Rebels within the Ranks: Psychologists' Critique of Scientific Authority and Democratic Realities in New Deal America

This book examines the work of social and personality psychologists who, in the 1930s, criticized the increasingly restrictive vision of scientific life being promoted by neobehaviorist social scientists. This critique has been overlooked by historians who have concentrated on the rise of neobehaviorism, rather than the challenges advanced by such "rebels within the ranks" as Gordon Allport, Gardner Murphy, and Lois Barclay Murphy. All three contributed to ongoing public and professional debates about democracy and the authority of scientific knowledge in New Deal America.