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500 BCE
Greeks
Greeks started to study the human behavior and decided that people's lives were dominated not so much by the gods as their own minds.The Greek philosophers did not rely on systematic study, but they did set the stage for the development of the scientists, including psychology, through their reliance on observation as a means of knowing their world. -
1500
Nicolaus Copernicus
He was the one who publicly said that the sun was in the center of the universe and not the earth. -
Galileo Galilei
He was the first one the confirm star position and movement, he based it off of Copernicus's work. -
Rene Descartes
He reasoned that the mind controlled the body's movements, sensations, and perceptions. His approach to human behavior was based on the assumption that the mind and body influence each other to create a person's experiences. -
Sir Francis Galton
English mathematician and scientist, wanted to understand how heredity, or biological traits passed from parents to children, influences abilities, character, and behavior. Galton suggested that “good” marriages should be encouraged to supply the world with talented or “fit” offspring and eliminate the birth of less desirable offspring. -
Phrenology
The practice of examining bumps on a person’s skull to determine that person’s intellect and character traits—became a practice in the United States in the mid-1800s.Although this pseudoscience appears ridiculous to us, modern scientists credit phrenology for encouraging study into the role of the brain in human behavior. -
William James
He taught the first class in psychology at Harvard University in 1875. It took him 12 years to write the first textbook of psychology, The Principles of Psychology, published in 1890. -
Max Wertheimer,Wolfgang Köhler, & Kurt Koffka
They all disagreed with the principles of structuralism and behaviorism. hey argued that perception is more than the sum of its parts it involves a “whole pattern” or, in German, a Gestalt. For example, when people look at a chair, they recognize the chair as a whole rather than noticing its legs, its seat, and its other components. -
Ivan Pavlov
In a now famous experiment, Pavlov rang a tuning fork each time he gave a dog some meat powder. After Pavlov repeated the procedure several times, the dog would salivate when it heard the ring of the tuning fork, even if no food appeared. It had been conditioned, or trained, to associate the sound with the food. -
John B. Watson
Watson further maintained that all behavior, even apparently instinctive behavior, is the result of conditioning, or situational training, and occurs because the appropriate stimulus is present in the environment. -
Sigmund Freud
A physician who practiced in Vienna until 1938, was more interested in the unconscious mind. He believed that our conscious experiences are only the tip of the iceberg, that beneath the surface are primitive biological urges that are in conflict with the requirements of society and morality. -
B.F. Skinner
Popularized the concept of changing behaviors through repeated rewards or punishments. In his classic novel Walden Two, published in 1948, he portrayed his idea of Utopia—a small town in which conditioning, through rewarding those who display behavior that is considered desirable, rules every conceivable facet of life. -
Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Rollo May
Humanistic psychology differs from behaviorism and psychoanalysis in that it does not view humans as being controlled by events in the environment or by unconscious forces. Instead, the environment and other outside forces serve as a background to internal growth. The humanistic approach emphasizes that each person has a unique individual identity and the potential to develop fully. This potential for personal growth and development can lead to a more satisfying life.