolutionary approach to psychotherapy, led by the client and not the therapist. His influence can be seen throughout the field today.

Claudia meets Rogers' daughter, Natalie Rogers, who has followed in her father's footsteps and developed Expressive Arts Person-Centred Therapy, and hears more about the man from Maureen O'Hara of the National University at La Jolla, who worked with him. Richard McNally of Harvard University and Shirley Reynolds of Surrey University explain how far Rogers' influence extends today, and Claudia sees this for herself in a consulting room in downtown San Francisco, where she meets Person-Centred psychotherapist, Nina Utigaard.

Producer: Marya Burgess

Three Approaches to Psychotherapy (1965): film clips courtesy of Sharon K. Shostrom, Psychological & Educational Films.

While Freud relied on expert and patient, Rogers pioneered a therapeutic model of equals.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond presents the history of psychology series which examines the work of the people who have changed our understanding of the human mind. This week she interviews Carol Dweck, who identified that individuals tend towards a fixed or a growth mindset regarding what they can learn and achieve. She also showed that a fixed mindset can be changed, and that once people adopt a growth mindset, they can achieve more.

Claudia visits a UK primary school where growth mindset is part of the curriculum, and sees how children who don't like maths soon change their attitude at a summer camp in California, once they're shown that getting the wrong answer actually makes their brains grow more than getting the right answer.

She hears more about Dweck and her work from colleagues Greg Walton and Jo Boaler at Stanford University, and executive head Dame Alison Peacock at the Wroxham Primary School.

Producer: Marya Burgess.

Carol Dweck showed how changing people's beliefs can affect their levels of achievement.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond presents the history of psychology series which examines the work of the people who have changed our understanding of the human mind. This week she interviews Carol Dweck, who identified that individuals tend towards a fixed or a growth mindset regarding what they can learn and achieve. She also showed that a fixed mindset can be changed, and that once people adopt a growth mindset, they can achieve more.

Claudia visits a UK primary school where growth mindset is part of the curriculum, and sees how children who don't like maths soon change their attitude at a summer camp in California, once they're shown that getting the wrong answer actually makes their brains grow more than getting the right answer.

She hears more about Dweck and her work from colleagues Greg Walton and Jo Boaler at Stanford University, and executive head Dame Alison Peacock at the Wroxham Primary School.

Producer: Marya Burgess.

Carol Dweck showed how changing people's beliefs can affect their levels of achievement.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Without a few unusual people, human behaviour would have remained a mystery - ordinary people whose extraordinary circumstances provided researchers with the exceptions that proved behavioural rules. Claudia Hammond revisits the classic case studies that have advanced psychological research.

Dora was the pseudonym Sigmund Freud gave to the teenage girl who claimed that her father had offered her to his friend in exchange for the continued sexual favours of the friend's wife. Freud used this, his first case history, to show how the interpretation of dreams could be used in analysis. Also to illustrate his new theory of infant sexuality, and to explain transference. Although Freud said he believed Dora's account of the adults' love triangle, Dora ended the analysis after just 11 weeks. Freud wrote up his account immediately, but didn't publish it until 1905, as Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria.

In the 1970s the case was taken up by feminists to discredit Freud's theories. Claire Pajaczkowska made a film about it: Dora: A Case of Mistaken Identity. She speaks about it to Claudia Hammond in the Freud Museum, Sigmund Freud's former London home.

American psychoanalyst, Karin Ahbel-Rappe, asserts that Dora, a vulnerable teenager, was badly let down by Freud. So does Anthony Stadlen, a psychotherapist who has researched the real people behind the pseudonyms in Freud's case histories. Dora was in fact Ida Bauer, later Ida Adler, and the image of the self-obsessed hysteric perpetuated by Freud and his followers was apparently untrue.

Janet Sayers, Professor of Psychoanalytic Psychology at the University of Kent, and Michael Billig, Professor of Social Science at Loughborough University, also feature in the programme.

Producer: Marya Burgess.

The story of Dora, Freud's first case history, which he used to explain infant sexuality.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Without a few unusual people, human behaviour would have remained a mystery - ordinary people whose extraordinary circumstances provided researchers with the exceptions that proved behavioural rules. Claudia Hammond revisits the classic case studies that have advanced psychological research.

When a 27 year old man known in the text books simply as HM underwent brain surgery for intractable epilepsy in 1953, no one could have known that the outcome would provide the key to unravelling one of the greatest mysteries of the human mind - how we form new memories.

