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Gustav Theodore Fechner
Fechner is best known for showing that it was possible to measure and experiment on psychological processes. He provided psychology with the precise techniques required to conduct experimentation. His work had a direct impact on Windhelm Wundt and allowed him to found a field of psychology that reflected the experimental vigor of the natural sciences. -
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Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin is credited as having one of the greatest antecedent influences on psychology and the creation of the functionalist school of thought. His work surrounding evolution influenced psychology by bringing a focus to animal psychology, emphasizing the functions of consciousness, accepting methodology and data from many fields, and focusing on the description and measurement of individual differences. -
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Francis Galton
Francis Galton can also be credited with having an antecedent influence on the field of psychology and the creation of functionalism as a school of thought. Francis Galton's contributions to the field of psychology include suggesting that large sets of measurements for human characteristics could be meaningfully described by the arithmetic mean and the standard deviation, and developing a formula to calculate and graphically represent correlation. He also originated the concept of mental tests. -
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Willhelm Wundt
Willhelm Wundt is credited as being the founder of psychology as a formal academic discipline. He is also responsible for establishing the first psychology laboratory and journal, and launching experimental psychology as a science. His contribution to the founding of psychology stems primarily from his promotion of systematic experimentation. Through introspection, he sought to study consciousness. Much of the initial growth in psychology took opposition to this original view. -
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William James
WIlliam James represents an important figure in the development of functionalism as a school of thought. In his book titled the Principles of Psychology, he opposed Wundt's goal for psychology and proposed an alternative view - that the goal of psychology ought to be the study of living people as they adapt to their environment. This view, lamenting that psychology ought to study the functions of consciousness, served as a congruent perspective to that which was held by functionalists. -
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Granville Stanley Hall
Granville Stanley Hall is best known for receiving the first American doctoral degree in psychology, established America's first laboratory and journal of psychology, and organizing the APA as well as being its first president. His work helped to establish functionalism as a legitimate school of thought in the field of psychology. He had a great influence on his students, effectively increasing the popularity of psychology as a field of study in the United States. -
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Ivan Petrovitch Pavlov
Ivan Pavlov's work on learning helped to shift associationism from an emphasis on subjective ideas to objective and quantifiable psychological events. His work provided John B. Watson with a method for studying, controlling, and modifying behavior. Pavlov's greatest contributions to the field of psychology includes reinforcing the trend toward functionalism and practical applications of psychology and demonstrating that animals' higher mental processes could be explained in psychological terms. -
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Hermann Ebbinghaus
Hermann Ebbinghaus holds the distinction as being the first psychologist to experimentally investigate both learning and memory. His revolutionary research considerably broadened the scope of experimental psychology. His research brought objectivity, quantification, and experimentation to the study of learning and shifted the work on association from speculation of its attributes to formal scientific investigation. -
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Vladimir M. Bekhterev
Vladimir M. Bekhterev represents an important figure in the development of animal psychology, and thus behaviorism, as he helped promote the study of objectively observed and overt behavior in animals. His contribution towards making the study of animal behavior more objective allowed Watson to make the findings and techniques of animal psychologists the foundation of behaviorism. Without such a contribution, animal and human behavior would fail to be comparable and thus behaviorism wouldn't be. -
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James McKeen Cattell
James McKeen Cattell promoted a practical, test-oriented approach to the study of mental processes. His approach to psychology reflected that of the functionalists in that he was concerned with studying human abilities rather than the content of consciousness. He helped to reinforce the functionalist movement in the United States through his work on mental testing, the measurement of individual differences, and the promotion of applied psychology. -
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Edward Bradford Titchener
Edward Titchener is credited with bringing an altered version of Wundt's system of psychology to America and founding structuralism as a school of thought. In Titchener's view, the fundamental task of psychology was to analyze consciousness into its component parts in order to determine its structure. Structuralism provided psychologists with an idea to oppose and thus allowed for the further development of the field. Like Wundt, Titchener made use of introspection in order to gather his data. -
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Lightner Witmer
Lightner Witmer's contributions to the field of psychology include fathering the field of clinical psychology, offering the first course in clinical psychology, opening the world's first psychological clinic, and founding the journal titled "Psychological Clinic" which represented the first journal in the field of clinical psychology. He believed that psychology should be used to help people solve problems rather than to study the contents of their minds and paved the way for school psychology. -
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Walter Dill Scott
Walter Dill Scott's contributions to the field of psychology include being the first psychologist to apply psychology to personnel selection, management, and advertising. A pioneer of applied psychology, he reflected the American functionalist spirit and the goal of making psychology useful. Scott is also known for being the first to hold the title of professor of applied psychology and authored the first book in the field. -
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Edward Lee Thorndike
Edward Lee Thorndike is credited as being one of the most important researchers in the development of animal psychology for his contribution of objective learning theory. His reinforcement of the trend towards greater objectivity and the study of behavior serve as antecedent influences to the creation of behaviorism as a school of thought. Thorndike's concept of connectionism and the laws of learning provided great insight into behaviorism as a study of human behavior. -
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John B. Watson
John B. Watson can be credited with the founding of the behaviorist school of thought. Watson insisted that rather than studying consciousness, psychology ought to study behavior. Watson rejected introspection, believing that psychology should be a purely objective and experimental science. For Watson, the primary subject matter of psychology was the elements of behavior. To this end, he spent the majority of his career promoting behaviorism as a school of thought and eventually succeeded.