LADD, GEORGE TRUMBULL

born Jan. 19, 1842, Painesville, Ohio, U.S. died Aug. 8, 1921, New Haven, Conn. philosopher and psychologist whose textbooks were influential in establishing experimental psychology in the United States. Though he called for a scientific psychology, he nonetheless viewed the role of psychology as ancillary to philosophy. Educated for the ministry, Ladd was pastor of a Congregational church in Milwaukee, Wis., for eight years before becoming professor of philosophy at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine (187981). During those years, he began investigating the relationship between the nervous system and mental phenomena and introduced the first study of experimental psychology in the United States. From 1881 to 1905 he was a professor at Yale University, establishing the first American laboratory in experimental psychology. His main interest, however, was in writing Elements of Physiological Psychology (1887), the first such handbook in English. Because of its emphasis on neurophysiology, it long remained a standard work. His large-scale Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory (1894) is important as a theoretical system of functional psychology, considering the human being as an organism with a mind purposefully solving problems and adapting the self to its environment.