{"id":169825,"date":"2018-07-08T07:41:39","date_gmt":"2018-07-08T11:41:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=169825"},"modified":"2018-07-08T07:41:39","modified_gmt":"2018-07-08T11:41:39","slug":"psychology-museum-explores-what-makes-us-human","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/07\/08\/psychology-museum-explores-what-makes-us-human\/","title":{"rendered":"Psychology museum explores what makes us human"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"He<\/a>
He acknowledged the challenges in making psychology palatable to a mass audience. (Photo: National Museum of Psychology<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

AKRON, Ohio — Wonder Woman’s striking visage on large, bright screens just inside the new National Museum of Psychology tells visitors there’s more here than dusty books and esoteric curiosities.<\/p>\n

The world’s most famous female superhero gets a place of distinction because she was created by a psychologist, William Moulton Marston, as a symbol of what he saw as the emerging power of women in the 1940s.<\/p>\n

Once past Wonder Woman, the 8,500-square-foot museum on the edge of the University of Akron’s downtown campus takes a deep dive into the study of why people do what they do. The technical stuff — treatment of mental illness, the rise of talk therapy, etc. — is keenly balanced with the kind of interactive exhibits that are a requirement for any modern family museum.<\/p>\n

Dennis Barrie, who developed it with his wife, Kathleen, already knew what it took to get people in the front door of a museum. He was co-creator of Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and a former executive director there. In recent years he worked on the International Spy Museum in Washington and the Mob Museum in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

He acknowledged the challenges in making psychology palatable to a mass audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first met the team there and looked at their archives, which are extensive and for most of us probably too sophisticated in terms of knowledge and background, I did have those concerns,\u201d Barrie said.<\/p>\n

But the subject matter also gave him plenty of options.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were things in everything we did that were indicators of a bigger story but allowed you to have fun and participate in the process,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Visitors can put together a puzzle that was used as an intelligence test — known in the early 20th century as a \u201cmoron test\u201d — to assess the intellect of immigrants arriving in the U.S.<\/p>\n

They can measure their reaction time against that of legendary slugger Babe Ruth. They can test their ability to multitask.<\/p>\n

Displays tell the stories of how psychology has been used in everything from workplace efficiency to determining the level of caffeine in Coca-Cola and marketing handguns to women.<\/p>\n

\u201cPsychology is literally everywhere in our world, and applied everywhere,\u201d Barrie said. \u201cIt’s not just lying on a couch a la Freud, talking about your childhood memories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking of Sigmund Freud, there is a replica of the Vienna office where he pioneered psychoanalysis, along with some of his letters and rare home movies.<\/p>\n

Oddities include a medieval-looking skullcap from the 19th century that measured the bumps on a person’s head to determine intellectual traits. (Like many early psychological theories, that process, called phrenology, was later proved to be worthless.)<\/p>\n

One of the most macabre items is a wooden cage known as a Utica Crib that was used in 19th-century asylums to keep patients from leaving their beds. Displayed nearby are gleaming medical picks that belonged to Dr. Walter J. Freeman, a physician who specialized in lobotomies and botched the procedure on Rosemary Kennedy, the sister of President John F. Kennedy.<\/p>\n

Barrie’s favourite exhibit includes memorabilia from the 1971 \u201cStanford prison experiment.\u201d The famous social psychology exercise involved breaking groups of students into guards and inmates in a mock prison scenario and claimed to show that each group adapted to its role in dramatic ways.<\/p>\n

The museum’s overarching theme is examining what makes us human.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope,\u201d co-ordinator Dorothy Gruich said, \u201cthat people will come in and learn a little bit about themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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