Yūjirō Motora

Early life

Motora was born into a samurai caste in Sanda, Hyōgo. Even as a child, Motora was interested in the West, and he 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. Because of an affiliation with Tokyo Eiwa School, Motora decided to go to the United States to study at Boston University.

Unsatisfied with his education in Boston, Motora went to Johns Hopkins University to study under eminent experimental psychologist G. Stanley Hall. When he applied to Johns Hopkins, Motora indicated a particular interest in physiological psychology. However, his graduate studies ended up being largely grounded in coursework in philosophy. His thesis, Exchange: Considered as the Principles of Social Life, reflected this philosophical focus.

Beginning in the mid-1880s, Motora translated the 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).

Motora and Hall worked together on an 1888 study of the skin's sensitivity to changes in pressure. The resulting paper was the first psychological publication by a Japanese author. 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 1888.

Academic career

Coming back to Japan after his doctoral studies, Motora was named principal of the Tokyo Eiwa School. Shortly thereafter, he also took a part-time faculty position at the Imperial University of Tokyo. In 1889, Motora presented a lecture on evolutionary theory at the Tokyo Eiwa School. The school had been founded by Methodist missionaries, and Motora's lecture ran afoul of the religious tradition there. Motora resigned from the school, devoting his attention to lecturing full-time at the Imperial University. By 1890, Motora authored Psychology, the first Japanese scientific textbook in his field. The same year, Motora was promoted to the rank of professor at the Imperial University, though there was not a full psychology department at the time. He was named the chair of psychology, ethics and logic three years later.

In 1895, Motora kept a journal of a week-long stint practicing Zen meditation at Engaku-ji, a Buddhist temple in Tokyo. Zen meditation involves the use of a kōan, a prompt that can be used to assess a student's progress. Motora's kōan was "What is the sound of clapping with only one hand?" Motora required 16 attempts and a hint from the Zen master before he was able to provide an answer that satisfied the Zen master. He later wrote that Zen should be understood through personal interpretation rather than through a Zen master, and this became an influential thought in early Japanese psychology.

In 1903, the first formal laboratory in experimental psychology was set up at the university. Sources variously credit Motora or his student, Matatarō Matsumoto, with setting up the lab. Traveling to Rome in 1905 for the International Congress of Psychology, Motora presented a paper on ego related to his experience with meditation. Motora remained a faculty member at the university until his death. He had interests in consciousness, attention and early childhood education. He was named a member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences.

Motora was one of few Japanese academics of his era to produce novel ideas about the education of the disabled. In students who had difficulties with academic achievement, Motora found that attention issues were much more common than mental retardation. Motora invented a device that would help children to sustain their concentration, and he conducted clinical psychology work with school-aged children. He authored the first descriptions in the Japanese literature of an entity consistent with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Protégés

Several of Motora's students became prominent psychologists or academics. In 1906, Matsumoto established the psychological laboratory at Kyoto University, which was the second formal psychology lab in Japan. He later succeeded Motora as psychology faculty at the Imperial University and became the founding president of the Japanese Psychological Association. Chen Daqi came from China to study under Motora, and he was later responsible for the first Chinese psychology laboratory as well as the nation's first psychology textbook.

Yoshihide Kubo studied with Motora at Imperial University before going to Clark University, where Hall had become president. When he joined the faculty at Hiroshima University, Kubo adapted the Binet-Simon intelligence test for use with the Japanese culture. Intelligence work was furthered by another former pupil, Tuhru Watanabe, who created Japan's first group intelligence test. Hiroshi Hayami, who also studied under Motora, brought word of behaviorism to Japan. Later, Hayami became president of Keijō Imperial University.

Tomokichi Fukurai, another of Motora's students, attained significant but short-lived recognition in the field. After completing his education, Fukurai became an associate professor at the Imperial University and he studied emotion. He rejected Wundt's three-dimensional theory and Motora's one-dimensional theory. Instead, he said that emotion was a complex combination of several factors. After five years, Fukurai resigned from the university over some controversial work he had done in parapsychology; he did not reappear in academia.

Death

Motora died in Tokyo on December 13, 1912. He was survived by his wife Yone and their five children.