Abstract
This paper focuses on Czechoslovak and Czech developmental psychology of the second half of the 20th century and its equivocal relationship to power. Although medical sciences such as developmental psychology are grounded on hard sciences such as, in this case, physiology, endocrinology or sexology, as well as on exact methods of observation, experimentation and statistic quantification, they can be, nevertheless, questioned for insufficient objectivity - at least in comparison to natural sciences - and criticised for unconscious adoption of period prejudices, whereas another time they can be seen as a mere instrument of propagation of prevailing opinions and beliefs, as recent researches suggest.
Based on this knowledge, this paper tries to answer the question "How does the developmental psychology rank here?" This paper demonstrates how Czech(oslovak) developmental psychology was adopting values, attitudes and concepts of the era and how it was justifying them using hard science methods. Through examining major texts of the key figures of Czech(oslovak) developmental psychology and with respect to neighbouring disciplines (such as gerontology or adolescent sexology), this paper exposes how diverse scientific notions can be used to prove culturally conditioned imaginations or even to disgrace ways of acting and thinking.
Through the times, Czech(oslovak) developmental psychology was gradually adopting the latest scientific methods, e.g. principles of behaviourism, Darwinism, endocrinology, ontogenesis as well as of anthropological surveys, and it was integrating them into highly biased quasi-scientific conceptions. All this was done with the purpose of asserting rather stable ethically contingent persuasions.
This paper traces how these methods were changing throughout the decades, so as to maintain hard sciences semblance despite the fact that unchanging major conclusions of the science resemble a product of a time rather than a coherent scientific thesis.