HM was unable to remember anything that happened after the operation, which was conducted by Dr William Scoville in Hartford, Connecticut, though his life before the surgery remained vivid. For 55 years, until he died in December 2008 at the age of 82, HM - or Henry Molaison, as he was identified on his death - was studied by nearly 100 psychologists and neuro-scientists; he provided data that enabled them to piece together the memory process. The research was first coordinated by Dr Brenda Milner of McGill University and then by Professor Suzanne Corkin at MIT. Both women got to know Henry well, but he never got to know them; for him each meeting with them was the first.

His inability to form new memories meant that HM was unable to look after himself, but he remained cheerful, with a positive outlook on his condition. He was happy, he maintained, to provide information that could help others. And this he continues to do, even after death. His brain was dissected by Dr Jacopo Annese of the Brain Observatory at UCSD, and is the subject of an ongoing on-line collaborative study.

Producer: Marya Burgess.

A man known as HM provided the key to one of the mysteries of the human brain.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Without a few unusual people, human behaviour would have remained a mystery - ordinary people whose extraordinary circumstances provided researchers with the exceptions that proved behavioural rules. Claudia Hammond revisits the classic case studies that have advanced psychological research.

Janet and Ron Reimer's twin sons, Bruce and Brian, were born in Winnipeg in Canada in August 1965. All went well until April 1966, when the twins were circumcised. In the process, Bruce suffered a catastrophic injury to his penis. A year later, on the advice of Dr John Money, founder of the Gender Identity Clinic at Johns Hopkins University Medical Centre in Baltimore, Bruce became Brenda and the Reimers began to raise their son as a daughter.

John Money published the case as one of successful gender re-assignment in 1975, when the twins were 9. Yet by the time Brenda was a teenager she was suicidal. When her parents finally told her the truth, Brenda decided to change back to her original gender; she became David Reimer.

The medical literature, however, continued to quote John/Joan as evidence of successful gender reassignment, until Milton Diamond, Director of the Pacific Centre for Sex and Society at the University of Hawaii, finally tracked down David Reimer and published an article in 1997. For the first time it was revealed that the re-assignment had not been a success. Journalist John Colapinto followed it up with a book about David in 2000.

As a man, David appeared finally to have found happiness in marriage and stepchildren. However, a series of events took their toll: his twin brother's death, the loss of his job, and separation from his wife all proved too much and he took his own life on 4 May 2004.

Producer: Marya Burgess.

The case that for years apparently proved that nurture not nature dictates gender identity

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond presents a series on case studies that have made a significant contribution to psychological research.

A phobia of horses developed by a small boy living in Vienna in 1904 seemed unlikely evidence for the Oedipus complex. But for Sigmund Freud, this was the proof he had been waiting for. His study of Little Hans was the first recorded case of child psychoanalysis, and, with its detailed recording of a how a child makes sense of the world, continues to provide rich pickings for all who are interested in child development.

Claudia investigates the legacy of the study, and visits one of the centres run by Childhood First, which deals with some of the most disturbed and damaged children using a model informed by psychoanalysis.

A small boy's phobia of horses seemed unlikely evidence for the Oedipus complex.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond presents a series on case studies that have made a significant contribution to psychological research.

A phobia of horses developed by a small boy living in Vienna in 1904 seemed unlikely evidence for the Oedipus complex. But for Sigmund Freud, this was the proof he had been waiting for. His study of Little Hans was the first recorded case of child psychoanalysis, and, with its detailed recording of a how a child makes sense of the world, continues to provide rich pickings for all who are interested in child development.

Claudia investigates the legacy of the study, and visits one of the centres run by Childhood First, which deals with some of the most disturbed and damaged children using a model informed by psychoanalysis.

A small boy's phobia of horses seemed unlikely evidence for the Oedipus complex.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Without a few unusual people, human behaviour would have remained a mystery - ordinary people whose extraordinary circumstances provided researchers with the exceptions that proved behavioural rules. Claudia Hammond revisits the classic case studies that have advanced psychological research.

Claudia Hammond re-visits the case of Sidney Bradford, born in 1906, who lost his sight when he was 10 months old. When it was finally restored with corneal grafts at the age of 52, a lecturer in Experimental Psychology at Cambridge, Richard Gregory, began a series of tests on SB - a study that would launch Gregory's career as a world-renowned expert in visual perception.

