2007/03/01 by Michael Pettit · 1 citation
Psychology · Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology #History of Science and Medicine #Psychology of Social Influence
paper · doi:10.1002/jhbs.20221
openalex publication_date 2007/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
This article reconstructs the recurring themes in the career of Joseph Jastrow, both inside and outside the laboratory. His psychology of deception provides the bridge between his experimental and popular pursuits. Furthermore, Jastrow's career illustrates the complex ways in which scientific psychology and pragmatist philosophy operated within the constraints of a moral economy deeply marked by notions of "race." Psychological investigations of deception were grafted onto two of the human sciences' leading tools: the evolutionary narrative and the statistical analysis of populations. Such associations abetted the racialization of the acts of deceiving and being deceived. These connections also were used to craft moral lessons about how individuals ought to behave in relationship to the aggregate population and natural selection's endowment.