Beyond Individual and Group Differences

James T. Lamiell (Ph.D., Kansas State University, 1976) is Professor of Psychology at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, where he has taught since 1982. Prior to that, he was on the faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. A three-time Fulbright Senior Scholar to Germany, Lamiell spent his spring semester 2004 sabbatical at the University of Hamburg where, during their summer semester (April to July), he was Ernst Cassirer Visiting Professor. During that time, he taught a seminar in the Psychology Department and also delivered a series of public lectures on "William Stern: His Life and Works" under the auspices of the Philosophy Department. He has held guest professorships at the University of Heidelberg (1990) and the University of Leipzig (1998). He is author of The Psychology of Personality: An Epistemological Inquiry (1987) and translator of Clara and William Stern′s 1909 monograph Erinnerung, Aussage und Luge in der ersten Kindheit, published in English as Recollection, Testimony, and Lying in Early Childhood (1999). His numerous scholarly publications have primarily to do with theoretical and philosophical issues in the psychology of personality, and he has lectured on these topics at many universities in both the U.S. and Europe. Lamiell has served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Personality and the Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology. He was elected Fellow of APA Division 1 (General Psychology) in 1987 and Division 24 (Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology) in 1988. He was the honored recipient of the Psi Chi Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at the University of Illinois in 1979 and of the Edward B. Bunn Award for Faculty Excellence at Georgetown University in 2001. In his spare time, Lamiell enjoys picking bluegrass banjo and long-distance bicycle touring.

"James Lamiell is a creative, sophisticated, and careful thinker, one whose ideas are deserving of broad attention….The book should be of interest to scholars and practitioners, along with advanced graduate students."

• 1. Introduction: A Lost StarPart I: Historical Beginnings2. The Problem of Individuality & the Birth of a "Differential" Psychology3. The Narrowing of Perspective in the Proliferation of Standardized Testing & Correlational Research4. The Entrenchment of a "Common Trait" Perspective on Human IndividualityPart II: Statistical Thinking in the Post-Wundtian Restructuring of Scientific Psychology5. The Emergence of a "Neo-Galtonian" Framework for Psychological Research: An Historical Sketch6. Contemporary "Nomotheticism" within the Framework of Neo-Galtonian Inquiry: A Methodological Primer7. Contemporary "Nomotheticism" in Critical PerspectivePart III: Rethinking the Problem8. An Introduction to Critical Personalism9. Some Models of Personalistic Inquiry in Contemporary Psychology10. Our Differences Aside: Persons, Things, Individuality, & CommunityReferencesName IndexSubject Index