For this programme, in his last broadcast interview before his death in May this year, Richard Gregory, Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology at Bristol University, accompanied Claudia Hammond to the London sites he'd visited with Sidney 50 years earlier. At the Science Museum SB was captivated by the Maudsley screw-cutting lathe from 1800; he enjoyed the flurry of pigeons in Trafalgar Square, and laughed at the giraffes at London Zoo. But in general SB found the visual world a disappointing place. He died less than two years after his sight was restored.

His reaction differed greatly from that of Mike May, an American who lost his sight aged 3 and recovered it when he was 43.

What's become apparent from such cases is that humans have to 'learn' to see; without accumulating visual experience from which the brain can make sense of what the eyes see, vision is of little use.

Claudia Hammond hears from consultant ophthalmologist, William Ayliffe about the other historical cases of recovered sight, and visits Dr Steven Dakin in the Department of Visual Neuroscience at UCL

Producer: Marya Burgess.

The story of SB, who had his sight restored after over 50 years of blindness.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond presents a series on case studies that have made a significant contribution to psychological research.

Phineas Gage was a railway worker in 19th-century Vermont who survived a bizarre accident. A metre-long iron rod shot through his head, changing him and the study of neuroscience forever.

Claudia visits Harvard Medical School Museum in Boston to see for herself what remains of The Man With The Hole In His Head. At the Oliver Zangwill Centre for Neuropsychological Rehabilitation in Ely, Cambridgeshire she meets clients with brain injuries similar to those suffered by Phineas Gage and discovers how far we've come in understanding and treatment since Gage suffered his appalling trauma on 13 September 1848.

Phineas Gage was a railway worker in 19th-century Vermont who survived a bizarre accident.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond presents a series on case studies that have made a significant contribution to psychological research.

Phineas Gage was a railway worker in 19th-century Vermont who survived a bizarre accident. A metre-long iron rod shot through his head, changing him and the study of neuroscience forever.

Claudia visits Harvard Medical School Museum in Boston to see for herself what remains of The Man With The Hole In His Head. At the Oliver Zangwill Centre for Neuropsychological Rehabilitation in Ely, Cambridgeshire she meets clients with brain injuries similar to those suffered by Phineas Gage and discovers how far we've come in understanding and treatment since Gage suffered his appalling trauma on 13 September 1848.

Phineas Gage was a railway worker in 19th-century Vermont who survived a bizarre accident.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

In 1800, 12-year-old Victor emerged from the woods of the Aveyron District, naked and behaving like an animal. It was estimated that he had been living wild since the age of about four.

Doctor Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard devised a revolutionary programme of training for the boy, which met with partial success. The story is repeatedly quoted in the nature-nurture controversy, but it provides no conclusive proof either way. As with all case studies, it can be used to defend different theories. Nevertheless, many still benefit from Victor's legacy, as children with learning difficulties and others, especially those in Montessori nurseries, are taught by the method of hands-on play devised by Itard.

In 1800, 12-year-old Victor emerged from the woods, naked and behaving like an animal.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

In 1800, 12-year-old Victor emerged from the woods of the Aveyron District, naked and behaving like an animal. It was estimated that he had been living wild since the age of about four.

Doctor Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard devised a revolutionary programme of training for the boy, which met with partial success. The story is repeatedly quoted in the nature-nurture controversy, but it provides no conclusive proof either way. As with all case studies, it can be used to defend different theories. Nevertheless, many still benefit from Victor's legacy, as children with learning difficulties and others, especially those in Montessori nurseries, are taught by the method of hands-on play devised by Itard.

In 1800, 12-year-old Victor emerged from the woods, naked and behaving like an animal.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

By applying an information processing model to attention, Broadbent launched the cognitive revolution in psychology in Britain. As Director of the Medical Research Council's Applied Psychology Unit from 1958 to 1974, Broadbent propagated his belief that psychology should be applied to practical problems, such as optimising human performance by the design of aircraft cockpits or nuclear reactor control rooms. He became a regular expert contributor on radio and TV, promoting psychology to the public.

Meeting psychologists who studied and worked with Broadbent - Professor Susan Gathercole of the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Professors Alan Baddeley of York University and Dylan Jones and Andy Smith of Cardiff University - Claudia Hammond builds a picture of the man and his ground-breaking work, learning that noise has a far greater impact on our efficiency at work than we realize.

