Edna Heidbreder: Systematic and Cognitive Psychologist

Abstract

After completing her undergraduate degree at Knox College in 1911, Edna Heidbreder was a high school teacher of history for several years. She began her graduate work at the University of Wisconsin where she received a master's degree in philosophy in 1918. Undertaking doctoral work in psychology at Columbia she completed her Ph.D. in 1924 and was offered a position in the Psychology Department at the University of Minnesota. There she remained until 1934 when she accepted a position in the Department of Psychology at Wellesley College which she held until her retirement in 1955. Two lines of interest persisted throughout her career: her work in cognition and systematic psychology. Her book Seven Psychologies published in 1933 has received praise in reviews spanning four decades. Heidbreder views the women of her generation as working during a period when there was a lull in women's rights activism. She believes that most women during that period felt that the best way to improve their situation was to prove that they could be competent professionals as the women pioneers had claimed women could. She believes that today women remain at a disadvantage compared to men in psychology primarily because of the pervasive stereotypes in our society which make it difficult for men to take the intellectual interests and abilities of women seriously.