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387 BCE
Plato and Aristotle
Plato was the first person to take into consideration that social environment effects mental health. His greatest work 'The Republic' designed a society to discover the meaning of justice.
Aristotle was Platos prize student, he believed that the body was lead by the heart and not the brain. He went on to open his own school in 335 and was the first person to argue that philosophy should include observations of nature. -
Rene Descartes
French philosopher and the "father of modern philosophy" he believed that the mind and body are independent of each other and wrote on the "discourse of method" He believed that you should never accept anything but clear and present ideas. -
John Locke
Known as the 'father of liberalism' John Locke was one of the first British empiricists. He believed that we were born as a blank slate and our knowledge was determined by our experiences. He had a behaviourist approach to psychology. -
Charles Darwin
Darwin made connections between animals and humans through the field of comparative psychology. He made connections between the two as far as memory, learning, emotions and social interactions were concerned. -
William James
Opened one of the first psychology laboratories which helped develop the field of functionalism. He was the first American to teach this subject. -
Wilhelm Wundt
Wilhelm Wundt set up the first experimental laboratory for psychology in Germany in 1876. He separated psychology from philosophy by analysing the way the mind works. -
Sigmond Freud
Freud emphasised the influence of the the unconscious mind on behaviour, alongside the development of psychoanalysis. He proposed that our personalities are strongly influenced by our childhood. -
John Watson
American psychologist who proposed that everything from speech to emotional responses were simply patterns of stimulus and response. He published 'Psychology as the behaviourist views it' in 1913. -
Sir Frederic Bartlett
British psychologist who became the first professor of experimental psychology. He was one of the creators of cognitive psychology. His most famous experiment was in 1932 from his book "remembering" and demonstrated the constructive nature of memory. -
Jean Piaget
Swiss psychologist known for his groundbreaking work in child cognitive development. He was the Director of the International Bureau of Education. -
Ivan Pavlov
Created Pavlovian conditioning which was later developed into Classical conditioning. This involves learning to associate a sound with a physical response. For example if a bell rings when a dog is fed eventually the dog will salivate on hearing the bell as he associates it with his food. -
Donald Broadbent
Influential experimental psychologist from the UK who was a pioneer in the study of attention.