Claudia Hammond examines the legacy the psychologist who launched the cognitive revolution

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond meets the creator of several classic experiments, who broke new ground with the filmed simulations of road accidents she showed to subjects in the 1970s. These studies revealed that witness reports of the same incident varied according to the wording used by the questioner, giving rise to the development of the 'cognitive interview' - witness-led it avoids questioner-bias. Loftus' work has changed the way witnesses are dealt with throughout the legal system.

Having shown that existing memories can be altered, Loftus was inspired to try to implant a whole false memory by the rise in cases of 'recovered' memories of violence and abuse in childhood. Her 'Lost in the Mall' and 'Bugs Bunny' studies proved that she could - in 30% of subjects - make them believe something that had never happened was part of their childhood history.

Loftus has inspired much work in the field of memory, including that of Barbara Tversky, on how memory reflects the spin put on a story.

Lorraine Hope, of Portsmouth University, has used the Cognitive Interview to develop the Self-Administered Interview (SAI), trialled by Greater Manchester Police. Steve Retford of their Major Incident Team is convinced of its benefits.

Loftus' former friends and teachers at Stanford - Gordon Bower, Lee Ross and Brian Wandell - remember a fun-loving and forceful young woman, while Gillian Cohen reviews her influence in the UK.

Claudia Hammond with more experiments that changed our understanding of the human mind.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond presents a series looking at the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century.

When psychologist Harry Harlow decided to look at how baby rhesus monkeys learned to recognise their mothers, he didn't know that he would revolutionise parenting.

Claudia visits the Primate Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin, where Harlow conducted his experiments, and meets his former assistant, Helen LeRoy, and the current director of the lab, Professor Christopher Coe. At the University of Massachussets, Amherst, she meets Harlow's last PhD student, now Chair of Psychology, Professor Melinda Novak. She also talks to Roger Fouts, Professor of Psychology at the University of Central Washington, about the perceived cruelty of Harlow's work, and to Dr John Oates, lecturer in the Centre for Childhood, Development and Learning at the Open University.

Revisiting Harry Harlow's surrogate mothers experiment, which revolutionised parenting.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond re-visits the Minimal Group Studies of 1971, where Tajfel and his collaborators got boys at a comprehensive school to view abstract paintings and then assigned them to the 'Klee' group or the 'Kandinsky' group, apparently because of the preferences they declared, but in fact entirely at random. Even though the boys didn't know who else was allocated to their group, they consistently awarded more points to their own group than to the other. So even though who belonged to which group was meaningless, they always tended to favour their own.

This proved to be the first step towards Social Identity Theory, as developed by Henri Tajfel and John Turner, which stressed that our identification with groups varies according to how significant that group is at the time: if we're at war our national identity is important, at a football match it's our team identity that's to the fore...

Tajfel died in 1982, but his legacy can be seen in the work many of his former students continue in the same field. Claudia Hammond hears from four of them, including Michael Billig - Professor of Social Sciences at Loughborough University, who helped run the 1971 studies, Miles Hewstone, Rupert Brown and Steve Reicher, Professors of Social Psychology at Oxford, Sussex and St Andrews respectively.

Producer: Marya Burgess.

Claudia Hammond with more experiments that changed our understanding of the human mind.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond returns with the history of psychology series examining the work of the people who have changed our understanding of the human mind. This week she meets the American social psychologist, James Pennebaker, to discuss his work on expressive writing.

Pennebaker's ground-breaking experiment was published in 1986; he showed that simply writing about one's emotions can significantly improve one's health. His work revolutionised how emotions are viewed within psychology.

Claudia travelled to New Orleans, to the American Society for Personality and Social Psychology annual gathering, to speak to James Pennebaker, who was there to receive a Distinguished Scholar Award and to take up the Society's Presidency. She also met others who have worked with him and taken his work on expressive writing forward in various directions. These include Annette Stanton -Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at UCLA, Laura King - Professor of Psychology at the University of Missouri at Columbia, Kent Harber - Associate Professor of Psychology at Rutgers University, Sam Gosling - Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, Adriel Boals - Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of North Texas, Matthias Mehl - Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Arizona, and John Weinman, Professor of Psychology as Applied to Medicine at King's College.

Producer: Marya Burgess.

