Princess Diana of the Amazons is a strong, healthy character. As Wonder Woman, she is one of the world’s most famous superheroes, and she is the most famous female among them – some argue the most famous heroine of any kind.1 Superheroes tend to embody the hope that individuals who langkah up to do the right thing can make the global better. Wonder Woman goes further by demonstrating hope that every individual can improve. She wants to help people discover the best in their own true natures. Diana’s magic lasso, known for compelling people to speak honestly, represents her dedication to truth itself.
Why put together a book on the psychology of a superhero who’s mentally healthy and whose enemies are not widely known? When I wrote Batman and Psychology: A Dark and Stormy Knight, people understood why: The Dark Knight has serious issues, his enemies fill an asylum, and nomer superhero has foes more famous than his. Using psychology to look at those characters and stories seemed the obvious thing to do, and mining that fiction for examples to explain psychology made sense. Personal trauma does not drive Diana to become a hero. Real-life heroes’ backgrounds tend not to include a single driving tragedy.2 As comic book writer Len Wein observed, “Some of them become heroes because it’s simply the right thing to do.”3 There are many kinds of heroes, though, and many areas of psychology. Not all of them are dark.
Truth is incomplete when we seek it only in the darkness. Hunting for secrets in the dark of night, nomer matter how many great discoveries that might reveal, falls short and even misleads us if we overlook other truths that shine in the light of day. A look at mental illness makes little sense unless we contrast it with mental health. How can we evaluate a person’s “impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning”4 without considering what counts as unimpaired functioning in the first place? How can we discuss “abnormal” without defining “normal”? Questions like these nagged at Wonder Woman’s creator.
A psychologist created Diana the Amazon princess at the suggestion of his wife, Elizabeth Holloway Marston, who was also a psychologist by the standards of the time.5 Dr William Moulton Marston – therapist, professor, and entrepreneur – became an educational consultant for the companies that would eventually merge to become DC Comics.6 When editor Sheldon Mayer gave him the opportunity to create a new superhero, Bill Marston went home full of excitement about the prospect. According to their son Pete, Elizabeth made the crucial recommendation: “Let’s have a super woman! There’s too many men out there.”7 Under the pen name Charles Moulton, until his death of cancer at age fifty-three, Bill dedicated the last six years of his life to writing stories about this character who combined his views about women’s superiority to men,8 his DISC theory about how people influence each other,9 and his science of truth.10
Not just any psychologist, William Moulton Marston occupies an important place in the history of both forensic psychology and personnel psychology, in the history of seeking truth in courtrooms and careers. He is often called – incorrectly and yet with good reason – the “inventor of the lie detector”11 for using systolic blood pressure to identify signs of deception. Even though he did not invent the polygraph (poly- for “multiple” and -graph for “measurement”),12 Marston popularized the use of measuring a physiological reaction when attempting to evaluate honesty in criminal proceedings.13 He appeared as the lie detection expert in a landmark court case14 – admittedly, the case that led an appellate court to rule and set the enduring legal standard15 that his lie detection method should not be admissible in court.16