Sigmund Koch's Contributions to Psychology

Sigmund Koch's contributions to psychology are immense, and, like his approach to psychology, are often difficult to quantify. He was first and foremost a theorist and critic of the discipline of psychology and, through his often passionate critiques, both enlightened the field to its own shortcomings and established proposals that would foster a hope of creating what he considered a genuinely worthwhile practice in psychological studies. He was a major figure in bringing psychology out of the behaviorist practices in which it had become so enmeshed throughout the previous decades and aided in redirecting the discipline's inquiries into the areas of human mentality and functioning.

Koch's work re-legitimized (on a theoretical level) qualitative practices in psychological studies, and along with new kinds of data to collect, led psychology into an array of new methods, practices, and areas of possible study. His later work, focusing on aesthetics and the creative process as a method for understanding the mind's functions, made an attempt to bring psychology closer to the humanities and took up a search for a 'deeper human context' as psychology's main goal. Koch published an enormous amount of theoretical work in psychology and created a massive database for studying creativity via taped interviews with writers, choreographers, and others involved in the humanities.

Below is a list of Koch's major works. An attempt has been made to create a sampling of both the methods and levels of theorizing that made Koch's thought so diverse.

Works by Sigmund Koch

Koch, S. (1956). Behavior as "intrinsically" regulated: Work notes toward a pre-theory of phenomena called "motivational.: In M.R. Jones (ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 4. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 42-87.

Koch, S. (1959-1963). Psychology: A study of science (Vols. 1-6). New York: McGraw Hill.

Koch, S. (1965). The allures of ameaning in modern psychology. In R. Farson (ed.), Science
and human affairs. Palo Alto, CA: Science & Behavior Books. 55-82.

Koch, S. (1969). Value properties: Their significance for psychology, axiology, and science.
In M. Grene (ed.), The anatomy of knowledge. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 119-148.

Koch, S. (1976). Language communities, search cells, and the psychological studies. In W.J.
Arnold (ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Morivation: Conceptual Foundations of Psychology, 23. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 477-559.

Koch, S. (1977, August). Vagrant confessions of an asystematic psychologist: An intellectual
autobiography. Invited address presented at the 76th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, CA.

Koch, S. (1980). Psychology and it human clientle: Beneficiaries or victims? In R.A.
Kasschau & F.S. Kessel (eds.), Psychology and society: In search of symbiosis. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. 30-53.

Koch, S. (Interviewer). (1986). Research Conversations with Erick Hawkins [8 videotapes].
Boston University Aesthetics Research Project. (Archived by the Ford Foundation, New York).

Koch, S. (Interviewer). (1987a). Research Conversations with Arthur Miller [8 videotapes].
Boston University Aesthetics Research Project. (Archived by the Ford Foundation, New York).

Koch, S. (Interviewer). (1987b). Research Conversations with Toni Morrison [8 videotapes].
Boston University Aesthetics Research Project. (Archived by the Ford Foundation, New York).

Koch, S. (Interviewer). (1987c). Research Conversations with Richard Wilbur [8 videotapes].
Boston University Aesthetics Research Project. (Archived by the Ford Foundation, New York).

Koch, S. (Interviewer). (1987d). Research Conversations with Verdi [8 videotapes]. Boston
University Aesthetics Research Project. (Archived by the Ford Foundation, New York).

Koch, S. (1992). Postscript. In S. Koch & D. Leary (eds.), A century of psychology as a science.
Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association. 951-968.

Koch, S. (1999). Psychology in human context: Essays in dissidence and recontruction (D. Finkelman
& F. Kessel, eds.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.