Edna Frances Heidbreder (May 1, 1890 - February 19, 1985) was an American philosopher and psychologist who explored the study of history, and made contributions toward the field of study in psychometrics, systematic psychology, and concept formation. She expressed interest in cognition and systematic psychology, and the experimentation on personality traits and its characteristics. She also did work testing the normal inferiority complex and studied systemic problems in her later work.
Heidbreder earned a doctorate in psychology, and was the first Knox graduate to do so. She was a high school teacher, an instructor at the University of Minnesota, and later on became a professor at Wellesley College. Some of Heidbreder's long-lasting contributions include her involvement in the Minnesota Mechanical Abilities Test, her dissertation, An Experimental Study of Thinking, and her publication, Seven Psychologies which taught the history and seven systems of psychology.
Heidbreder was an active member of the American Psychological Association (APA), the APA Division of General Psychology, and the National Research Council representing APA. She was an advocate of women’s education and of the destigmatization of stereotypes towards women in psychology.
Early life
Heidbreder was born on May 1, 1890, in Quincy, Illinois. Her parents were raised in Quincy and were German immigrants. Her father, William Henry Heidbreder, and her mother, Mathilda Emelie Meyer, had five children, Bertha, Lousie, Edna, Helen, and Ralph. In 1907, Edna graduated from Quincy High and pursued college in Galesburg, Illinois.
Education
In 1907, Heidbreder attended Knox College, in Galesburg IL, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1911. She noted that all professors, and virtually all staff, at the college were men. In her third year of study, Heidbreder took mandatory courses in psychology and philosophy. She recounted that reading Berkeley, Hume, and Kant led her to be increasingly skeptical of the validity of human knowledge, which kickstarted her interest in psychology. After graduating, she was pulled toward the fields of biology, history, philosophy, and psychology.
Rather than continuing to do graduate work after graduation, Heidbreder became a high school history teacher. She credits this decision to her conservative upbringing where women got married, lived at home, and had very stereotypical occupations such as nurse or secretary. In her free time she was involved in community literacy clubs and indulged in philosophical and psychological writings. During WWI, Heidbreder undertook work related to the war effort.
Several years later, without an obvious incentive, Heibreder began graduate work at the University of Wisconsin. She graduated in 1918 with a Masters in Philosophy, which at the time was blended with psychology. Her favourite course was experimental psychology, and inspired her decision to pursue a PhD in Psychology.
Heidbreder attended Columbia University in New York in 1921 and earned her PhD by 1924. Her dissertation was entitled An Experimental Study of Thinking. At Columbia, she attended lectures by psychologists John B. Watson, William McDougall, and Bertrand Russell. Additionally, she took courses with R.S. Woodworth, H.L. Hollingworth, and John Dewey. Heidbreder recounts that the psychology department at Columbia was “perfectly hospitable but not encouraging to women”. She took this seriously and advocated for women to prosper in education.
Career
After completing her PhD, Heidbreder taught at the University of Minnesota from 1924 to 1934. During her time there, she researched thinking, problem solving, attainment of concepts, introversion versus extroversion, and inferiority attitudes. The chair of the psychology department urged Heidbreder to write a book on history and psychological systems. She agreed and published Seven Psychologies in 1933 which outlined American trends of psychological thinking. At the university, Heidbreder was also asked to help assemble, edit, and put together a draft of reports for The Minnesota Mechanical Ability Tests which were being developed. Her contribution was indispensable, as indicated by R.M. Elliott who said her work was “greater than that of anyone else in the group”.
In 1934, Heidbreder was contacted by Wellesley College who offered her a teaching position. The college was looking for “the most distinguished woman psychologist in the country”. She published several papers in systematic psychology in her time at Wellesley, and remained there until her retirement in 1955. Despite retiring, she taught at Radcliffe College, the women-equivalent of Harvard, for six years.
