Great Hera! Wonder Woman is celebrating her 75th birthday this year.
Fans know that she carries a golden lasso that compels anyone caught in it to tell the truth. But fewer realize that her creator, psychologist William Moulton Marston, also helped develop the first real-life lie detector. Marston, who earned his PhD from Harvard in 1921, and his wife, Elizabeth Holloway Marston (who earned a master's degree in psychology at Radcliffe), conducted the first research that linked systolic blood pressure to emotion—a key part of the modern polygraph.
In 1941, the company that became DC Comics hired Marston as an educational consultant. He suggested they create a female superhero with, as he later wrote, "all the strength of a Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman."
The sentiments were no surprise—the Marstons were involved in the suffragist and early feminist movements of their time. And in fact, some historians credit the inspiration for Wonder Woman not only to William Marston, but also to his wife and to Olive Byrne, a former student of his with whom the two shared a lifelong polyamorous relationship.
So today, as Wonder Woman is feted with a new movie due out next summer, commemorative stamps and more, we can keep in mind not only her roots on "Paradise Island" but also in the history of psychology.