Article
ID: CBB000951596

The Creative American: Cold War Salons, Social Science, and the Cure for Modern Society (2009)

unapi
Social sciences Science and culture Psychology 20th century, late United States

This essay examines how post--World War II Americans linked their understanding of domestic society and international affairs by using a common lens of psychological and characterological analysis for both. That lens was fashioned by social scientists and developed to study conformity and its opposite, creative and autonomous selfhood. Creativity offered a means to achieve the liberal national society they desired. Social scientists managed their technical definitions of conformity and autonomy as a way of defining reasonable political sentiment. This essay details how, ultimately, the forms of self and sociality they advocated for America were grounded in the kinds of community and interpersonal interaction they valued in their own professional lives.

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Authors & Contributors
Jalava, Jarkko
Maraun, Michael
Åsa Andersson
Susanne Schmidt
Baerveldt, Cor
Richard, Vickie
Journals
Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences
History of the Human Sciences
History of Psychology
Metascience: An International Review Journal for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science
Journal of Southern History
Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Publishers
University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
University of Illinois Press
Palgrave Macmillan
Johns Hopkins University Press
ENS Editions
Chinese University Press
Concepts
Social sciences
Psychology
Science and culture
Sociology
Discipline formation
Anthropology
People
Sheehy, Gail
Rivers, William Halse Rivers
Plato
Mead, Margaret
Kendler, Howard H.
Hall, Granville Stanley
Time Periods
20th century, late
20th century, early
21st century
Ancient
20th century
19th century
Places
United States
Great Britain
Alberta, Canada
Southern states (U.S.)
Eastern Europe
North America
Institutions
University of Alberta (Canada)
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
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