| This dissertation investigates the growing power of psychological expertise as a cultural and political force in recent U.S. history. It analyzes how, why, and with what consequences psychological theory and research became factors in diverse areas of public policy and in the political culture of the postwar era.; The dissertation consists of four parts.; Part 1, "Introduction," presents the goals, themes, structure, and conceptual framework of the dissertation, along with a historiographical review in a number of relevant fields: the "new" history of psychology, the origin and rise of social experts, government and social control, and the history of the self.; Part 2, "War and Its Benefits," describes the formative experiences of psychological experts during World War II. It argues that military imperatives provided psychological experts with a hospitable working environment, a policy-making clientele, and a long list of reasons to bring their insights to bear on public issues at war's end.; Part 3, "Psychology as Public Policy," documents the influence of psychological theory and behavioral research on Cold War military and foreign policy and on urban policy related to civil rights, race relations, and riot control and prevention. (Part 3 includes case studies of Project CAMELOT and the research program of the Kerner Commission.); Part 4, "Psychology as Public Culture," traces the career of clinical experts. It addresses the normalization of psychotherapy, the popularization of the ideology of community mental health, and the salience of the psychotherapeutic sensibility in the second wave of feminism, where the influence of clinical theory and practice was felt on the level of political philosophy as well as in the style and strategy of mass organization and protest.; Chapter 12, "To Restructure the Culture of the World," concludes the dissertation with a summary of its argument that psychological experts transformed public life in the postwar United States. |