James Pennebaker proved that simply writing about how you feel can improve your health.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond visits Philadelphia to meet two of Joseph Wolpe's former colleagues, Michael Ascher and Allan Cristol to hear about the man and his work. At Temple University Medical School Professor William Dubin shows her Wolpe's portrait and discusses his legacy, while Dr Richard Heimberg, Director of the Adult Anxiety Clinic at Temple, reveals how Wolpe's form of therapy still influences what he does today.

In the UK, Elaine Caiger gets over her paralyzing fear of spiders at a course run by Anxiety UK which distils Wolpe's lengthy process into a matter of hours. And Paul Salkovskis, Professor of Clinical Psychology and Applied Science at the University of Bath, reflects on his worldwide impact.

Producer: Marya Burgess.

Exploring Joseph Wolpe's development of a treatment for patients with phobias.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

In 1966 Rotter published his famous IE scale. This measured whether the subject had an Internal Locus of Control - believing that they could affect the course of their life, that their choices would have an impact on what happened to them - or an External Locus of Control, in which case their life was guided by luck or fate and they themselves had little power to change things. The test has been developed in many ways since then, but it is still widely used today and the notion of Locus of Control has been particularly influential in healthcare. Claudia visits Guy's Hospital in London to hear from health psychologists Dr Nicky Thomas and Professor John Weinman about how it affects their work with patients.

Julian Rotter himself was one of the first clinical psychologists ever to be trained in the US and was to be extremely influential in training those who followed. He was proponent of the scientist-practitioner model and he worked hard to ensure that clinical psychology became a research-based discipline. He was largely responsible for bringing personality theory into the clinical arena.

Claudia also meets his wife, Doffie - a former graduate student of Rotter's, his friends and former colleagues at UCONN: Professors Charles Lowe, Marianne Barton and Jerome Smith. And hears from Margie Lachman of the Lifespan Developmental Psychology Laboratory at Brandeis University, how Locus of Control can change with age.

Claudia meets Julian Rotter, who promoted personality theory in clinical psychology.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond presents a series looking at the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century.

She revisits the first experiment to broach the subject of how children respond to TV and computer game violence. Albert Bandura's ground-breaking Bobo Doll experiment in 1961 first alerted the world to the dangers of imitative behaviour.

Albert Bandura's experiment in 1961 exposed the dangers of imitative behaviour.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond presents a series looking at the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century.

She revisits the first experiment to broach the subject of how children respond to TV and computer game violence. Albert Bandura's ground-breaking Bobo Doll experiment in 1961 first alerted the world to the dangers of imitative behaviour.

Albert Bandura's experiment in 1961 exposed the dangers of imitative behaviour.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond presents a series looking at the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century.

In the 1920s, at the enormous Western Electric Hawthorne Factory in Cicero outside Chicago, management began an experiment which was to improve the working life of millions and give rise to a phenomenon that anyone planning a psychology experiment would have to take into account in their design.

Keen to improve productivity at a time when the telephone industry was growing and Western Electric was building the components for all the telephone exchanges in the United States, management decided to see whether working conditions affected production. But the initial 'illumination studies' were inconclusive; whether lighting was increased or decreased to no better than moonlight, productivity increased. Whatever the intervention, it seemed to promote faster work.

Confused, management turned to economists from Harvard Business School to design a more complex study. So, in April 1927 five women were removed from the factory floor and put in a separate room - the relay assembly test room. For the next five years, as they assembled the complex relays they were minutely monitored. Their working conditions were regularly altered, but whether breaks were included or removed, their working day lengthened or shortened, their productivity continued to rise.

The study improved working conditions throughout the factory, as breaks were introduced for all, but it also gave rise to a phenomenon known as The Hawthorne Effect, which has to be taken into account in the design of any experiment - the mere fact that subjects know that they are being studied may alter their behaviour.

Yet The Hawthorne Effect is widely questioned. How can an experiment using such a small sample - five women, two of whom were changed during the study - have given rise to such a ubiquitous theory?

With the help of the Hawthorne Museum in Cicero, the Baker Library archive and Professor Michel Anteby at Harvard Business School, Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of Yale Business School who met the original participants in the study back in the 1970s, and Mecca Chiesa of the University of Kent, Claudia Hammond re-examines the classic Hawthorne Studies.

The 1920s experiment in a Chicago factory that gave rise to a classic textbook phenomenon.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond presents a series looking at the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century.

Lawrence Kohlberg designed the first experiment to quantify the human capacity for ethical reasoning. Fifty years on, aspects of the original experiment in Chicago are replicated with volunteers in the UK.

