xx bureau of american ethnology 



Work in Psychology 



For some ^'ears past the Director has given special attention 

 to the mental characteristics of the aborigines and during 

 recent months he has formulated a working system of psychol- 

 ogy adapted to the needs of ethnologic students. In part tlie 

 results are embodied in a series of synthetic outlines of ethno- 

 logic science designed for incorporation in successive reports 

 and jjrinted in a somewhat abbreviated preliminary form in 

 the American Anthropologist for the purpose of eliciting sug- 

 gestions from contemporary ethnologists in this and other 

 countries. An abstract of the principles underl3dng this 

 series, designed for incorporation in the present report, was 

 printed in December, 1901, under the title Classification of the 

 Sciences. 



In addition to his duties as Ethnologist in Charge, Mr W J 

 McGee continued the application of the principles of psychol- 

 ogy to the current researches. Two methods of psychologic 

 inquiry have been successfully pursued in the past. While 

 these are in some degree antithetic, they also measurably rep- 

 resent stages in the development of knowledge. The first 

 method may be defined as that of introspection, the second as 

 tliat of experiment. During the last decade the latter 

 attained great vogue, and departments of experimental psy- 

 chology have been built up in several universities and colleges. 

 The two methods, more especially the latter, afford a founda- 

 tion for a third method, which alone is available for the study 

 of hirge groups, such as races, nations, or entire peoples. 

 It may be defined as the method of direct observation of 

 normal interactions. In pursuing this method it is as- 

 sumed, on the basis of experimental psychology, that phys- 

 ical acts are correlated with mental actions — in other words, 

 that luiman thought and human action are interdependent. 

 The recognition of this simple principle removes the need for 

 a large part of the detail work involved in experimental psy- 

 chology, for it permits the interpretation of mental char- 

 acteristics of individuals and groups from their habitual, or 

 normal, actions rather than from a repetition of special ac- 



