Yūjirō Motora (December 5,ūjirō 1858 – December 13, 1912), sometimes also known as Yuzero Motora, was one of the earliest Japanese psychologists. He was known for conducting research on the attention spans of school-aged children, and he set up the first psychological laboratory in Japan.
Born in Sanda, Hyōgo, Motora studied at Boston University and completed a Ph.D. in philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, but his studies also included significant work on physiological psychology with G. Stanley Hall. After graduate school, he returned to Japan, where he served on the faculty of the Tokyo Imperial University, later known as the University of Tokyo. There he taught a number of students who became influential psychologists and academics.
A practitioner of Zen meditation, he wrote that understanding meditation should be based on a participant's own interpretation rather than the ideas of a Zen master. He also translated the works of eminent Western psychologists into Japanese and conducted early work in clinical psychology. Motora was still an active researcher and professor when he contracted a fatal case of erysipelas in his mid-fifties.
Early life
Motora was born into a samurai caste in Sanda, Hyōgo to Yutaka Sugita and Suga (Motoyama) Sugita, and he had an older brother. As a child, Motora was interested in the West and studied English in school. He was attracted to psychology after reading a textbook written by physiologist William Benjamin Carpenter. In 1879, Motora became a teacher at the Tokyo Eiwa School. Two years later, he married Yone Motora, and her family adopted him. He took up her religion, converting from the Congregational Church to Methodism. When he joined his wife's family, his social status changed from samurai class to commoner.
In 1883, Motora came to the United States to study philosophy and theology. He studied at Boston University, a choice influenced by the Tokyo Eiwa School's being established as a mission school of Boston University. In late 1885, Motora spoke at two churches in Decatur, Illinois, telling the congregations that he hoped his education in Boston would prepare him to return to Japan and convert people to Christianity. The Decatur newspaper, which referred to Motora as "the Jap. preacher", said that the churches collected money to defray Motora's educational expenses.
Work with G. Stanley Hall
Dissatisfied with his education in Boston, Motora went to Johns Hopkins University to study under experimental psychologist G. Stanley Hall. Around that time, Hall's laboratory was home to several students who went on to become prominent academics, including Edmund Sanford, Clifton F. Hodge, and James H. Hyslop. When Motora applied to Johns Hopkins, he indicated a particular interest in physiological psychology. However, his interests shifted once he got to the school. While he still studied under Hall, he majored in philosophy. His thesis was titled Exchange: Considered as the Principles of Social Life.
Beginning in the mid-1880s, Motora translated new theories of Western psychology – such as the James–Lange theory and Wilhelm Wundt's three-dimensional theory of feelings – for publication in Japan. Though he had translated Wundt's work, Motora came to believe that emotion was a product of only one dimension: pleasure versus displeasure.
Despite his emphasis on philosophy, Motora maintained some interest in physiological psychology. When Japanese psychologist Sho Watase visited Motora in the U.S., he and two of Motora's colleagues were given helmets with electrical wires on them. The men wore the helmets to bed for several nights in an attempt to share the electrical output of their brains with one another. Motora thought that this might cause the men to experience the same dreams. "It was our opinion that the fault might not be with the doctor's theory, but rather with ourselves, for the helmets often came off while we were asleep as we were restless," Watase said, adding that Motora never brought up such an experiment to him again.
Motora and Hall collaborated on an 1888 study of the skin's sensitivity to changes in pressure; their paper was published in the first issue of the American Journal of Psychology. Hall later remembered Motora as a modest and reserved student who seemed to have few interests outside of his studies in philosophy and psychology. Motora earned a Ph.D. in philosophy in 1888.