Lawrence Kohlberg's experiment to quantify the human capacity for ethical reasoning.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond presents a series looking at the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century.

Lawrence Kohlberg designed the first experiment to quantify the human capacity for ethical reasoning. Fifty years on, aspects of the original experiment in Chicago are replicated with volunteers in the UK.

Lawrence Kohlberg's experiment to quantify the human capacity for ethical reasoning.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond revisits another classic psychology experiment, David Rosenhan's Pseudo-Patient Study, gaining access to his unpublished personal papers to discover how it changed our understanding of the human mind, and its impact 40 years on.

Between 1969 and 1972, the clinical psychologist David Rosenhan and seven other people - none of whom had a psychiatric diagnosis - got themselves admitted to 12 different psychiatric hospitals around the United States. They did this by presenting with a single symptom, saying that they heard a voice which said words such as 'empty', 'dull' and 'thud.' Once admitted, they acted completely normally. Nevertheless, they were kept in for periods of between 8 and 52 days. Seven of them were diagnosed with schizophrenia and were released as being 'in remission'; not one of them was judged to be sane.

After Rosenhan published On Being Sane in Insane Places in the journal Science in 1973, the psychiatric profession went on the defensive to protest its diagnostic competence. The study struck at the heart of their attempts to medicalise psychiatry and be accepted as proper doctors. Its impact was felt when the third edition of the profession's bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, came out in 1980: changes had been made which brought more rigour to the diagnostic process.

However, as Claudia discovers from Rosenhan's unpublished papers, for him the study was less an experiment of diagnostic efficacy than an anthropological survey of psychiatric wards. In a chapter of the book he never finished, she reads his poignant account of his own first admission, and his sense that 'minimal attention was paid to my presence, as if I hardly existed'.

Now suffering ill health and unable to speak, Rosenhan delegates his friends and colleagues professor of social psychology at Stanford University Lee Ross and clinical psychologist Florence Keller to speak to Claudia and show her the box containing previously unpublished material which throws new light on one of the most controversial and famous psychology experiments.

Claudia Hammond revisits David Rosenhan's influential 1973 study of psychiatric diagnoses.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond presents a series looking at the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century.

When Philip Zimbardo set up a mock prison, he had no idea that the resulting behaviour would be so extreme that he would have to abandon the experiment. Over 30 years later, when he saw photos of the abuse in Abu Ghraib, it was with the shock of recognition that he went on to testify in the defence of one of the accused soldiers.

When Philip Zimbardo set up a mock prison, he had no idea what he would witness.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Claudia Hammond presents a series looking at the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century.

When Philip Zimbardo set up a mock prison, he had no idea that the resulting behaviour would be so extreme that he would have to abandon the experiment. Over 30 years later, when he saw photos of the abuse in Abu Ghraib, it was with the shock of recognition that he went on to testify in the defence of one of the accused soldiers.

When Philip Zimbardo set up a mock prison, he had no idea what he would witness.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century

Seeking to understand how the impulsive behaviour of his own three daughters at age 3 became increasingly regulated and planned by age 4 or 5, Mischel set up his experiment in delayed gratification at the Bing Nursery at Stanford University. Over 6 years he asked more than 300 4-year-olds to decide whether to have one marshmallow right now, or wait and get two, and he examined the cognitive processes which enabled some children to wait.

Hearing by chance how these 4-year olds were getting on in high school years later, Mischel realized that whether or not they'd been able to resist eating one marshmallow in order to get two was now showing a strong correlation with their achievements at school, and even with whether or not they were over-weight. Following the same cohort at 10-year intervals, he's shown that those who were able to hang on for two marshmallow were less likely to drop out of college, use cocaine, or even go to prison.

Now the original Marshmallow Test children are middle-aged and still being followed up in one of psychology's longest-running studies. Coordinated by Ozlem Ayduk at Berkeley and Ian Gotlib at Stanford, many have returned to Stanford for fMRI scans and have completed tests on laptops mailed out to them all over the US and even abroad.

Claudia Hammond meets Walter Mischel and hears from his former colleagues at Stanford, Al Bandura and Gordon Bower. Also from Mischel's current collaborator, BJ Casey at Cornell, and former student Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, and from one of the original subjects, now a Professor of Psychology herself, Carolyn Weisz.

Claudia Hammond with more experiments that changed our understanding of the human mind.

Series exploring the development of the science of psychology during the 20th century